Saints and Sinners

Thirty-eight:

Thirty-eight:

Aleksander was gone for two days again. Alina was alone. There was a fake Apparat and there were soulmates that were magically getting Blessings that should have been dead. Aleksander had been quiet, and distant since their trip to the church. The last thing that Alina had thought would come out was Aleksander's backstory at the church.

Since their visit to the cathedral, she'd been having trouble sleeping. Aleksander's words kept on running through her mind. Everything he had said about the church, and his father, and how greed begot greed. Alina used to take comfort in the church. Now, the thing that brought her comfort was the thing that was keeping her up at night. The thing that was giving her nightmares. Every night she had the same dream. She walked into the cathedral, saw the statues of the Saints looking down at her, and then Aleksander was there at the head of the church.

The Apparat would place a knife in Aleksander's hand, and he would force Aleksander to walk towards her. Then, he would plunge the knife in her heart, and Alina would let out a scream. Each time she had woken up from it, Aleksander had already been gone, off to do some business with who she didn't know. He was sending someone to Fjerda to look into Brum and the fake Apparat. Alina had no idea what that could have meant. Because he wasn't talking with her at all, and she could feel him pulling away.

Alina wanted to do something besides sit and wait. She tried to focus on her schoolwork but her mind kept on turning to Nina and Hanne, and the Blessings. She was sitting at the dining room, trying to study, when Ivan walked in on her throwing a pencil.

Ivan raised an eyebrow at her. "Are you okay?"

"I made Aleksander go to church to look for answers about Hanne and Nina."

Ivan's eyes widened. "You got Aleksander to go into a church? Willingly?"

"Well, I mean...I'm pretty sure he did it because I wouldn't shut up about it." Alina winced.

"So...you know who his father is then?" Ivan said.

"Yes," she said, "and The Apparat says that there's someone that is going around posing as him. Aleksander's gone to help find out who. He said he had someone that could help get us into Fjerda, but he's being evasive, and he won't talk to me. I think may have pushed him a little too far."

"He must have gone to Kaz for that."

"Kaz?" said Alina. "Why would he go to Kaz? I thought he was only his business partner in The Crow Club."

Ivan snorted. "Aleksander might not have had a choice in his dirty dealings, but Kaz is the kind of person that you go to when you need to cover a body that's already been covered. Matthias was also like a brother to him because Kaz helped----" Ivan paled as he realized that he had said too much.

Alina tilted her head to the side. "Kaz helped what?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that Kaz Brekker helped break Matthias Helvar out of prison."

Alina raised an eyebrow. "Matthias was in prison?"

Ivan nodded. "He tried to kill Jarl Brum, remember? When he first got to Ravka, he was wanted. Aleksander made that all go away."

"How'd he make that go away?" Alina asked.

"I don't think you want to know."

Alina frowned. "Why does everyone think that I don't want to know?"

"But you're so..."

"What?"

"Saintly," Ivan replied making Alina groan, "one of your biggest fights is about Aleksander's darker activities. I didn't think you would want to know. That's probably why he's pulling away from you now."

Alina clenched her fists together and unclenched them. "I don't know what to do. I want to know what he's doing but I..."

"You don't approve of what he's doing?" Ivan finished.

She nodded.

"Fedyor and I first met because he was working security for Aleksander. The first time that I saw him he was beating someone to a pulp in an underground fighting ring he was investigating for him."

"What were you doing at an underground fighting ring, Ivan?" Alina asked with a smirk.

Ivan winked at her. "Bartending."

Alina raised an eyebrow. "Bartending?"

Ivan nodded. "People get wasted at these things. They like their kvas with their blood. Something about Ravkaan cold really gets to them. But the point is, Fedyor was covered in blood, and he had pummeled a man nearly to death. He looked over at me and I thought that's the most dangerous man in Ravka. Then, I was Blessed."

"And you weren't terrified?" Alina asked.

"Oh, I was," said Ivan, "that didn't stop us from tearing into each other after the fight. He told me what he did right away, which helped."

"Are you ever not scared for him?"

"No," Ivan said, "but I also realized he wasn't the scariest man in all of Ravka, and that helped me sleep a little bit better."

"Who's the scariest man in all of Ravka?"

Ivan shot her a pointed look, and Alina knew the answer without him saying a word.

"Aleksander," she said.

Ivan nodded. "Aleksander."

Alina's cell phone started vibrating then, and there was a knock on her door. Alina frowned. "Who could that be?"

"I don't know," said Ivan, "I don't think we're expecting anyone today. Maybe Zoya's dropping something off."

"She doesn't knock," Alina said, and her cell phone vibrated again. Aleksander's name flashed across the screen. She picked it up, and said, "Hello?"

She made her way to the door with her cell phone to her ear. She could hear static, and what she thought was Aleksander's voice.

"Alina," she heard Aleksander saying her name, "Alina, there's been a problem."

Whoever was at the door was getting more insistent. Alina opened the door and was surprised to see the man that had been at the safe house when Matthias's body was found standing there. The stad watch officer. "Miss Starkov," the stad watch officer greeted, showing her his badge, "we have just received word that your husband was blackmailing The Apparat. We're holding him under arrest, and we've been given an emergency search warrant to look at the premises."

Alina shook her head. "Husband? He's not my husband. He's my soulmate."

"Hmm," said the stad watch officer, "we have a search warrant to search the property."

"Alina----" Alina could hear Aleksander trying to call her name on the phone, and then it she heard static. The stad watch officer shoved the warrant into her hands and then before she knew it, he had shoved past her into the apartment.