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“Anytime.” Bastian planted his hands on the table again, leaned over the glass. “Back to my question.”

“We have no idea,” Gabe gritted out through his teeth. “We’ve been in here for a week, researching Spiritum, because—”

Lore’s eyes darted his way, quick and panicked.

“Because we thought it might hold some kind of clue about the villages,” he continued smoothly. “We hadn’t even discussed transubstantiation—whatever it is—until right before you showed up.”

“It was my idea.” Malcolm walked over to them, holding the book gingerly in his gloved hands. He eyed Bastian’s bare palms, made a face, pulled another pair of gloves from his pocket and thrust them at the prince. “My library, my rules. Put on some damn gloves.”

Arching a brow, Bastian obeyed. “Elaborate, please,” he said as he worked his fingers into too-small white cotton.

There was only a flicker of hesitation in Malcolm’s eyes before he sighed, opening the glass and sliding the book beneath it, flipping to a certain page. “We were discussing how in some earlier translations of the Compendium, the verses about the Arceneaux line channeling Spiritum use the singular chosen. As in, only one chosen Arceneaux could actually do it.”

“That’d explain why none of us ever have,” Bastian said. “But not what transubstantiation has to do with anything. Or even what it is, really.” He tapped the glass over the book. “This thing was not written with a layperson in mind.”

“Transubstantiation is essentially having one thing stand in for another.” Malcolm leaned forward, peering at the book. “Or, as D’Arcy puts it, ‘the spiritual overcoming the physical to the point where the physical is changed.’”

“What does that have to do with Spiritum?” Lore mimicked Malcolm, leaning over the glass and squinting at the tiny words on the page. They all seemed to have more syllables than they should, and the flourishing hand dissolved into squiggles before she could make sense of it.

“By definition alone, nothing,” Malcolm answered. “And scientifically, no one gives the idea much credence. It’s not meant to be taken literally. But Anton desperately wanted me to find this book, and since everything else he’s been looking into lately has to do with Spiritum, I assume he’s found a connection between the two.”

Gabe frowned, crinkling his brow above his eye patch. Every mention of the Priest Exalted’s name seemed to set him on edge.

“So what we have so far,” Lore said, holding up a finger for each point, “is that the ability to channel Spiritum might be held by only one Arceneaux—we have no idea who—and the fact that Anton is looking into bunk science that says you can physically change something if you… what? Believe it hard enough?”

“That about sums it up,” Malcolm agreed.

They fell into silence. Then Bastian straightened, crossing his arms. “It makes perfect sense to me.”

Lore crossed her arms, too, like it was a challenge. “How so?”

“One Arceneaux can control Spiritum. The power of life. My father was looking into how he could make himself into that one Arceneaux.” Bastian shrugged. “The last desperate attempt of a dying man to save himself.”

They stared at the Sun Prince. The Sun Prince stared back.

Gabe was the one who managed to speak. “You mean…”

“Oh, right, I forgot to tell you.” Bastian pushed his hair away from his face. “August is dying.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Remember this: No gods are ever gone. They simply change.

—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 7131

Quiet, so complete it seemed to ring in Lore’s ears. August was dying. That explained the poison he’d been drinking, the desire to get rid of Bastian so he could name a different heir if it didn’t work. It didn’t tell them anything about what was really happening in the villages, at least not directly, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that all of it was connected.

“Wait.” Gabe raised his hand as if asking for more silence, though it was all any of them had offered for minutes. “How long has he been ill? And why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I didn’t know until today, actually.” Bastian propped one hip on the table and gave Gabe a weary glare. “I’d seen him drinking from that flask more than usual, and knew by the smell it wasn’t just spirits. When Alie told us about Cecelia’s predicament, it gave me the idea to ask August’s physicians. A hefty bribe made the doctor’s assistant happy enough to give up the records. I received them about two hours ago, after they were all compiled neatly for my reading pleasure.” He leaned an elbow on the glass. Malcolm made a choked sound, and with an almost-chagrined look at the librarian, Bastian backed away from it again. “I sneaked into August’s study to see if I could find anything pertaining to the villages, but all I found was that transubstantiation book.”

The fact that he’d gone to look—that he must feel everything was connected, too—only solidified the idea in her mind. Lore chewed the inside of her cheek, considering her next question. There was no way to phrase it that wasn’t treason, and though no one here had a leg to stand on in that regard, it still made her nervous to voice. “Bastian, do you think… could it be possible that August is killing the villages, somehow?”

No sounds of surprise, no raised brows. They’d all arrived at the same awful conclusion.

“I think he’s involved,” Bastian said. “But that still doesn’t tell us anything about how. It’s far too convenient that all of this starts happening right when he gets sick and wants to choose a new heir. But I can’t come up with any plausible theory for how he’d manage to kill so many people from so far away, and leave no marks at all. Or what he’d gain from it. There has to be an easier way to frame someone.”

Malcolm reached out and tapped the glass gently. “This could have something to do with it, maybe. Using transubstantiation to… I don’t know, give his sickness to other people?”