Book 2, Chapter 38: Contra Proferentem

A faint white glow appeared around Helena as she stood. The air went thick, and Clara had to put effort into breathing.

“Lady Helena, wait,” Clara said, in her best attempt at calm. “Remember your promise. Let’s talk to Her Eminence. We have to do this the right way.”

Helena turned to Clara, the smile gone from her face. “Of course I remember, friend. But we should get the whole truth for the Cardinal Primate, right? It is a virtue, after all.” Then she raised her bandaged left hand.

There was a wet crack from across the desk.

Clara turned.

Mother Cornelia’s left arm had been bent backward from the elbow. The custodian didn’t scream; she simply looked down in shock.

“What… What is happening? What have you—I can’t—why don’t I—”

“Helena, stop! You promised me!” Clara lunged, but her knees buckled, then her shoulders fell. Before she knew it, she was lying flat on the floor, cheek against the rug, pinned by the invisible weight of Helena’s magic.

“It’s okay, Clara.” Helena glanced back at her and gave a reassuring nod. “I’m keeping my promise. This isn’t magic, it’s the power of the Goddess. I also made sure she’s not in any pain at all, so I’m really not hurting her. She doesn’t deserve it, anyway.”

That’s—No. That’s not what that means.

Clara tried to push herself up, but her limbs were as good as paralyzed.

“Listen to me, Helena! I’m not from here! I—”

Helena waved two fingers, and the rest of the sentence died in Clara’s throat. She tried again and again, but the words weren’t coming out, no matter how much she willed them to.

“Sorry, friend. You keep interrupting, and Mother Cornelia is about to tell me something important.” Helena shushed her kindly, as if Clara were nothing but a troublesome child at a sermon. “You can tell me all about where you’re from later, though! I’d love to hear it.”

Fuck.

“You cannot do this,” Mother Cornelia protested. “The Council will hear of it!”

“Don’t worry, it’s not permanent—I promised Clara I wouldn’t injure anyone. It only counts if it stays, so I’ll fix it after you tell me the truth. And this way, we don’t have to use the Blessing and we aren’t breaking the rules of the Ministry, just like you wanted.” Helena’s tone was equal parts soft and eerie.

That’s not how any of this works!

Except there was a logic to it, wasn’t there? No pain, so no hurt. Not permanent, so not an injury. The Goddess’s power, so not magic. If you stretched every term to the interpretation that maximally favored the non-drafting party, it was a defensible reading.

“Now.” Helena pulled her chair closer to Cornelia, sat down and folded her hands in her lap. “Mother, were you at the archives last night?”

“I… I have already given my answer to that.” Cornelia’s voice came out thin. “Lady Helena, this is a breach of the ordinances, as the statute of Mont Sainte-Michelle holds that no member of the Ministry may be compelled—”

The arm twisted another degree. Cornelia’s whole body jerked, but her face held only bewilderment, as if this were happening to someone else.

“Do the ordinances say anything about lying, Mother? Because the scriptures do.”

“I am not—”

“Mother.” Helena leaned in. “The coin was dropped in the shaft at night. You handed it to the office before the first bell. You’ve worked so hard for the Church, why would you endanger your soul by sinning now? Please stop making me do this.”

Objection, Clara wanted to shout. Even if Cornelia were guilty, a statement made under duress was useless and shouldn’t be admissible as evidence. If that was being done to me, I’d confess to anything. Maybe Cornelia did do it—I think she probably did—but this isn’t how you prove it.

Mother Cornelia looked at her arm.

“I was at the archives,” she admitted.

“Thank you.” Helena’s smile returned, smaller than usual. “Did you meet Mother Radegund there?”

“…Yes.”

“On top of the stairs?”

“Inside the restricted room,” Cornelia said. “She was sitting there, with the door open, waiting for me.”

“What happened then?”

“When she heard me arrive, she mocked me. She called me ‘young one.’ just to make the point that she was more senior.”

So that’s what that was. A dig, on purpose.

“Did you grab Mother Radegund’s arm?” Helena asked.

