The Church (The Cloister Trilogy 3)

“She shined.” I remember every moment of her sparkle.

“She did.” He nods. “And I was so afraid I’d do something to dull it. I did what I had to do as her Protector, but I treated her differently than the others. Grace knew it.” His tone turns hard. “She tried to use it against me. Threatened me with hurting M-Georgia. Sorry, Georgia.”

“What did Grace want?” I can guess, but I want to hear it from Noah.

“Adam. She’s always wanted him.”

I flex the finger she broke. “Makes sense.” Turning over, I groan and face Noah, though I have to crane my head up at an awkward angle to meet his eyes. “Tell me more about her.” I’m starved for this information, for this glimpse at what my sister’s life was like when she was beyond my reach.

“Not much to tell. The Cloister hasn’t changed since then. Georgia kept her spirits up, helped the other girls and assured them that this life wasn’t forever.” He smiles, but it’s wistful and sad. “I got in trouble for that, for giving her too much leash, Dad would say. The Maidens aren’t supposed to be like her—” He blinks. “Like you. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. You remind me of her.”

“What happened to her?”

He turns away, his face shaded in darkness. “I thought she ran away. That’s what we all thought.”

“She didn’t.”

“She didn’t.” He sighs.

“Do you know who did it?” I hold my breath.

“No.” He doesn’t look at me.

“Noah.” I force myself to sit and face him. “Tell me.”

He stays silent for a long time, his eyes hidden from me. “Adam is off the cross.”

“What?” I cover my hand to hold in a sob of relief, his words a blindside. “He is? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.” He finally meets my gaze. “Someone knocked out the guard and took him down. The Prophet is turning the compound upside-down trying to find him.”

I can barely believe what he’s said. “Someone saved him?”

“Looks like it.”

“Was it you?”

He shakes his head. “I was too late. Just like always.”

“Everyone, out of your rooms. This is a search!” A masculine yell comes from the hallway.

I grab Noah’s hand, urgency eating away at any time I may have had to think through what he’d just revealed about Adam. “Please, my sister. Please tell me who killed her. You know. I can tell you know who it was.”

He rises. “I have to go.”

“No.” I stand and block his way around the bed. “Tell me now!”

With a sad shake of his head, he pushes past me. “You can’t ask that of me.”

I grab his arm and yank. “I’m not asking. Tell me!”

He pulls away, gently removing my hand from his arm. “I won’t, and I never will.”

My hands shake, and I want to hurt him, to make him feel the emptiness inside that I do whenever I think about what happened to Georgia.

“Coward!” I beat on his back as he walks to my door.

He opens the door as the rest of the Maidens pile into the hallway, men rushing this way and that, the sound of crashing furniture mixed with shouts of “not here!”

A Spinner stands just a few feet away, her eyes wide at the destruction.

“You’re a goddamn coward,” I hiss at Noah.

He turns to me, his head down. “I know.” When he meets my eyes, I feel like a steely piece of Adam is looking out at me. “But that’s about to change.”

Chapter 10

Adam

Silence. The cloying kind that seems to invade every cell. I blink my eyes open and stare at nothing. Pitch black. A series of dull aches tear through me, the pain pulsing along with the beat of my heart. They come from everywhere, and my hands and feet feel as if they’re tearing away, the skin gone, bones exposed, biting ants chewing through what flesh is left.

I try to sit up. My forehead knocks against wood. What the fuck? Spreading my arms, my elbows bump against more wood. I’m in a coffin. I shake my head, willing away the rising panic, but my breathing speeds up, my pain increasing with each tortured beat of my frantic heart.

Pressing my hand against the wood is a mistake. Agony snakes up my arm, and I have to gulp in a breath as sparks burst in the dark. Instead, I use my knee, lifting my right leg and bumping the top of the coffin. It’s sturdy, barely moving despite my efforts. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead to my temple, and I force myself to relax. Or at least I try to. Think. There has to be a way out of this—whatever this is.

How did I get here? I cast my thoughts back to the cross, to Jez. I put my hands together in the narrow space over my chest. Feeling around, I can tell they’re both well-bandaged. Why go to the effort of fixing me up just to bury me alive? Maybe they were just playing some sick game. Maybe my father put them up to it.