Sophia.
I almost forgot all about her.
If she started running, Angela could make it in time for the homily. So without a second thought, she spun on her heel and dashed out of the church, clutching at the Grail like it was her heart.
The real one might never stop racing.
Twenty-three
What is this hope but a dead Bird’s dream?
Where is the truth of the Ruin foreseen?
—CARDINAL DEMIAN YATES, Translations of the Prophecy
“That rotten little rat,” Naamah muttered between her teeth. “I’ll slice her in half. I’ll make her blood rain all over this hell of a city.”
She ripped her wrist away from Stephanie, causing them both to flinch.
“Let me do this, or it will get even more infected,” Stephanie said, grabbing for it again, her eyes tearing up pathetically. This was the first time she’d ever seen her adoptive mother injured, and the sight made her sick inside, overwhelmingly angry. That horrific creature—it could only have been the Jinn—had done this. The lightning bolt that hit the Bell Tower had knocked Stephanie unconscious for a short time, but not before she’d seen a living shadow streak in Naamah’s direction. The unnamed menace had been lurking in the chapel all along, waiting and watching, just in time for Naamah to show herself and make a move.
“Why didn’t you kill her sooner?” Stephanie hissed, trembling. “Then they would both be dead.”
Naamah’s blood slicked her hands like oil. She slopped old bandages onto the floor and fully exposed the wound, terrible with its torn flesh and underlying bone. Naamah cursed under her breath, her alien words giving neither of them any comfort while she pushed Stephanie aside to lick the injury.
“It will heal in time,” the demon whispered. “Don’t worry about that annoying rat. I’ll make certain she and her vermin relatives pay for this soon—”
“How did she even get close enough?” Stephanie lifted the candle higher, illuminating the sharp beauty of Naamah’s face. Her mother’s copper skin took on a burnt shade of red in the darkness, fascinating, but only reminding her of more blood and more death. Lyrica stood behind her, pale and silent, so frightened by their closeness she seemed more a statue than a person. She glanced at Stephanie, wide-eyed and terrified, probably still seeing Maribel’s death over and over again, her grasp on sanity lessening the more her palms curled around the clean bandages in her hand. “I thought you can use ether to bring them down,” Stephanie said, wiping away more tears with a fist. When she yelled, it sounded more desperate than angry. “How did she hide in that room without us knowing?”
“Because she’s the High Assassin,” Naamah snapped.
A door slammed shut.
Lyrica had locked herself in the bathroom. In seconds, she began to throw up, her gasps like shuddering cries for help.
Stephanie’s room was almost pitch-black, but the candle gave off a meager light that sharpened every object. Anything was now a menace. The chandelier, the half-open wardrobe, the curtains that hung so still in the heavy air. The Jinn could be hiding behind blankets and bookshelves, dressers and unlocked doors.
Naamah shrugged off a suspicious noise near the window, sucking more blood from her wrist until it was dry enough to rewrap. Stephanie helped her, unable to think properly, her mind lost in a faraway void until Naamah spoke again.
“She’s a rat who climbed up the Jinn hierarchy by murdering and murdering well. The Jinn Queen’s sister, or so I’ve been told. Dangerous and highly skilled, an expert at ambush attacks. We met once before—in my younger days—and I suffered well enough for my lack of caution. She tore a bone from my wing. Not enough to kill, of course, but enough to protect herself from me in the future.” The demon shook a hand through her hair, tugging at her braids. “Scrawny bitch.”
“I warned you.” An overly gentle voice spoke.
She stepped into the light, hands folded calmly, her face completely expressionless. Sophia’s hair was still wet from the rain, twisted in frizzy ringlets below her shoulders. But the emptiness behind her eyes was back, worse than ever, and of all inhuman things, it was the horror Stephanie feared most of all.
“I warned you about overstepping your bounds,” she was saying. “And now look where it’s getting you. If you don’t stop before it’s too—”
“Shut your damn mouth.” Stephanie turned on her, screaming.
Sophia’s face blanked.
There was a long and awkward silence.
“What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Naamah blocked her from view, holding Stephanie by the shoulders. The demon’s hands wrapped into her skin like steel clamps. “Why are you shivering?”