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“So cruel, Baraboo. Tell me who hurt you. I will best them and make them beg your forgiveness on their knees with the point of my blade at their neck.”

The priest tilts his head as if this amuses him. Xan is learning to read the way Jemel moves, almost as if he can see the expressions behind the veil. “If you must know I was purged. It is part of my role as an acolyte of Zai.”

Xan frowns. “Purged how?”

“With a strap,” the priest says lightly.

Xan should not be shocked. He had assumed the priest’s injuries were something like this. And he has been long aware of the Empire’s brutal ways. Nevertheless, he sucks in a sharp breath. “And what was this punishment for?”

The priest’s tone is quite spiteful. “I was purged, not punished, but if you insist on knowing. Because of you. My desire for you that you claim to be well aware of. You know I have sinful desires and you have been doing your best to enflame them. So perhaps it satisfies you to know this. You touched me. You made me admit to lustful thoughts. I had to go to Gelen Zain to be washed of my sins.”

Xan feels sickened to think the Empire has involved him in this cruelty, and worse. If the priest has confessed such a thing, would Atticul hear of this and think Xan was carrying out his plans?

And that is a strange thing to merit such disgust. Would he not want Atticul to think Xan is doing as bid? For Trysta’s sake.

“Will this priest Gelen Zain tell the Rose Court of your desires? Are you in danger?”

The priest scoffs. “Purging of acolytes is sacred. The secrets of it are meant to be kept. However, I do not always trust that they are. But nothing will happen to you. Gelen has long known I struggle with such desires. The desire itself is a lesser sin than the action. In this case.” The priest stops there, but it seems for a moment as if he was about to say something else. But that at least is some kind of relief. If it is even true. Atticul knew the priest had desires for men. Perhaps the priest Gelen is the source of that knowledge.

“I am sorry,” Xan says. “I did not mean to cause you such harm.”

“Didn’t you?” the priest says tightly. “Because it feels very much like you mean all the things you do to me and the effects they have.”

Xan rolls his eyes. Of course the priest is still being infuriating about this. “I did not mean for you to be such a fool you would confess your lust to the High Word of Zai,” he snaps back.

“I was not a fool. I needed absolution. Shall we go?”

Xan can see the conversation is over. “Very well,” he says.

They walk through the temple in tense silence. At the end of a thin corridor with a ceiling so low it feels like a tunnel, there is a small iron gate.

“This gate is normally guarded,” the priest says, turning before it, “but on some nights the guards are led by a man called Loth. He is lax. He has a compulsion to play arca cards for coin and he takes some of the men from their duties to gamble with him. Some nights they never return to their posts. When I wish to enter the passageways beneath the palace, I simply make some subtle inquiries to find out when Loth is on duty.” The priest reveals a key from a pocket in his robes. “And some years ago, I was given this information, along with this key, by someone who tasked me with duties that meant I needed access to the hidden library.”

Xan says nothing. He nods as the priest unlocks the gate and passes through it.

The gate is small. Xan has to hunch his body to follow. On the other side is a tiny chamber. The priest’s slight body presses against Xan’s as he moves around to relock the gate.

Taking up an oil lamp, Jemel leads Xan through a short passage to a wooden door. The passage and the door are both rough, old, very different from the Rose Palace behind them. This is a different place, an older place.

Beyond the wooden door they are at the top of a tall flight of stone steps.

“This is the way I come to the library,” the priest says softly as he begins to descend. “It is a special place. My own place.”

They walk for some time through tunnels and passageways, descending lower and lower, until the places they walk are soft with mud and silt and the air smells damp and cold.

“Is this also the way to the dungeons?”

“Finally,” the priest says, not looking around, “you admit the real reason you are here. You are pathetically transparent.”

“What do you mean?” Xan says petulantly.

“You are hoping I will show you a route to free your sister.”

Jemel turns. Xan looks at him. “I am simply interested in the route we take.”

“No, you’re not. You wish to rescue the Plumian who killed Selim. I was there when you demanded Atticul free her. I was the one who translated your words. You are hoping I will show you the way.”

“Will you?” Xan says bluntly. “I am concerned for her wellbeing. She is a prisoner.”