Chapter 33

Baron froze mid-chew. Sister Theresa gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "The flower is called the Maiden's Bloom. Didn't Mister L know?"

Baron blinked, certain he had misheard the name.

But Sister Theresa continued in the same soft voice. "It comes from the far north, from Suluka, and grows only beneath the ice towers on the snow mountains. In Suluka, when a girl falls in love, she climbs the mountain to pick a bouquet, then carries it downhill to the boy she likes. The gift says her love is pure and passionate."

A faint smile touched her lips. "Of course, the custom is ancient. I only read of it myself. I think Miss Sheila didn't know either; the flowers were probably just her way of saying thank-you..."

Theresa watched the dazed young man's eyes suddenly flare with understanding. "I see!"

The nun tilted her head. "Mister L, what exactly do you see?"

Baron gave no answer. He picked up the bouquet and his plate, beckoned to Olivia—the little novice who had appointed herself his shadow—and strode out of the cathedral. Theresa watched the tall and small figures vanish into the light. Unspoken questions lingered behind her gentle, resigned smile.

...

In the library, after Baron finished giving Olivia her instructions, the novice flushed. "Mister L... are you truly going to ask Doctor Rowan such questions?"

Doctor Rowan was the physician who performed the autopsies on girls slain by blood fiends.

"Your words remind me—take this too."

Baron drew a dark, wrinkled fruit from his pocket—the very tree-fruit he had popped into his mouth at the Baron's house the night before.

"Ask him what it's good for and who usually eats it," he instructed.

He pulled out a sheet of paper and, from memory, listed the medicines he had seen in the storeroom with the broken window, then sent Olivia off to Rowan with the list.

"But..." Olivia hesitated. "Sister Theresa asked me to lead the afternoon service."

"Haven't you wanted to thank me?" Baron's voice was quiet but firm. "Show your gratitude with action."

Watching the little nun hurry away, Baron's smile faded. He did not enjoy binding a kind girl like Olivia with moral obligation, yet some questions had to be answered.

Why, in last night's cellar, had every other herb been sorted and labeled, while the room with the shattered window held a chaotic heap?

Why did the Baroness lie in bed, wrapped in blankets so no one could see her?

Why did that same storeroom bear childish scrawls on every wall, while the others had none?

And the bundle of Timebloom Sheila had mentioned—he remembered it resting not with the herbs but in the curing-chamber beside hams, thick with the stink of nitrite and metal.

He gave a wry twist of the lips. "My life was hanging by a thread last night, and here I am chasing ghosts."

"Perhaps that is the fate of a prisoner."

He drew from the shelf the book he had long wanted but never found time to read: The Complete Sects of Prol, compiled by a man named Finn—author of the earlier Notes on Ford City. The volume outlined every major religion and cult in Prol, their gods, customs, and structures.

Sister Theresa had once said blood fiends were a lesser creation of the vampires, who in turn were bound to the Blood God. He flipped to the chapter on the Crimson Church.

...

By noon Baron closed the book, the broad shape of the Crimson Church now clear in his mind.

The church worshipped the ancient god Aesli, keeper of the First Law: the Crimson Canon. It rose to prominence during the First Faith War, when its blood-healing saved countless wounded soldiers. After the Second Faith War, when the Purist Church withdrew following the capture of the Forgotten Witch, the Crimson Church became the second largest in the land, surpassed only by the Black Moon Church that served the Lonely Silver-Faced Goddess.

Those who embraced the healing power of blood called themselves the Crimson Sect and claimed to be the church's orthodoxy. Yet schism bred more schism. Political strife, shifting borders, and clashing dogma splintered the church into:

- the Howling-Blood Sect, who revered the Mad God alongside Aesli;

- the Frenzied-Blood Sect, who believed power lay in bloodletting and encouraged followers to slash their own skin to "commune" with the Blood God;

- and the Blue-Blood Sect, fanatics who claimed vampires were the true incarnation of the Blood God and urged the faithful to seek out the scattered remnants of the vampire race and become their blood-servants.

The Blue-Blood zealots, frustrated by the near extinction of vampires during the Purge, proposed a macabre alternative: manufacture new vampires from the corpses of the old. According to the author Finn, the blood fiends—warped parodies of the blood-servants—were likely the botched result of Blue-Blood experiments.

These experiments birthed one of Prol's three most notorious cults: the Lamb-Blood Nunnery, a wandering sisterhood that harvested the blood of virgins to resurrect the ancient Golden-Blood Queen.

Baron's suspicions sharpened. The Blue-Blood Sect—and their deranged offshoot—were now prime suspects.

Outside the window, the little novice hurried toward him, cheeks flushed.

...

Baron poured her a cup of water and made her speak slowly, interrupting now and then to challenge a detail. When Olivia left, the wild theory in Baron's mind had solidified into something like proof.

But the next news shattered his careful construct before it could harden into certainty.

A hunter burst into the library, panting. "Mister L! Miss Yalilan sent me. We've caught the blood fiend... the fiend is... Baroness Cambera!"

Baron froze.

Crash!

A plate slipped from a maid's fingers in the corner and shattered. The girl fled.

Baron spun back to the hunter, voice like flint. "Tell me everything—every last detail!"