Page 36 of Blood and Moonlight

CHAPTER 14

Someone is outside Magister Thomas’s house, standing next to the kitchen door.

I step back out of the light, opening my eyes, and the sound of his pulse vanishes. My own heartbeat pounds so loudly in my ears I almost don’t hear the soft knocking.

Golden light spills into the alley as the door opens. Whoever the man is, he must have been expected, because Magister Thomas—the only one still awake besides me—lets him in. Wondering if I could hear them, I kneel to place one ear to the floor.

Words are muffled, but the tone of their conversation is friendly. I would’ve been able to hear them a few seconds ago. Moonlight shines on the windowsill, and I reach up to put my hand in it. Just as I hoped, the instant my fingers are illuminated, the effect returns. With a tight grip on the window frame, I press my ear over a crack in the floorboards and close my eyes, listening.

“—have been doubled. It’s risky for you to be out,” Magister Thomas is saying. “And you do know that you were seen that night, yes?”

“By askoniaaddict,” the man replies. A wooden creak andthe stranger’s grunt tells me he’s taking a seat by the fire. “As for the watch, those Sun-lovers can’t see beyond their lamps.”

Sun-lovers. Only a Person of the Night would speak so disparagingly. And to be seen “that night” can only mean the evening of Perrete’s murder. Even without those clues, I knew instantly who the man was by his voice. I can picture the shadows cast across his scarred face and the firelight reflecting in the silver of his eyes. The bigger shock is that Magister Thomas knows the Selenae man. Why didn’t he tell me that?

“You realize why I’ve come, don’t you?” the man asks.

A cork squeals as it’s twisted from the neck of a glass bottle, and liquid is poured into two goblets. “You assured me this would never happen,” says the architect.

“It gives me no pleasure to be wrong,” the Selenae man replies. “And for my error, I am sorry. You have no idea how much.”

Magister Thomas downs his cup in one gulp, then coughs and wipes his mouth. “I was the one who sent her out into the night. I am also to blame.”

They must be talking about Perrete. My heart is torn in half to know the architect believes himself even partly responsible for her death.

“It is only proof that we cannot hide from fate,” says the Selenae man quietly. “Any more than we can prevent the moon from rising.”

“Still.” Magister Thomas sets the bottle on the table and drops heavily into another chair. “I promised to care for her, and I failed. It’s only a matter of time before it happens again.”

“Yes,” agrees the man. “It’s like pureskonia. Once tasted, it will always be craved.”

Like Simon, they understand the killer will strike again. That his rage and the need for revenge will never be satisfied.

“You managed to master it,” says Magister Thomas.

“As we all must. But that is why we willingly keep to the Quarter at night—for the protection of others as well as ourselves.” The stranger sips his drink. “But you have always been welcome to join us.”

“Join you in what? Howling at the moon?”

The man chuckles ruefully, but his words are lost. Frustrated, I open my eyes to find the moonlight has shifted off my fingers. Worse, it won’t be shining on my window much longer. I move my hand a few inches to put it back in the light and press my ear to the floor again, but I’ve missed part of their exchange.

“—you must trust me in this matter,” says the man. “It is something you cannot understand as I do.”

Magister Thomas sighs. “By when?”

“After the new moon, but before the full.”

Simon had also predicted another murder, but this man seems certain it will be within a month.

“How do I protect Catrin in the meantime?” the magister asks. “She’s involved herself in the venatre’s investigation and wants to continue.”

The stranger takes a long, slow drink from his glass before answering. “Hadrians and Selenae alike are ruled by instincts we barely understand. Have you considered that perhaps she wasmeantto find that girl?”

Magister Thomas’s chair scrapes across the stone floor as he jumps to his feet. “Listen to yourself, Gregor! No wonder people think the moon makes people insane. She’s—”

My hearing vanishes. Gritting my teeth, I stretch my fingers out of the window until it returns.

“—moon doesn’t cause madness,” the Selenae man is saying. “But it does make madness believe it’s safe to come out.”