The Healer (The Witch Hunter 0.5)(8)

Nicholas nods. “All we can do is bring her here and take her to Veda. We won’t know anything more until Veda can see her face-to-face.”

“But Veda only sees once a month,” Fifer says. “That’s almost three weeks from now.”

“We’ll learn all we need to know then. There’s a certain gift in not knowing more than we need to,” Nicholas reminds her gently.

Fifer nods, but I understand her impatience. She’s worried that in three weeks Nicholas will be worse, that he’ll be past whatever help I can give him.





5



A pounding noise, loud and insistent, breaks through my slumber. I jerk awake, my heart racing. I’m still sitting at the table, a book under my cheek. For a brief moment, I forget where I am.

The door pushes open and it’s Fifer.

“What are you doing?” she demands. “I’ve been knocking for ages.”

I rub my face. “Why don’t you people just come in instead of hammering the door down? What are you doing here, anyway? What time is it?” A glance out the window tells me it’s just before dawn.

“There’s a problem.”

I’m on my feet in an instant.

“What is it? Is it Nicholas? What did he say? Never mind. Let me get dressed and I’ll go to him myself—”

“It’s not Nicholas,” Fifer says. “It’s Veda. She started trailing.”

“Trailing?” My stomach twists unpleasantly. If a seer trails—has visions outside her prescribed rituals—it’s almost always a bad sign. Because it almost always precedes someone’s death.

She nods. “We got a letter from Avis a few hours ago. Veda’s saying we have the wrong person. That it’s not that hearth witch in Seven Sisters. It’s the girl in the palace.”

“All right,” I say. “So it’s the girl in the palace. We’ll send George to get her, and—”

“That’s what we did,” Fifer says. “Nicholas sent a letter, but George wrote back and said she’s been arrested.”

“Arrested? God’s nails,” I hiss. “Why? What happened?”

“George said she was accused of witchcraft. They found some herbs on her.” Fifer’s face is white, frightened. “She’s at Fleet. And she’s scheduled to burn. Tomorrow.”

And there it is. Thundering heart. A wave of nausea. A rush of dizziness. I lunge from the table, my chair skittering out from under me and toppling to the floor. Rush for the window, push it open, and breathe.

In for four.

Hold for four.

Out for four…

“Nicholas sent for George straightaway. He’s already here,” Fifer goes on. “And now Nicholas is going to go and get her.”

This—the shock of hearing this, what Nicholas plans to do—snaps me out of my daze. I turn from the window and bolt out the door. I don’t even have a shirt on. Or shoes.

“Where are you going?” Fifer chases me down the hallway toward the stairs.

“To stop him,” I say. “He can’t do this, he’ll get caught—”

“John.” The tone in her voice tells me what she’s going to say next, even before she says it. I freeze in my tracks. “He’s already gone.”

I push my hands through my hair and groan. Damned foolish, reckless old man. If he’s captured, he’ll be tried, tortured, killed—if his curse doesn’t kill him first. Fifer will lose the only family she has left, my father the only savior he has left. It’ll be the end of the Reformist movement as we know it, turned into a militaristic regime headed by an overzealous councilman—someone like Gareth Fish, who turned to politics instead of grief after his son’s death—conscripting half of Harrow into an army to fight a battle that can’t be won, a battle we’re already losing but one in which we still stand to lose more.

“Get dressed,” Fifer says, breaking into my thoughts. “Meet me downstairs. We’ll wait for him to come back. It’s all we can do.”

We wait in the sitting room, Father at the fireplace, Fifer, George, and I at the windows, staring out at the rosy dawn sky. None of us speaks, though I can hear Hastings rattling trays behind us, bringing in tea and breakfast things that none of us eats.

“What’s taking him so long?” Fifer paces the floor. Back and forth, back and forth. “You don’t think he got caught, do you? Oh God, he got caught—”

“He didn’t get caught,” Father and I say in unison, though neither of us knows if that’s true. “And he’ll be fine,” I add, though I don’t know if that’s true, either.

“John is right, Fifer.” Father turns from the mantel to face us. He’s worried. I can see it in his bloodshot eyes, his unshaven jaw. “He’ll be fine. But if he’s not back by the time the sun clears the horizon, I’ll go after him.”

George drums his fingers against the diamond-shaped blue windowpane. “I still can’t believe it’s her,” he says to no one in particular.

“Yes, you said that,” Fifer retorts. “She’s tiny, she’s funny, she’s secretive.” She’s getting angrier by the second, that spring storm brewing again. She’ll be throwing things before long. “She’s also a bloody pain, getting herself arrested like this. She’s meant to help Nicholas, not lead him into prison. Fleet of all places, he’s liable to get caught—”