The cathedral’s ceiling was so high as to be out of sight. Rows of pews and candlesticks lined the sides of the cathedral, leaving a vast aisle in the center. The bell’s tolling became so loud and frequent that we stopped trying to talk to each other. We just walked until we came to the light over the altar and saw Croix standing there, waiting for us.
I hadn’t seen the cardinal’s transformation after he’d crossed the Line last Winterfaire, although I’d listened closely to the description the other three had given me. Now I stared, all my training urging me to move closer and inspect him.
The cardinal was still tall and thin, and his salt-and-pepper hair and beard had grown out wildly in the intervening months. But now a halo of red capillaries swept out from his flesh like flowing vestments and soared over him like a great circular halo. The living capillaries ran into the gray stone walls of the cathedral, moving smoothly as he moved, sliding through stone like a cord through water. A heavier, twisting bundle of veins led from the cardinal’s heart to the golden symbol of Kyrchye behind him. He didn’t seem to be in any pain, however. In fact, his face lit up as we approached. Around him, the noise of the bell seemed to be diminished, though its deep vibrations still shivered through us as if ringing our flesh and bone.
“It’s good to see you,” Croix said joyously. The children stopped, staring at him with wide, alarmed eyes. Droit and I continued forward. When we reached him, I awkwardly knelt, the bale-splint clicking and slipping as it adjusted around my knee.
“Your eminence,” I said, looking up at him. “Far sent us to bring you back to Cislunar.”
“I’m pleased you’re here, Axton. I know you’ve been sending these young men and women to look for me, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival.” He stepped forward and put a hand under my arm, lifting me back to my feet. I felt sheltered within the blood-red tissue of his living vestments, but I noticed that he didn’t offer me his ring to kiss. My arrival might have been eagerly awaited, but I was still excommunicate.
“You’ve been sending out search parties?” Droit asked me. “Does Michael know?”
I gave him a sidelong look and didn’t think I needed to answer. Croix turned to him. Droit lifted his chin, under the cardinal’s gaze, folding his arms over his chest. His coat and uniform were tattered and covered in transient blood, but his air of defiance was firm.
“General Droit,” Croix said. “I see you’ve recovered from your head injury.”
“Yes, although you wouldn’t approve of my chiurgeon. Yzyrchye returned Might, by the way.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Then you’re still the Hound?”
“Like hell, I am.”
“He isn’t,” I affirmed.
Croix gave Droit a long look, then turned to regard the children behind us.
“These are the young sentinels we came to rescue the last time we were here,” I said, gesturing to them to draw nearer. One by one I introduced them. “Kate Mockery, Holly Francis, Caro Liseaux, Jack Alloway, and Finn Kenzie.” They bowed or curtsied awkwardly. “They destroyed the transient that was isolating the cathedral, your eminence.”
“Thank you.” He gave them a grave nod and they darted uneasy looks at each other. Clearly Cardinal Croix and his robe of pulsing capillaries wasn’t what they’d expected. “I will pray for its soul.”
“Then you know it used to be human?” I asked.
“I’ve learned much about transients and bale in the time I’ve been here.” He looked at me. “How long has it been?”
“About two months, on our side of the Line.”
“It has felt longer, here. How is the Reverence?”
“Disorganized. The tensions between Reverence and Vigilance have been growing. Many faithful blame Captain Lorencz and General Droit for leaving you here; they’re turning you into a martyr. It’s creating factions.”
“I’m afraid my return will disorganize the Reverence even further.”
“Especially if you go back looking like that,” Droit agreed with a smirk.
“This shape is no more substantial and no less real than the transformations your young companions can effect.”
“You know about that?” Kate asked, surprised.
“Oh, yes.” He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “Yzyrchye’s lost sheep, the children who wrested the secrets of bale from it when it attempted to close you into its fold.”
“Excuse me, sir —“ Jack looked at me nervously. I nodded. “We were wondering — are we still under Yzyrchye’s control?”
