The Year of the Witching(30)

Leah reached for her hand. “Immanuelle? What’s wrong?”

Immanuelle didn’t answer. Her thoughts were reeling so quickly it was impossible to form words. If she were a better person, she would have confessed to everything then and there. She would have gone to Apostle Isaac, told him what she knew about the plague—how it started, where, and the fact that she suspected there were more to come. She would have turned in her mother’s journal. But Immanuelle knew that if she did that, there was a strong chance she’d be sent to the pyre on charges of witchcraft. To inform the Church was to damn herself—she was certain of it. And the thought of rendering Miriam’s journal to the Church was unbearable. It might have been used to bait her, but it was still a piece of her mother, and more than that, it was the locus of her knowledge about the witches and the woods they roamed. Perhaps it could still be of some use to her.

Something dawned on her then, a dangerous idea . . . What if there was another way? A way to stop the blood plague without involving the Church, without incriminating herself. What if she could end the plague the same way she started it: with her blood?

It wasn’t such a strange idea. It stood to reason that if a sacrifice unleashed all this evil upon Bethel, another sacrifice could draw it back. Perhaps if she returned to the forest, she could undo what was done. After all, it was her blood that spawned this plague; maybe her blood could end it too.

But if she entered the woods again—no, when she entered the woods again, she would need to be prepared. This was no time for instincts and deductions; she needed facts. She knew that breaking the plague couldn’t be as simple as going to the Darkwood and bleeding. There had to be something more, some ritual to how an offering was made. But there was no way for her to access that information on her own. Immanuelle was going to need an accomplice—someone with the keys to the Prophet’s library—and she knew exactly whom to turn to.

“I need to speak with Ezra,” said Immanuelle, craning to peer through the thinning crowds. “Do you know where he is?”

Leah frowned, clearly confused. “Why do you need to speak to him?”

“He owes me a favor,” she said, thinking back to their conversation in the pasture. Ezra had told her that the Prophet’s library was an extensive collection. If there was any information on the practices of witches and how they cast and broke their plagues, it would have to be there.

“Perhaps we should just go outside,” said Leah, in the gentle way you’d talk down a spooked horse. “Take some air. You look like you’re about to faint.”

Immanuelle spotted Ezra then, standing at the foot of the altar where Apostle Isaac had delivered his speech just a few minutes before. He was chatting with a group of friends, but to Immanuelle’s surprise it wasn’t a challenge to catch his eye. When she gestured toward a dark corridor on the eastern wing of the cathedral, he was quick to dismiss himself, shouldering through his friends with barely a parting word.

“Wait—” said Leah, almost frantic in her concern.

Immanuelle waved her off. “I’ll only be a moment.”

And with that, she started after Ezra, wading through the crowd until she reached the empty pew where he stood waiting.

“I thought your grandmother was going to slit my throat. Is she always that intimidating or . . . ?” He faltered, reading her expression. “What’s wrong? I didn’t get you into any trouble, did I?”

“Not at all. I just need a moment of your time, if you have it to spare.”

Ezra’s eyes narrowed but he nodded and led her to a small apse off the main cathedral. Here, there were two prayer benches standing side by side before a stone effigy of the Holy Father. On a low altar were dozens of candles, most of them lit and flickering. In a ceramic platter, incense burned and the fragrant smoke hung on the air like threads of spider silk.

Ezra and Immanuelle knelt on the bench, shoulder to shoulder, and lit candles, as was custom, one for each of them. Immanuelle clasped her hands and bowed her head. “The last time we talked, you mentioned the Prophet’s library. You said there were all sorts of books there. Even books of knowledge, like the one you showed me in the market that day.”

He nodded. “If there’s a book you want, give me the title and I’ll fetch it for you.”

“That’s just it, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. I’d have to be there, in the flesh, sort through the books myself in order to find what I want, what I need.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“A way to stop the blood plague.”

Ezra blinked at her, and with no small measure of satisfaction, she realized she’d caught him off guard. His expression went from contemplative to troubled. “Shouldn’t you leave the business of breaking plagues to the Church?”

“Why should I when the men of the Church are clearly no more informed than I am?” Of course it wasn’t just that; she’d hidden the truth about her own role in the blood plague, and the way the witches had used her to spawn it. But she couldn’t trust Ezra with such things. He might be a rebel in his own way, skeptical of the very Church he served, but he was still the Prophet’s heir. “I want to help, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to.”

Ezra watched the candles in silence for a long time, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s forbidden for women to walk the halls of the library.”