28
It’s hard to sleep that night. While the walls are much thicker here than they are at Mount Sergius, they might as well be made of candle smoke after Elijah said the thing he said. I am so very aware of him on the other side of the wall, and at least twice I sit up in bed, determined to go knock on his door. To apologize for the hermitage, and also to promise that it will never happen again, and also to ask if he minds saying more things about how he misses me when we’re apart?
But I don’t do any of that. Instead, I lie back down and manage to coax myself into a fitful sleep, which ends when I hear the bell tolling from the church for vigils. I wash up, replace the plastic chastity device I’d worn yesterday to fly with my metal one, and then walk to the church. Elijah arrives a