“No. Yzyrchye cannot control you unless you agree to be controlled.”
“Are you sure?” Caro asked, touching the scars beneath her hair. “Doctor Axton said she was in our heads. We were wondering if she, well, left anything there. You know. Anything evil.”
“I’m not a doctor,” I reminded them, but nobody was paying attention. Droit was absently rubbing his temple, too. He caught me looking and dropped his hand.
Croix beckoned to the girl.
“Would you feel better if I took you to Kyrchye to receive his blessing?”
A startled jolt ran through me. I stepped forward, holding my fists clenched against my chest.
“Your eminence —?“
“Yes. You may come, too, Axton.”
“I think I’ll wait here,” Droit said, drily. “Kyrchye and I don’t have anything useful to say to each other.”
“You have to come,” I protested, turning toward him.
“No, I don’t.”
“But you’ve renounced Yzyrchye and Might. Now you can reconcile with Kyrchye.”
“Yzyrchye and Might haven’t renounced me.”
“Kyrchye can destroy Might, if that’s all that’s stopping you,” Croix observed.
Droit twitched a shoulder.
“Anyway, I wasn’t planning to come here today. Might’s still back home.”
“Any one of these sentinels can fetch it for you.”
“It’s across the Line.”
“That makes no difference.” Croix turned to the children, addressing them. “The Line is everywhere at once. The bale is everywhere at once. All you have to do is open a gap to the place you want and reach through.”
“We know how to find people across the Line,” Caro said, looking at her friends for support, “but how do you find a thing? We’ve never even seen his sword.”
“Call for a fixed balesword; there are very few in the world, and only one with vestigial sentience. You’ll sense it.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Droit protested. “I don’t want it brought here. That turned out really badly last time. Or — you know — it could have.”
“Droit — Tegeus,” I said, dismayed. “You said you wanted to get rid of it.”
“Yes, but I don’t think taking it to Kyrchye is a good idea.” He gave me a sharp look. “Do you have any idea what I’ve done to Kyrchye’s worshippers over the years?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “I’ve read every story about you that I’ve been able to find.”
“Well, what do you think it’s going to do to me if I walk up to it holding Might?”
“Redeem you.”
“I consider that unlikely.”
“We’ll protect you.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Tegeus….” I drew in a deep breath. “You said you were my hound. Three different times. Did you mean it?”
He scowled. Behind us, Croix was still tutoring the children in how to find objects across the Line.
“It was a joke,” he snapped.
“You mean it was a lie.” My spirits sank. This needed to be about him, not me, but I still felt like I was standing on the edge of an abyss.
“Well, I don’t plan to bark when you whistle, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself back in my office in the asylum. Behind my desk, with all my notes about Droit in front of me. When I thought I could speak to him like an objective, uninvolved alienist again, I opened my eyes.
“You were originally nicknamed ‘Yzyrche’s Hound’ as an insult, but you’ve pointed out that dogs are noble creatures: they protect, hunt, fight, and retrieve. They’re loyal to their pack and they follow their leaders. That’s what attracts you to the metaphor, isn’t it? You’d be proud to embody all of those attributes for the right authority figure. The right ‘master.’ You were looking for a master you could trust. A master who wouldn’t beat you. A master who’d give you the love you didn’t get from your father. But the navy wasn’t strong enough to master you, and neither was the army. You thought you’d found the perfect master in Yzyrchye until you realized that she doesn’t know how to love; that she was manipulating you as cruelly as your father ever had. That’s when you stopped being Yzyrchye’s Hound and began looking for something else to serve, isn’t it? Sovereign Lament. Or the Cislunar Watch. Something or someone that could offer you structure, acceptance, and companionship.”
Droit narrowed his eyes.
“Maybe I call myself a dog because I like to lick my balls and hump people’s legs.”
“Don’t,” I said, softly. “You’re better than this.”
