Page 32 of Blood and Moonlight

Something in her tone makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “Enough to do my job.”

For several seconds, the only sound is the wheeze of air going in and out of her nose. “You shouldn’t be out at night,” the prioress says finally. “It’s not safe, as that murder proves. I have a mind to write Magister Thomas just what I think about how he lets you work.”

She sent him a scathing letter every week for the first year after I left, so I doubt it will matter.

Mother Agnes buries her nose in her cup. “So tell me about this Simon.”

“What about him?” I ask, caught off guard.

Her lashless eyes stare at me, unblinking. “Come now, Catrin, I may be blind, but I’m not deaf. He’s caught your fancy.”

I reel in my memory, trying to recall what I’d said. He’s dedicated to finding the murderer, and he’s intelligent. Both admirable qualities. But thinking of his hesitant smile and his concern for my well-being brings an unexpected warmth to my core. How in the world did she sense that?

“Is he handsome?” she asks, reveling in my sudden discomfort.

“He’s well enough,” I mutter. When I realize she’s still waiting,I sigh. “Blond hair. Taller than average.” My descriptions come in small bursts. “Not overly lean, but not an ounce of extra flesh on him anywhere, either. Fair in color. Two years older than me.”

“And his eyes?”

“Light blue, like Sister Alix’s.” I don’t mention the brown flaw.

“Basically the opposite of you.” There’s a lilt of humor in her tone.

“I’m not short,” I counter. Even without the heeled slippers I’m wearing today with my Sun Day clothes, I tower over most women I know—and a good number of men. “And his hair is curly, too.”

The prioress snorts. “I take it back, you sound like twins. However.” She blinks away her amusement. “Have his looks distracted you from what’s most important—his character?”

My face grows hot. “He seems honest.”

“That’s a start.”

I sigh. How does one explain Simon? I’ve spent several hours in his presence, and I’m not sure I understand him any more than when I first laid eyes on him. “He’s kind, but guarded. I don’t think he likes being dependent on the Montcuirs.”

“Will I ever get to meet him?”

I cringe at the idea. “I think you’re imagining more between us than there is. I hardly know him.” Now is my opening. “He’s from Mesanus. Have you ever heard of it?”

“Of course.” The prioress scoops up a ginger biscuit, then sits back to dip it in her tea. “It’s a village with a famous luminary shrine on the coast of Prezia.”

Remi was right about the location, but shrines need miracles attributed to them to earn the description luminary. “Who died there?”

“A princess fleeing from the island west of Brinsulli, several hundred years ago.” Mother Agnes pauses to test the cookiewith what few teeth she has left, then dunks it back into her cup. “Her father tracked her to Mesanus, but she refused to return with him, and he killed her.”

Obedience to parents is one of the Ten Pillars of a faithful life, so that’s a complete surprise. “A shrine that honors a runaway?”

“She left for the right reason. Her father had ordered her to marry him.”

For a second I think I missed the name of some prince she was betrothed to. Then I recoil into the hard back of the couch. “He wanted to wed his own daughter?”

“Her mother had died, and the king was mad with grief.” Mother brings the biscuit back to her mouth and gums a bit of it off. “Apparently, Princess Dimah looked much like her.”

“Still…,” I say. The idea is disgusting. Luminaries, however, grant heavenly miracles in accordance with their life or death. “Are there that many fleeing incestuous marriages who call for her help?”

Mother Agnes swallows and gives me a scolding look. “Her tomb became a pilgrimage site for those afflicted with sickness of the mind, everything from babes damaged from birth, to those who see and hear things that aren’t there, to murderers who eat the flesh of their victims.” The other piece of biscuit goes into her mouth.

Imagining what the prioress describes turns my stomach. “Are there really those mad enough to eat human flesh?”

“It’s rare, but yes.”