“You think I’m being irrational?”
“You have too much faith in your order. The Avel hierophants might have been corrupted.”
“By a demon who crossed the ocean? Francesca, that’s madness.” He stepped closer. “You can’t trust this Deirdre woman.”
Francesca tried to touch her own face but found her arm still trapped in her stiff robes. “Cyrus, she died on my table and then came back to life. She’s not a woman; she’s an immortal avatar. Something horrible is happening in Avel, so we have to be smart.”
“And I’m not being smart?”
“You’re being a loyal soldier.” A shadow passed above them as a lofting kite alighted in a different landing bay.
He crossed his arms. “And that’s still what hierophants are to you? Loyal, unthinking Spirish soldiers? Not authors like the exalted wizards?”
“You take duty and hierarchy too far.”
He threw his hands up. “How do you do it, Fran? I catch you when you fall out of a kite. I fly you away from some blasted aphasia curse. I even bind and censor you, and you still manage to patronize me. Don’t you see that for once you’re not in control?”
He was beginning to breathe faster. Francesca felt a grim satisfaction. The more she could upset him, the better.
She shook her head and felt her stiff collar rub against her neck. “I don’t mean to patronize you, Cyrus. You’re right, I can’t trust Deirdre. But I can’t trust the tower warden or the air marshal either. I can’t trust anyone.”
His hands clenched. “I am sorry, Francesca, but just this once you have to trust me.”
“No, I don’t. You’re going to release me.”
“You’re censored. You can’t order me around.”
She kept her voice calm. “I can. You just don’t know what’s best now.”
“Holy bloody canon! That’s it! I’m done talking to you,” he snapped and then grimaced and touched his chest. “You’re impossible.” He grimaced again, and then shook his left hand. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Cyrus, it’s started. You’re in danger,” Francesca said earnestly. “You must listen to—”
“Damn it, I’m not going to waste my time!” He turned and marched toward the wall flap. “I’ll be back in …” After a few steps, he brought his hand to his chest and gasped.
“You feel a crushing pain just under your sternum,” Francesca announced. “It’s moving to your left arm, maybe your left jaw as well.”
He looked back at her, his face twisted with pain.
“Your heart’s racing. You’re sweating. Maybe you even taste something metallic.”
He swallowed. “When did you do it? When you were searching my body for the curse?”
She nodded.
“You put a spell in my brain?”
“Your heart.”
He grimaced. “What’s it doing?”
“With every beat, your heart pumps blood into the aorta and so to the rest of your body. There are two small arteries at the aorta’s base that run back down and supply your heart with blood, the coronary arteries. There’s a short Magnus sentence wrapped around your left coronary. It’s contracting, depriving your heart of blood. Your ability to spellwrite is decreasing.”
“Burning heaven! How could you—” His words cut short as he gasped. “You’re a physician. You swore never—”
“Never to harm a patient,” she said evenly. “You, Cyrus, are not my patient. Presently you’re my captor who is threatening to disclose information that may endanger all of Avel. My physician’s oath compels me to stop you however I can. Now, stay calm. Slow your pulse and stop spellwriting; your heart will need less blood. The pain will decrease.”
He took a slow breath. “What if I order another hierophant to disspell it?”
She sniffed. “It had better be done perfectly. You’ve sharp words next to your heart. If one should go astray …”
He closed his eyes and then shook his head. He spoke in a low rasp. “Celeste and every demigod in her canon damn you to the burning hells, Francesca.”
“I couldn’t trust—”
“You always had to win,” he whispered and clamped his eyes shut. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
Guilt moved through Francesca. “Cyrus … I’m sorry.”
“Like hell you are.” He clutched his chest again. “Right, Fran, you win. You win again. How’d you know to make the spell contract now?”
She kept her voice even. “I had been casting signaling texts. Every few moments, one would hit the spell in your heart, instructing it not to construct. But since you censored me …”
He let out a tremulous breath and laughed humorlessly. “A fail-safe. You wrote a fail-safe.”
She nodded. “More like a fail-deadly. It’s a spell we clerics use in extreme circumstances. Sometimes, we’re approached by bandits or rogue spellwrights. They want us to treat their wounded. So we cast the death sentence on the leader’s coronary artery before we proceed. If any of the rogues censor or kill us, their leader dies.”
“You call this spell a death sentence?”
“Uncensor me and I’ll loosen yours.”
He walked over and touched the stole tied around her temples. The red silk fell to her shoulders. Her robes were again merely slack fabric. A chill ran through Francesca’s head as she was restored to magic. After shivering, she flicked a wave of signal spells into Cyrus’s chest. One struck the sentence constricting his coronary artery, and it relaxed.
“Did it work?” Cyrus asked.
She nodded. “So long as I’m near you and uncensored, you won’t have a problem.”
He pressed a hand to his forehead and looked exhausted. “And if I tell the tower warden about Deirdre?”
“You won’t.”
He looked at her. “How in all the hells is this supposed to work, Fran? You’re going to hold my spellbound heart hostage, kill me if I do something you don’t like?”
She straightened her stole. “You’ve sworn to protect Avel. I’ve sworn to care for her people. We both need to discover what is threatening the city. But we have to be subtle about it. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to coerce you, that I could make you see reason. But you fought me all the way. So now the sentence stays around your coronary, and I will be making the decisions.”
Cyrus rubbed his temples. “Death sentence,” he muttered and then laughed. He turned to look her in the eyes. “I don’t know what hurts more: your getting the better of me, your strangling my heart, or your damned stupid pun.”
Chapter Sixteen
Cyrus had just removed the spells from Francesca’s robes when the hierophantic apprentice returned with orders to report to the warden and marshal on the jumpdeck. After delivering her message, the girl hurried away.
Cyrus stared at Francesca. “I refuse to lie.”
“Then don’t,” she said. “Just leave out what’s dangerous. You were flying above Avel when you saw me fall from a kite. After catching me, you learned that the sanctuary might be under attack and came here to warn the wind marshal.”
He crossed his arms. “You want me to be a storyteller?”
“Unless