He stared at me, his jaw tight.
“So, I like dogs. So what?”
“So, why do you consider Axton’s Hound to be a joke? You know I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to make you as whole and healthy as possible. We’re building our own pack here — Nobilis Aronson, Captain Lorencz, these children, me. We want you to be part of it, but you can’t join our pack if you’re still bound to Yzrychye.” I tensed, waiting for his answer.
He looked away with a sneer.
“What makes you think I want any of you?” he retorted. I flinched as he continued. “When I was the Red General, I used to play games to keep myself from getting bored. One of them was ‘make him love me.’ I’d pick one of my prisoners and court him. I’d be polite and gentle and give him little favors and gifts. I did everything I could to convince him that I’d fallen in love. And as soon as he loved me back, I’d break him into a thousand pieces.”
I struggled to draw a deep breath.
“You’re an easy mark, Axton,” he said, ruthlessly. “You, my cousin, even Lorencz. You’re all so desperate for someone to love you that it’s pathetic. None of you will ever be anybody’s master. All you’ll ever be are slaves.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I asked, locking away the part of me that was paralyzed by his words. I could deal with my horror later. Right now I had to focus on him. “Did you play ‘make him love me’ with the wrong man? Is that why you’re so defensive?”
He stiffened.
“Something made you abandon your army and drop out of sight,” I continued, trying desperately to spin a thin thread of connection over the abyss opening between us. “I don’t think it was anything as simple as boredom. Did you fall in love? Did getting a taste of the real thing make you realize how empty your relationship was with Yzyrchye?”
“No,” he breathed, but his face was pale and tight, and I knew that I’d at least brushed against the truth. The realization renewed my confidence. I might be a pathetic man, but I was still a good alienist.
“You’ve been hurt over and over by the people you thought you could trust,” I said, studying him. “You could hide your pain for years in the ecstatic madness of Yzyrchye’s Hound, but you lost that option when you walked off the battlefield and returned home to Cislunar. Now you need to face the feelings of betrayal and isolation you’ve been avoiding for all those years.”
“You don’t have any idea who I am or how I feel,” he grated.
“Do you think that admitting that you’re lonely makes you weak?”
“I’m not lonely!“ He took a step forward, one fist clenching. I felt my heart thump — and then light burst around us, and he stopped. I turned, relieved. Beside the altar, Caro reached through the air and pulled back a fabric-wrapped bundle. I recognized the slender shape of Might.
“Very good, Caro,” Croix said, pleased. “Set it down.”
She set the bundle on the floor and backed up, wiping her palms on the skirt of her school uniform as if she’d touched something dirty. The children clustered around her, wide-eyed.
Droit stared at the sword with loathing, his cheek twitching with suppressed anger.
“You idiots. You have no idea what you’ve just done.”
“Some choices must be made over and over,” Croix said, standing over the bundle. “The choice to turn away from evil is one such. You can’t make it once and assume it’s been made forever. Every day new temptations arise and you must reject them all over again. You faltered the last time you were offered this choice, General Droit. Your cousin had to step in and wrest the sword from your grasp. Now the choice faces you again. Can you make it on your own?”
“I don’t like being manipulated,” Droit growled, looking from Croix to me and back again.
“I’m not manipulating you,” Croix said. “Neither is Axton. Choice is inevitable. How you choose is entirely up you.”
“You know what’s inevitable? That as soon as I touch that sword, I’ll attack. You saw what happened the last time.” He turned to me. “Do you want these kids’ lives on your hands? If I kill them, it’ll be your fault.”
“No. That’s a bully’s game, Droit, and you can’t play it with me. Whatever you do will be the result of your choice, not mine,” I said, steeling myself. His anger, his threats, meant that I was getting close to the truth. He was groping for any excuse to avoid facing his own fears. If I could call his bluff, he’d have to show me his hand.
“None of you knows what you’re doing!” He turned, striding back toward the front door. “I’m not going to pick up that damn sword. I’ve already rejected it!”
