Page 29

I swallowed. Fire scraped down my throat.

“Adriana,” I whispered.

“Surname?”

I didn’t answer. There was no telling who I could trust.

Sister Marina’s gaze sharpened, assessing me quietly. “That’s all right, child. Adriana is enough for now.”

Nothing was enough.

“They’ll come,” I whispered. My voice sounded wrong. Thin. Broken. Like it wasn’t my own.

Sister Joanne held a glass to my lips. “Drink.”

I turned my face away.

“No.”

“You need water.”

“I said no.”

The edge in my voice startled even me. Sister Joanne lowered the glass. When the door opened suddenly, I flinched so hard that my ribs screamed.

A man stepped inside. A priest. The man from the church. He stopped a few feet away and stood near the door in a black cassock, the white collar bright against the olive skin at his throat. His dark hair was neat. His face was composed, almost severe, with the kind of bone structure that belonged in old paintings rather than sickrooms. His eyes were dark and curious.

He looked like a priest. But something about him did not fit inside that shape. He was too hard, too watchful, and there was a darkness about him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

The question was gentle, his voice low, controlled.

“Alive.”

Something moved across his face.

Sister Marina looked between us. “Do you remember Father Demitri?”

I looked at him. Rain. Candlelight. Black cloth. Arms catching me before the floor did.

“Yes.”

His eyes lowered briefly to my bandaged wrists. I tried to swallow past the lump that was lodged in my throat. He watched me with a dreadful stillness, as if waiting for the truth to decide whether it would come out of me willingly or not.

Sister Joanne tried again with the water. This time, I accepted a sip. It hurt to swallow. I coughed, and pain flared so brutally through my ribs that black dots sparked across my vision.

Father Demitri took one step forward. I stiffened and he stopped. My fingers tightened around the blanket and I’m sure he noticed.

“Your ribs are badly bruised,” Sister Joanne told me. “You need to rest.”

Rest. The word felt almost obscene.

“They’ll find me,” I echoed.

“No one will enter this convent without my permission,” Sister Marina replied.

I looked at her. She seemed to mean it, which should have set my mind at ease, but it didn’t.