The Year of the Witching(92)

“That’s all I need.”



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IMMANUELLE WAITED UNTIL the echo of Esther’s footsteps faded to silence before she crept across her bedroom, drew a shawl around her shoulders, and slipped into the hall. She found it odd that there was no bolt on her door—given that only hours before she’d been chained to a cell wall in the catacombs—but then she remembered, she wasn’t a prisoner anymore. She was a prize lamb, a treasure, the Prophet’s newest bride-to-be.

Besides, he knew she wouldn’t run. She was bound to the Haven, bound to her promise—to the Prophet, to the flock, to Ezra. The time for fleeing was over. What was left to be finished would be finished in Bethel.

Immanuelle padded barefoot down the Haven’s main corridor, careful to keep to the shadows. When she passed the windows, the darkness rushed to meet her, threatening to break the glass and flood the corridors within. She tried to ignore it, but its call rang through her head like a bell’s toll, and she could feel its pull deep in her belly, reeling her into the night.

Halfway down the hall, she paused before a tall stained-glass window, staring into the darkness. “What do you want from me?”

At the sound of her voice, the dark moved like water, rippling and doubling, turning in on itself. Immanuelle raised her fingers to the window, the glass cold beneath her hand. The shadows rose to meet her, and in them she saw a startling reflection. The girl who stared back at her had her features—the same dark eyes and full lips, the firm nose and pinched chin—but every detail was exaggerated, every attribute refined. She was beautiful and keen, and there was a defiant strength in the way she stood, shoulders squared, chin tilted. And there was something in her gaze that made her . . . more. It was as if the girl in the darkness was everything Immanuelle had ever hoped to be.

She pressed her hand to Immanuelle’s, so there was nothing but glass between them. Immanuelle shifted closer to the window, and the girl in the dark beckoned, almost coyly, to the window’s latch. Immanuelle reached for it, and the girl pressed herself to the pane, drawing so close her lips brushed the glass.

Immanuelle pulled the iron handle and the window swung open. A blast of winter wind rushed into the hallway, snuffing the lamps and candles. Night poured through the open window and the corridor went dark.

There was the distant clamor of footsteps. A voice: “Who goes there?”

Turning her back on the darkness, Immanuelle ran—fleeing the guards and the hallway and the girl who haunted the black.

It didn’t take her long to find the old cathedral, where the library was housed. Padding across the cold stone floors, she ducked down the hall to make sure the doors were unguarded. The corridor was empty.

Relieved, Immanuelle started forward. She was halfway to the library doors when she heard footsteps. She turned and found a guard standing before her, a long blade hanging on his belt. And he was looking right at her.

“Easy,” he said. As he stepped into the torchlight, Immanuelle realized he was one of the men she’d journeyed back to Bethel with. The only guardsman who’d shown her any kindness. His gaze went back and forth between her and the library doors. Then, in a low, urgent whisper, he said: “Go.”

“Thank you,” she managed to stammer, more grateful for that act of mercy than he could possibly know. She turned to the library doors and slipped through them into the darkness.

“Ezra?” she whispered into the shadows. “Are you there?”

There was the scrape of iron on stone, shackles slithering across tile. “Immanuelle?”

She started toward the sound of his voice, weaving between the bookshelves, tripping over toppled stacks. “It’s me.”

And then he was there, and she was in his arms, and he in hers. They clung to each other in silence, Ezra’s hands shifting down her back, each of their bodies fitting into the contour of the other’s.

“Are you hurt?” Immanuelle said at last, murmuring the words into his shoulder.

“No,” he said, and she could tell he was lying. There was no light to see, but she gingerly lifted the corner of his shirt. She felt the bandages beneath, binding his stomach and chest. They were wet, and when she touched them he hissed.

She sucked in a breath. “Ezra.”

“All right,” he said, wheezing a little. “I might have had a brief encounter with a bullet or two, but I’m fine. What about you?”

“I’m all right.” In truth, she’d sustained a bad beating the first night of her contrition, and several lashings after it, but she wouldn’t trouble him with those things. Not now, not when he was so weak, so frail in her arms.

“Why are you here?”

He didn’t know, she realized. He couldn’t know, of course. He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t heard her final confession.

“I was sentenced today,” she whispered. “I was sentenced, and the Prophet decided to free me.”

“How can that be? I haven’t even been sentenced yet myself.”

“Listen to me.” Immanuelle grabbed him by both hands. “About your sentencing, you have to tell them you’ve repented for your sin. Swear that you will.”

“I don’t understand.”

She heard the echo of footsteps in the distance and ducked instinctively, shifting behind a nearby bookshelf. “I made a deal with your father.”