The Penitentiary

The sobbing was so faint that it likely wouldn't have woken Uziel if he had been asleep.  Therefore, he decided, he was glad that he had been lying awake with his thoughts chasing one other for most of the last hour.  

Uziel rolled off the hard bench that served as his makeshift bed and began to fumble his way across the chapel towards the sound.  Not so much as a candle was lit--even after giving his promise not to leave and the added assurance of the Glyphcraft bindings on his magic, they wouldn't trust him with a heat source--but there was moonlight streaming in through the window-glass, and it caught on the silver worked into every surface in this wing of the cathedral.  Not enough to see well by, but enough that he didn't run headlong into any of the furnishings.

His ears led him right up to the marble wall, and he trailed his fingers against the cool surface as he moved along it.  At last Uziel's he ran up against something cold and rough, set into the wall: a grate, the brazier within cold and unlit.  The crying was echoing from the interior of the grating, from some sort of chimney that led up into the walls.  

Uziel leaned closer, his brow furrowing.  "Dahlia?" he called, trying to pitch his voice low.  The guards outside the heavy doors leading into the cathedral proper had more or less left him to his own devices, but he could only imagine how readily they would believe the prisoners were conspiring.  To what end, he had no idea, but right now their jailors were certainly ready to think the worst of them.  

Uziel had to repeat the call several times before the crying finally stopped and Dahlia's quavering voice came through the grating in reply.  "Uziel?"

"It's me," Uziel said, trying to project as much reassurance as possible.  "Are you okay?"

A bitter laugh came back to him, piercingly sharp even after its trip through the walls.

Uziel rubbed the back of his neck.  "Sorry.  It was a pretty stupid question, wasn't it?  I don't seem to be very good at this kind of thing.  Helping people feel better."

"Why would you want me to feel better?" Dahlia asked morosely.

Uziel blinked several times.  "Because you're my friend?"

Dahlia's reply came in a sudden wail, making Uziel flinch.  "But I betrayed you all!  I betrayed the City!  The people I killed...and what I did to Rufus..."  Her voice broke off, and Uziel worried she was about to start crying again.

Before she could, Uziel hurried to say, "Hey.  That wasn't you.  That was the thing the Balance put in your head."

"Uziel, that 'thing' was me.  She had my memories.  She used my Ikon.  The blood was literally on my hands.  And I...I just watched it all happen."

Uziel rested his forehead against the cold metal of the grate.  "Dahlia, I don't blame you for any of that."

Dahlia's voice was a thin whisper.  "You should."

"No.  Listen to me.  It was not your fault.  They turned you into a Sleeper.  If you want to blame somebody, blame Forsyth for using you like that."  There was poorly-muffled whimper from beyond the wall, and Uziel hurried to continue, "Or...or Adah, for helping him to do it.  You did nothing of your own volition, but she knew what she was doing.  She knew!  She called you sister, and then gave you to Forsyth.  To take your choice away."  

Uziel caught his breath, suddenly aware of the tightness in his chest.  He pressed his palms against the marble wall to still the trembling in his hands.  "We trusted her," he said, his voice rasping strangely in his throat.  "If we're talking about betrayals, she's the one who should answer for what 'you' did."  

The outburst had loosed something inside him, and Uziel bit down on the harsher words that would have followed.  He could feel his heart thudding, and he forced himself into a Seven Skies breathing technique that was supposed to be calming.  Just when he was starting to fear from the silence that Dahlia must have fled the conversation at some point during his tirade, she spoke again, her voice hollow.  "I don't understand why you don't hate me, too."

Uziel let out a rough sigh, running a palm over his face.  "I don't hate Adah.  I guess I'm angry with her, angrier than I had thought I was.  Than I thought I could be. And as for you..."  A ghost of a smile played over his lips.  "She tried to kill me.  You just tried to kill Alonzar.  Somehow I think I'll find a way to forgive you."

There was no actual laughter in response to his joke, but neither did the crying resume.  And very faintly, Uziel swore he could hear that little huff Dahlia would sometimes let out, when she thought something was amusing but beneath her dignity to admit as such.  

Given the circumstances, he would take it as a victory.  

"I'm not going anywhere, Dahlia," Uziel insisted.  "And I'm definitely not giving up on you.  Okay?"

Silence.  Then, softly: "All right."

Now a true smile lit Uziel's face.  "Good."