The Year of the Witching(39)

“Why would you ever want to do that?”

“Because there’s more to the world than Bethel. The wilds don’t go on forever. There is life beyond them. There has to be.”

“You mean the heathen cities?”

“That’s one name for them. But before Ford built the wall, those heathen cities were Bethel’s allies.”

“But that was centuries ago.”

“I know,” said Ezra, his eyes on the horizon. “That’s why I wanted to go—to figure out what happened, to know if we’re alone out here.”

She frowned, confused. As heir, Ezra was one of the only people in Bethel who had the jurisdiction to open the Hallowed Gate and grant passage through it. It seemed to Immanuelle that if he’d really wanted to leave Bethel, he would have been gone already. “Why don’t you just go?”

Ezra slipped his dagger from his pocket by way of answer. He had yet to clean it, Immanuelle noticed, and the blade was still crusted with his blood. “I’m told my place is here.”

They fell quiet once more. The wheels of the wagon rattled through potholes and bloody puddles as they entered the Glades. While the dark was far too thick to see through, Immanuelle could hear the gentle hush hush of the wind in the branches of the western forest.

“We should go up to the cathedral’s bell tower tomorrow,” said Ezra, breaking the silence between them. “I’ll be in session with the apostles in the afternoon, but I’m free in the morning.”

His proposal startled her, both in its boldness and in the fact that he suggested it at all. When he’d mentioned taking her to the bell tower, she had never—even for a moment—expected him to follow through on that promise. But even though a part of her was excited by the prospect, she shook her head. “I can’t.”

“You have other plans?” Ezra asked, and Immanuelle had the odd suspicion that there was something else, something more behind the question, though she couldn’t say exactly what.

“I’m going to the Darkwood.” The moment the truth was free of her, she wondered why she had offered it. She supposed a small, weak part of herself wanted to impress him . . . and she hated herself for it.

But to her surprise, Ezra seemed relatively unfazed by her confession. “I thought you were afraid of the woods.”

“I am. Anyone with the good sense they were born with would be,” said Immanuelle. And while this was true, she’d come to realize that fear wasn’t a reasonable excuse not to do what needed to be done. It was a strange notion, as Immanuelle had never been particularly brave. But in the days that followed the onset of the blood plague, she’d begun growing into her own kind of courage. And she liked the feel of it. “Some things have to be done whether they scare me or not.”

Ezra shifted closer, tipping his head toward hers, and she could tell he was struggling to read her, parse out the truth. “What does a girl like you need to do in the witches’ wood?”

She didn’t see the point in lying to him. “I want to stop the bleeding,” she said simply. “And I think I know how to do it.”

Immanuelle waited for his laughter, for his ridicule, but it didn’t come. “I’ll meet you by the well at daybreak.”

It was her turn to be shocked. “You can’t come with me.”

“I can and will,” said Ezra, as if the matter had been discussed and decided already. “There’s no way I’m letting you go into the Darkwood alone.”

“But it’s dangerous for men to walk the woods,” said Immanuelle, remembering the stories Martha had told her as a child, to warn her of the forest and its evils. She had often claimed that during the Dark Days, men who dared to enter the forest frequently returned rabid, bewitched into madness by the woodland coven.

Ezra waved her off. “That’s superstition.”

Immanuelle had once thought the same, but that was before she witnessed the witches of the woods. Now she knew the dangers of the Darkwood were real, and while she was willing to risk her own life to stop the plague she’d started, she wouldn’t risk Ezra’s too. “It’s too dangerous. Believe me. Especially since you’re a holy man, the wood is hostile toward the likes of you.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s a lie pagans devised in the ancient times to keep Bethelan soldiers from crossing their borders.”

“That’s not true. Just because you haven’t seen the horrors of the Darkwood firsthand doesn’t mean they’re not real. The forest is dangerous, and if you want to live, you should stay well clear of it.”

Ezra opened his mouth to respond when the horse gave a loud shriek. The cart listed so far to the right that Immanuelle would have tumbled off headfirst if Ezra hadn’t caught her by the waist.

Ahead of the horse, in the center of the road, was a hound. It was a hulking, mangy creature, and it was growling, its eyes reflecting the light of the cart’s swinging lanterns. It snapped at the horse’s hooves, its mouth blood-slick and frothing.

Ezra passed the reins to Immanuelle. “Hold these and stay here.”

“But your hand—”

“I’m fine.” He twisted to the back of the cart, where, from a heap of hay, he produced a long rifle.

“You’re not going to—”