“It’s all right, your eminence,” I said, crouching next to the sword. My leg throbbed beneath its protective bale. “I’ll take it to Kyrchye for him.”
“No!” Droit whipped around. “Don’t touch it!”
I looked over my shoulder. He’d stopped halfway down the aisle, a dim shape in the shadows.
“When you were in the hospital, I promised to help you get rid of it,” I reminded him. “This is my choice.”
He took a step back out of the shadows, back toward us. Candlelight reflected off his golden hair and pale skin. My heart ached to look at him.
“You don’t have any idea how strong it is.”
“I moved it for you before, remember? It can’t control me as long as there’s something between me and the blade.” I extended a hand toward the bundle, slowly.
“Don’t!” He took another step forward, out of the shadows. His green eyes flashed. “Don’t you understand? I can feel it in my head right now. I know what it wants me to do to you. I’m standing all the way over here and it’s screaming at me to stop you.”
“A good master takes care of his hound.” I rested my fingertips on the fabric that covered the sword. It was a bedsheet from Blackstone Hospital — the same sheet I’d wrapped it in when I’d removed the blade from his hospital room two months ago.
“Dammit, Ax!” Droit lunged and was caught short by a balewall. He turned, hit another, and snarled with frustration. He spun and glared at the sentinels. “Let me go!”
“We’re not going to let you hurt Doctor Axton,” Jack said, his thin face pale but determined.
“Thank you, Jack,” I murmured, lifting the sword and cradling it in the crook of my arm. It was heavier than it looked. Heavier than I remembered. I grit my teeth and stood. “But I’m not a real doctor, remember?”
“You are to us.”
Droit howled, slamming his fist against the bale.
“Put it down! It’s not yours!”
“He’s right, Axton,” Croix said, behind me. “You can’t redeem a man against his will. Droit needs to seek his salvation on his own.”
“I know,” I said, watching Droit batter the wall. I didn’t like seeing him trapped. I’d been in captivity too long, myself, to feel comfortable watching someone else imprisoned. But I was glad he couldn’t reach me. “All an alienist can ever do is show someone the path. It’s up to the patient to take it. But I can remove some of the obstacles, can’t I?”
“Axton, dammit, let me out!”
“Might isn’t Droit’s obstacle. Ambivalence is his obstacle. If he knew what he wanted, Might would be irrelevant.”
Even through the sheet, the balesword felt heavy and warm in my arms, as if I were holding a child. I could almost imagine its blade pulsing like a living thing. I looked up and met Croix’s eyes. By contrast, his face was as still and solemn as a stone saint’s.
I knew what Droit wanted. He wanted to be independent but secure; powerful but protected; feared but loved. He wanted what he thought his violent father had possessed; what Yzyrchye had promised but been unable to deliver. But nobody could be all of those things at once. We all had to choose which we were going to be from one moment to the next. Might and I were the two sides of Droit’s dilemma. Might offered him independence, power, and dominance. I offered him security, protection, and love.
“Would Kyrchye accept him if he gave up Might?” I asked.
“Kyrchye has already accepted him. It’s Droit who hasn’t accepted Kyrchye. Kyrchye always chooses to love, Axton.”
“Then why was I excommunicated?”
“Kyrchye did not cast you out. Humans did.”
“Caro! Get your ass over here and let me out!” Droit shouted. She glanced her friends, then shrugged uncomfortably.
“Maybe if you stop shouting, I will,” she shot back.
I tightened my arms around the sword. I was afraid to give Might back. I was afraid that Droit was too weak to resist temptation; I was afraid I’d lose him to the Sovereign of Hell. And I acknowledged that it was a purely selfish fear. I wasn’t afraid for him; I was afraid for me. All my life, everyone I’d ever valued had been taken away from me.
