The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(14)

Punished.

I knew it was coming; there was no way it wasn’t. I imagine the things he could do: demote me, send me back to the kitchens, shut me behind the walls of a nunnery, just as I feared.

I don’t say anything. I just nod.

He stands then, abrupt. It’s then I notice he’s dressed for daytime: black trousers; black doublet, the wrists ringed with dark fur; his collar of office draped around his neck, heavy and gold. Clothes to remind me of his power, his influence. Of his power to do anything, to anyone.

As if I needed reminding.

He lifts the parchment from the desk, holds it up. It looks official enough: long and scrolled, his signature just above the royal seal at the bottom. I can just make out a rose, the flower of his house—same as the king’s house—pressed into the hard red wax.

“Do you know what this is?”

I shake my head.

“It’s a Bill of Attainder.” With a flick of his wrist, he tosses it onto the desk. It slides across the slick wooden surface, curls onto the floor. It’s this: this momentary loss of control that tips me to his anger, simmering below the surface like a pot left to boil too long. And I know that whatever this Bill of Attainder is, it isn’t a pardon. “It proclaims your sentence.”

“My… sentence?” The word sticks in my throat. “What sentence?”

“The sentence I have given you, in punishment for your crime.”

My crime. I suck in a breath.

“You are accused of witchcraft. You have admitted to practicing witchcraft. This is treason. The punishment for witchcraft, and for treason, is death.”

“Death?” I repeat the word, I whisper it.

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“But… I’m a witch hunter,” I cry. “Your witch hunter! You can’t just send me to prison, to the pyre… you can’t just burn me alive in front of everyone! You can’t!”

Blackwell shrugs, careless. “I can, and I have. It’s done. You will be taken to Fleet to await your execution at Tyburn, where you will be burned alive at the stake.” He flicks his hand toward the fire roaring in the grate. “Alongside the rest of the lawbreakers and heretics.”

The floor rocks underneath me then, as if I were standing on the deck of a ship. I stumble backward, search for something to hold. But there’s nothing. Nothing to save me. Nothing at all. I crumple to the floor in a heap.

“I lived with you,” I whisper against the lump rising in my throat. I can’t cry, I won’t cry. It won’t help. “I did everything you asked me to. I was loyal to you. You said it yourself: I was one of your best witch hunters—”

“Then you betrayed me. Disobeyed me. Now you’re nothing to me. And I am finished with you.” And he doesn’t have to say it, but I know he’s thinking it: What’s done is done; it cannot be undone. His steadfast motto, the one he lives by.

The one I will die by.

Blackwell snaps his fingers. Before I can get up, two guards burst in, haul me to my feet. I struggle, but it’s no use. Terror has sapped my strength, and shame has robbed me of my determination to fight. Because I know—deep down, I know—I’m getting what I deserve.



They take me to Fleet.

Less prison than purgatory: a state of waiting, of suffering; a place where people wait with no hope, wait to die; a place to pass through before you reach the end of the world. It ends the same for everyone here: in fire and ash, disgrace and dishonor.

There’s no special treatment for me. They take my cloak, my shoes. They throw me in a cell with the rest of the criminals and heretics, as if I were a criminal or heretic.

I am a criminal and heretic.

To my right, a small window is set into the wall, a slice of early-morning sky visible through the small iron bars. To my left is another set of bars and a door that leads out into a dark hallway. The floor is caked with dirt and rat droppings and completely devoid of furniture.

In the cell with me is another woman, a witch by the looks of her. She lies across from me, stretched out on the floor. She looks like a rag doll. Her arms and legs are broken and disjointed, sticking out at odd angles. Her chest whistles as she breathes in and out. Every now and again, she moans. She’s been pulled apart on the rack. Shredded. I back away from her, as far as the cell will allow me. Away from her suffering, as if it were contagious.

I hear footsteps then, echoing down the dark stone hallway. Someone is coming. I jump to my feet, push down my mounting panic, and step to the door. I won’t let them take me. I won’t let them torture me. I will kill them or I will die trying.

When he emerges from the shadows, I nearly collapse in relief.

“Caleb!”

“Elizabeth. Oh my God—” Caleb grips the bars of my cell, his eyes wide. “Are you okay? No, of course you’re not.” He pushes his hair off his forehead in a frantic swipe. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’m okay.”

“I got here as soon as I could. I waited for you, outside your room, as I promised. And when you didn’t show up, I went looking for you. I found some guards, and they told me what happened. But by the time I found out you were here, they wouldn’t let me in.”

I notice his hands then, still wrapped around the bars, the knuckles scuffed and raw and bloody.