Archon(21)

Kim regarded her for a moment, his gaze even more intense. His eyes were such a strange color, peering back at her like yellow suns behind a web of hair. “Is that all you have to say to me? Usually I’m the one lecturing students, not the other way around.”

It’s now or never.

Angela looked up at him again, still startled by the paleness of his skin, how it had sapped to an even more chalky shade now that the light was leaving them. Was he really a novice? Or maybe the better question was: Why had he bothered to take vows at all? Brendan’s choice was somewhat understandable. His entire life had been regimented by the Mathers family, so the transition into Vatican life was a preordained affair. But Kim looked and acted completely at odds with the priesthood. Surely the Academy officials knew about his relationship with Stephanie. Did they fear him for some reason? Or like Angela suspected, was he a spy, dating Stephanie to determine how risky she was to Earth’s well-being?

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she finally said. “But I was hoping you could help me out.”

Kim had been glancing at the windows again. Now he stood, his long coat brushing the floor tiles. “Would you mind if we discussed this on the way to my next teaching session?”

There was a new tremor in his voice. Maybe he was nervous too. The two of them alone—it was like engaging in a secret tryst, something forbidden. Stephanie’s territory was being painfully invaded. But this was the price Angela would have to pay to understand who and what she was dealing with. Finding Brendan would be a bonus.

“That’s fine,” Angela said, also peering at the windows, “as long as nobody sees us.”

“We’ll take one of the back alleyways,” Kim said, and then his mouth settled into a hard line. As if they were about to walk into a war zone of some kind. “Follow me.”

She trailed behind him, and they both left the church only to emerge in the middle of a depressing drizzle. Water slimed the cobblestones along the street, dripping from the gray moss that crusted parts of the brick-hewn towers to their right. The church courtyard was ringed by taller but much less impressive buildings, and sometimes, through their golden portholes, Angela saw students milling back and forth in narrow hallways or caught the flutter of thick draperies, their velvet half exposed to the wind. The thunder had swerved away somewhere to the west, booming like faraway drums. They passed very few people, most of them other novices, one of those a woman with rain-soaked hair. She questioned Kim with her eyes until he stopped to bow and wave her away.

Then they slipped into the alleyway. Open sewage must have been flowing through a groove in the roadway. At least, that’s what it smelled like. The second Angela and Kim sidled away from it, he grabbed her hand and pulled her beneath a soggy canopy. They continued walking beneath it together, heading east.

A large crow screeched overhead, quickly dropping onto the street ahead of them.

Kim’s mouth set even harder, but he soon found his humor again. “I wouldn’t suggest taking this path on a dark night.”

Or with a stranger like you?

Not that Angela had the inhibitions of normal people anymore. If anything, she was begging to be murdered. But Kim was probably too much of a gentleman to either allow that or even do it himself. No sense asking. “Even before I found out that you and Stephanie were an item”—it was difficult to hide the eager curiosity in her tone—“I thought I’d ask you about my brother. Brendan. Do you know where he lives here, at the Academy?”

The crow screeched, strutting nearer.

Kim fiddled with something in his pocket, never taking his eyes off the bird. “Of all the things for you to say . . . Why don’t you go to the registrar and make your inquiries? Why would I care about where he lives?”

Maybe because you’re making him look like a fool, sleeping with his girlfriend.

Didn’t these priests in training have any kind of loyalty to one another?

“Because you’re a novice too. Don’t you guys all hang out together? Bond, drink, and share stories?” Maybe even more than that. Luz was full of rumors and most of them revolved around the Vatican, the overall creepiness of the city, or even worse, the backward morality you could find in the most unlikely places. So far, Angela had avoided the parties for incoming students, trying to keep what was left of her innocence intact. “I was hoping to at least give him a message. The registrar turned me away. Since I left the institution—”

Kim glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story.” She turned away from him to watch the crow. In the short second he’d looked away, it had flown nearer to them, landing on a rickety gutter. “But anyway, I can’t just find out where he lives. My parents made sure to sign restraining papers to prevent that.”