Cornelia’s good hand clutched her robe. “I… I did.”

A knock against the office door. “Mother Cornelia, I have the reports you asked for,” a woman called from the corridor.

“Sister Marcia! Help me! Please! Goddess, someone, save me!” Cornelia cried.

The door began to open.

But Helena didn’t allow it. She flung out her right hand, and the wood slammed shut. Sister Marcia hammered against it from the outside, but the door didn’t budge.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Mother Cornelia,” Helena said. “The Goddess isn’t looking at you right now. You aren’t in pain, so why would She pay attention? You can’t trick Her, you know. Answer me: did you kill Mother Radegund?”

Cornelia’s arm shifted further, and she flinched from sheer terror. “Stop! Stop, I’ll answer, I’ll answer whatever you want!”

The custodian sagged in the chair, tears running down her face. When she spoke again, the words came out of her all at once, as if they’d been waiting to be let out.

“Twenty-one years. For twenty-one years have I kept this abbey. Every ledger, every stone, every acolyte—I’ve made sure everything is as the ordinances require.” Her register climbed. “And in this entire time, that woman never once kept a rotation. She missed sermons, she refused prayers, she told pilgrims that the relics they had traveled across the Kingdom to see were goat bones. That is her legacy. And yet, the Ecumenical Council looked at the two of us and chose seniority. When I saw the seating charts, I went to speak to her. She said she was busy with her books—those sinful ledgers that the Ministry overlooks despite my efforts. So, she suggested we meet at the restricted section, later. She liked to talk to me there. It was her way of reminding me she had a gold key and I didn’t.”

Helena said nothing. Even the hammering outside stopped, and Clara hoped Sister Marcia had gone to get help. Then again, what kind of help could even fix a situation like this?

“I asked her to withdraw,” Cornelia continued. “That was all I intended, I swear it on my robes. I gave the Church my life, and I deserved to be at the front, to witness Elowen’s Diadem placed atop the head of the first Saintess in hundreds of years. I told Radegund she had no use for the seat, she could not even see the ceremony, and she—” The custodian’s brow furrowed. “She laughed at me. So, yes. Yes, I did it. I pulled her out of the restricted room and pushed her down the shaft. I confess!”

It wasn’t the first time Clara had watched a person who lived for their job crack because someone else got recognition. And the fact that Mother Cornelia was so devoted to her rules and Radegund constantly ignored authority would’ve added even more fuel to the fire.

“N-No… So it’s true…” Helena whispered. “It wasn’t the Goddess who took her…” The sight of despairon the girl’s shining face was surreal. “No! I don’t want this!”

The room rumbled in response to her wail.

Goddess, what is she going to do?

The air thickened further. Yet Clara sensed something different in it this time, like the pressure wasn’t coming from Helena but from—

Then there was a thundering crash, and the door tore off its hinges, pulverized by a flood of energy.

A figure stood in the now-empty doorway, white and gold against the rays of sunset, amber eyes taking in the room with terrible calm.

The Pope raised her hand, and the diamond on her finger gleamed.

“Desine.”

The chant was a single word, which Clara heard projected inside her skull. The pressure that had been crushing her into the floor snapped away, and so did the weight on her throat.

Helena screamed.

Raw force pulsed outward, tipping over the chairs and sending books flying. Clara was thrown back, gasping in pain when she hit the wall.

“Mother Radegund wasn’t supposed to die!” Helena sobbed, her feet leaving the floor. “She should have seen my ceremony! She waited so long!”

“Be still, child.” The Pope stepped into the room, her white-and-gold robes billowing. Behind her, the Cardinal Primate clung to the ruined doorway.

The Pope scanned the scene, her attention settling on Clara. “What has happened here?”

Clara pushed herself up. “It’s a very long story, Your Holiness. But please, you have to help calm Lady Helena down! Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

“Mother Cornelia killed her!” Tears slid down Helena’s cheeks as she pleaded, her face a mess of hurt. “That’s sin! She must be punished! The Goddess demands it! Then everything will be okay!”

“All sins ought to be judged,” agreed the Pope. “But not by you. Yield, and the Cardinal Primate and I shall see to what must be done.”