But I had to let Droit choose his own path, no matter where it led him, no matter how much his choice might hurt me. Like Kyrchye. I could love, but I couldn’t make myself be loved back.
And with that thought I heard the bell toll again and felt the pressure in my chest release. I drew in a deep, shaky breath.
“Jack, would you and the others please drop the balewalls?” I asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, to a chorus of agreement.
“You know,” Caro suggested, “we could try wrapping him up in a bunch of bale so he couldn’t get loose.”
Droit growled something that he had no right to say to a young girl. Caro shot him her middle finger, unimpressed. I clutched Might more tightly, feeling it throb, its length hot and heavy through the sheet.
“I agree with Cardinal Croix,” I said. “The general needs to be free to make his choice.”
“He’ll hit you,” Finn predicted.
“What if he makes the wrong choice?” Holly asked, looking frightened. “What if he chooses Yzyrchye?”
“Caro’s right,” Kate said firmly. “We should tie him up until he cools off. He can’t make good decisions when he’s angry. That’s what you always tell us.”
I sighed.
“Yes, it’s true, but it’s important to his therapy that he be free right now.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jack said, dubiously.
“If he hits you, we’ll balefire him,” Finn promised.
“Thank you, Finn,” I said. The balewalls fell.
Droit staggered forward, then drew himself up. He stood still a moment, glaring at us, then smoothed his expression and walked back. Only the tautness of his mouth and a twitch in his shoulder revealed the depth of his anger.
When he was two feet away from me, he leaped, grabbing for Might.
With a startled yelp, I ducked and twisted, slamming the sword into his stomach as though it were a club. He staggered back, teeth bared.
“It’s mine, Axton.”
I grabbed Might’s hilt with both hands and shook it. The sheet began sliding off the pale blade. The sword’s hilt felt fever-hot. I listened, but I couldn’t hear it saying anything to me. Both Droit and Aronson had heard it, but I couldn’t.
“What the hell are you doing?” Droit rasped. Sweat ran down the side of his face and strands of blond hair adhered to his skin. He dropped a hand to his mundane sword. The one his cousin and friend had given him.
“If you want something from me,” I said, my voice shaking, “ask for it politely.” The sheet slid further away and the slender blade pulsed like a heartbeat.
“See what you’ve done?” Droit asked, his green eyes flickering to Croix, behind me. “It’s possessed him.”
“Axton isn’t under the sword’s influence,” Croix said, his voice calm. Droit wiped his forehead with one arm, looking uncertain as he regarded me and the sword I carried.
“Do you want to kill me?” I asked, my heart pounding. “Do you want to make your vision come true? Go ahead. Make that choice.” My hands were sweating on the fabric that still wrapped the sword’s hilt. Might was heavy — very heavy. I’d never used a sword before. I didn’t think I’d be able to swing it more than once if Droit attacked. “You have to choose, Tegeus. Respect or violence. Kyrchye or Yzyrchye.”
“You or me?” Droit’s voice was tight.
“Unless you have someone better to waste your time on.”
I tried to remember what my novels said about sword fighting. Was I supposed to watch his face, or his hands, or his feet? I couldn’t remember. I tightened my grip on the hilt and decided to watch his eyes. If I was going to die, I wanted to die looking into his eyes.
But Droit dropped his gaze first, fists clenching.
“It’s going to fight me,” he said, his voice still strained. “It’s going to try to make me hurt you.”
“You’re strong enough to resist.”
“You’ll be risking your life.”
“I’m a gambler.”
He stood still a moment, breathing heavily, and then looked up. His tension was visible in his face, his neck, the taut muscles in his arms.
“May I please have Might?” His words were forced, gasped. My legs suddenly felt weak, but I clung to the sword.
“What will you do with it?”
“I’ll take it to Kyrchye, dammit.” He staggered, his hands rising to rub his temples. “If I can. You may be wrong about me, Axton. I may not be as strong as you think.”
“I’ll take that chance.” I stepped forward and handed him Might.