Page 68 of Mortdale

I froze when his face turned, his nose and then cheek grazing mine as he leaned in to whisper in my ear, “We’ll throw it back at him.”

He didn’t even blink through the entire sermon, fixing his empty eyes at a corner of the Basilica. The window overhead had framed his face and the faint sunlight glistened as it hit his golden hair, giving him an oneiric halo. He looked like something from a distant, hazy dream. Something you only saw once, briefly, and would never be able to forget. There was something about Logan Duncan that was comforting, peaceful. That made you feel safe. I wondered if Piper knew she was the most well-protected person in the entirety of Epiron.

As the sermon went quiet and the exarch left, and everyone lowered their heads in prayer, his attention slowly turned in my direction, probably getting a headache from how hard I’d been staring at him. He raised a hand to my face, wiping the blood under my nose with his thumb.

“Sorry,” I whispered, wincing a little when it echoed through the quiet nave.

“Why does that happen only when I look at you?”

My gaze rolled over the pews behind us when everyone shifted uncomfortably, clearly having heard every single word of our exchange.

With a sigh, he leaned back against the pew. “Get them all out,” he said to Arthur who was sitting right behind us.

I didn’t understand what he’d meant until the church emptied like a burst pipe, like at our wedding.

Logan’s head was tipped up in the direction of the glass window. With his eyes shut, he looked like a God in agony.

The permanent tension gathered between his brows finally flattened. His shoulders relaxed. And it was the most at peace I’d ever seen him be.

We were alone. Him. I. And the God who he’d forsaken.

What had his God done to deserve exile from his heart?

“Logan?” I asked, my voice ricocheting against the colourless stone walls.

I frowned, leaning in to stare at him closer.

Was he…sleeping?

I was almost convinced he was not able to sleep. That he didn’t need it. I’d only seen him in and out of his room when he changed or showered. He was always coming and going. He’d sit for five minutes and be gone for five hours.

His eyelashes fluttered. His chest rose faster and faster as he slightly stirred, still asleep.

Was he dreaming?

“What does Logan Duncan even dream of?” I murmured to myself.

I startled back when his eyes peeled open, resting emptily ahead.

“Let’s negotiate that deal,” he quietly said. “As you proposed. You help me figure out what caused the Madness, and I won’t stop you from finding out what you came here to find out.”

My heart was beating too many times a second, my pulse stumbling all over itself. I had him just where I wanted him. It shouldn’t be hard at all to agree.

“Why do you come to church if you don’t believe in anything?”

His head slowly turned in my direction. “The same reason everyone does. To pray, to repent. It’s easier when you do it somewhere where it doesn’t feel wrong to pray and repent.”

I knew he probably had a lot to repent for, but what did Logan Duncan pray for?

The question sat at the tip of my tongue.

“You said you didn’t believe in your God.”

“Must I have a God to have remorse, to desire? Was I born capable or did he make me capable?” He looked at the carved stone saints and immortals lining the chancel. “I wish it was him. It would be easier to blame him for the way I am.”

“The deal,” I said, my gaze sliding down the strong, gentle frame of his profile. “I will agree to it. But I have a condition.”

I shrank back a little when he reached to swipe his thumb over the new trail of blood from the top of my lip. “What is it?”