“No! The Goddess works through me! I… I can feel Her within me!” The air contracted with Helena’s breathing. “I can’t—This is—”

Clara braced herself, expecting another pulse.

But the Pope’s chant was faster. “Sphaera continens. Claudatur.”

A containing sphere. Let it be closed.

A gust of silver wind swept from the Pope to Helena, closing around her and chaining her energy within.

The room went silent, save for the Pope’s breathing.

Cardinal Primate Aemilia stepped inside and moved straight to where Cornelia had folded onto the rug. “Cornelia, you poor woman. What happened to you?”

Aemilia braced a shoulder under the custodian. Without Helena’s magic to suppress the pain, Cornelia screamed as her elbow brushed the floor.

Clara winced. Hopefully, the Pope can fix this.

As if to deny it, another wave of pressure came from Helena, battering the Pope’s sphere.

“Circumdet. Nihil egrediatur,” the Pope chanted.

The wind swelled until the office became a violent whirlwind, the Pope’s magic straining against Helena’s surging power. The rumbling caused the chandelier to break free from the ceiling. It tumbled down, its heavy jeweled arms cracking and scattering on impact.

She’s struggling. Goddess, even the Pope is struggling.

“This is… The child has lost control. She draws more energy than ought to be possible, yet still it rises, as though there is no bottom to it.” A single bead of sweat dripped down the Pope’s brow. “Aemilia, take the custodian and go. We do not have the anchor, so you must rouse the abbey and see it emptied forthwith.”

“As you command, Your Holiness,” answered the Cardinal Primate as she dragged Cornelia into the hallway.

The Pope glanced at Clara. “Go with her. Helena Rosewood’s magical energy is a dam about to burst, and not even I can stay it.”

Burst?

Clara squinted at Helena through the containment sphere. The girl was glowing like a dying star, so bright that Clara could barely make out pained face.

Clara crawled closer to the Pope, unable to keep herself upright against the storm. “What’s going to happen to Helena?” She raised her voice high enough to pierce through the turbulence.

“Should the containment break, I fear nothing within her reach will be spared. I will do what I can to protect the child, but if the worst comes to pass, both she and I may be greeted by the Goddess’s embrace. You must escape and tell the faithful of the miracle, if she cannot. They need to know that the Goddess has not abandoned them.”

Cracks of light webbed across the sphere’s surface where Helena’s power gnawed at it. Then if this keeps up, she’ll die?And the Pope with her?

Debris whirled through the air, a mess of papers, books, broken wood, and pieces of the chandelier. A splinter pricked Clara’s right hand, but she pushed the sting away, her mind racing.

What was the right thing to do here?

Yes, Helena Rosewood’s morality was twisted; yes, she was overwhelmingly powerful. If Iris was right, she might even be a sociopath fooling everyone around her for power and status. And to top it off, Helena believed she spoke for the Goddess, which was quickly proving itself to be a massive problem.

A strict utilitarian looking at this like a trolley problem might have judged it was better to let her burn herself out than to risk her misusing her powers again or losing control in an even worse situation.

Yet, despite everything, Helena was still a young girl. One who’d been scarred for ‘treatment,’ who’d cut herself and only cared about carrots. Who’d been so excited at the prospect of a pinky promise.

A girl who had called Clara a friend.

I want to help her.

There had to be something Clara could do, some way to handle this without anyone else having to be hurt. Some way to reach out for her hand.

If only I could get her to hear me, I could knock her out. But the Pope’s sphere had sealed Helena in, and Clara had no way of knowing if her voice could reach inside. Worse—if she yelled about her transmigration and the Pope heard her, but Helena didn’t, things would get much uglier.

The tide bell rang. Instead of the usual orderly rhythm, it chimed in a frantic back-and-forth—the Cardinal Primate’s signal, in all likelihood.

“I cannot keep hold of this indefinitely—only stall it for the sake of the evacuation. If you remain here, you will perish. Withdraw,” the Pope commanded.

Like hell I will. I’m saving you both.