assassins, even before the Truedark Massacre. It made sense he’d recruit the Confessionate to route them out. But could they—
“Tell us where you were earlier this eve. Before you arrived in Godsgrave.”
“I’ve not left Godsgrave since I was eight ye—”
Crack. A bright red handprint etched on her face.
“Tell us where you were earlier this eve. Before you arrived in Godsgrave.”
“Nowhere, Brother, I—”
Her chair was dragged backward, the awful sound of iron grating on stone ringing in her ears. Mia saw a barrel filled with dark, tepid water in a corner of the room. Rough hands seized a fistful of her hair, dunked her head and held her down. She thrashed, bucked, but the manacles had her pinned, the hand holding her tight. She roared, bubbles bursting from her mouth into the brackish dark. Harbor water, she realized. Probably fished straight from the Bay of Butchers. Blood, bilge and shit.
And they’re drowning me in it.
Black spots swimming in her eyes. Lungs burning. The hand hauled her up out of the water and she dragged in a desperate, sputtering lungful.
“Tell us where you were earlier this eve. Before you arrived in Godsgrave.”
“Please, sto—”
Down beneath the water again. The pain and the dark. Her shadow seethed around her feet, helpless and desperate. But there was no cloak of darkness that could hide her here. No sense pinning her captors’ feet to the floor. Chosen of the Mother? Fat lot of good it was doing her. Why couldn’t the goddess have let her breathe underwater?
Lungs almost bursting, she was dragged up into the light again. Chest heaving. Legs trembling. Coughing. Gasping. The fear was breaking loose now, Mister Kindly unable to drink it all. But still, she stamped it down. Kicked it in the teeth and spat on it.
“Tell us where you were earlier this eve. Before you arrived in Godsgrave.”
“I was nowhere!” she roared.
Down again. And up. The question repeated, over and over. She screamed. Swore. Tried crying. Pleading. No avail. Every plea, every tear, every curse was met with the same response.
“Tell us where you were earlier this eve. Before you arrived in Godsgrave.”
But beneath the tears and cries, Mia’s mind was still racing. If they wanted her dead, she’d be dead. If they knew where she’d come from, they’d already be at the Porkery. And if the Confessionate was in league with the Luminatii, that meant each of these bastards was a lapdog of Scaeva and Remus. The men who’d hung her father. The men who’d set her feet on this path all those years ago. The Red Church was her best chance at vengeance against them. And these fools expected her to give it up for fear of a little drowning?
She retreated. Back into the dark inside her head. Watching her torture with a kind of semidetached fascination. Hours they worked her, until her voice was broken and her lungs screaming and every breath fire. Drowning and beating. Spitting and slapping. Hours.
And hours.
And then they stopped. Left her slumped in her chair, hands bound behind her. Hair reeking of bay water, draped across her face like a funeral shroud. Bruised. Bleeding. Almost drowned.
Almost dead.
“We have all turn, my lovely love,” Santino said. “And all nevernight, besides.”
“And if water will not loosen your tongue,” said Micheletto, “we’ve other remedies.”
The big man lifted an iron poker from the table of tools. Thrust it into the burning brazier and left it there to heat. He spat onto the coals, a sizzling hiss filling the room.
“When that iron glows red, we’ll return. Think long and hard about where your loyalties lie. You may think your precious flock of heretics worth dying for. But believe me, there are far worse fates than death. And we know them all.”
The confessors marched from the room, slamming a heavy iron door behind them. Mia heard a key rattle, a bolt slide home. Receding footsteps. Distant screams.
“… mia…”
The girl tossed her hair from her eyes. Still trying to catch her breath. Shivering. Coughing. Looking down at last to the shadow coalescing at her feet.
“I’m all right, Mister Kindly.”
“… for confessors, those two seem like lovely fellows…”
“How under the suns did they mark me?”
“… mercurio…?”
“Bullshit.”
“… the centurion? alberius…?”
“He’d no clue I was with the Church. This feels bigger. Deeper.”
Mister Kindly titled his head. Silent and thoughtful.
“… puzzles later. first you must get out of here…,” he finally said.
“I’m glad you’re here to tell me these things.”
Mia cast her eyes around the room. The poker heating in the brazier. The tools