The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(39)

“I’m good at finding things.”

“Perhaps you wouldn’t be so confident if you knew the curse tablet is the Thirteenth Tablet.”

“What?” I gape at him. “That’s impossible. The Thirteenth Tablet has been missing for years. If you were cursed by it, you’d be dead by now.” No one can hold out against a curse tablet that long.

“The Thirteenth Tablet disappeared two years ago,” Nicholas says. “My symptoms began around that time and have grown progressively worse. Still, I thought I was ill. I never suspected I was cursed, not until Veda told me a few months ago.”

“But why?” I say. “It’s a lot of trouble to go through. Stealing it from the gates at Ravenscourt, hauling it off, then there’s the matter of disposal…”

“Yes. It would have been much simpler to create a traditional curse tablet, though for a curse of this scope, it would need to be quite large anyway.”

He’s right. If you want to kill a man’s dog or make him lose all his hair, you can use a smaller tablet to write the curse on. But the bigger the curse, the more complicated, the bigger the tablet needs to be.

“That aside, I suspect using the Thirteenth Tablet was symbolic,” Nicholas continues. “To curse a wizard using the very tablet written as an edict against witchcraft? It must have held some amusement to the wizard who performed the curse.”

“Don’t you know who it is?” I say. “Surely you have an idea. There can’t be more than a handful of people who could manage a curse like that.”

Nicholas looks at me, his gaze turning to steel again. “To my knowledge, the only witch or wizard who could perform a curse like that was captured and tried and burned at the stake.”

Something floods through me then. Fear? Shame? Guilt? I don’t know. But whatever it is makes my insides twist and my cheeks grow warm. I knew this admonishment was coming, but I didn’t know the effect it would have.

And I don’t like it.

“I was doing my job.” I return his look with equal force. “The job given to me by the king, enforcing the laws of the kingdom. Laws that were put in place for a reason.” I gesture at him with a sweep of my hand. “As you can plainly see.”

“It’s curious that you defend these laws,” Nicholas replies. “Considering you yourself are a victim of them.” He mimics my gesture. “As you can plainly see.”

Anger lances through me, quick and sharp. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you!”

“Indeed, you wouldn’t.”

“It’s because of you I had no trial,” I continue. “It’s because of you I had no leniency. It’s because of you I’m the most wanted criminal in Anglia!”

“That is how irony works.”

“At least I did what I did for the country,” I snap. “You did what you did for yourself.”

“You are no patriot, Elizabeth. You do us both a disservice by claiming it.”

“A patriot? That’s what you call yourself?”

“I call myself a Reformist.”

“You mean lawbreaker?”

“I don’t seek to break laws. I seek to change them. I seek fairness. Tolerance. For everyone, regardless of the side they align with.”

I shake my head. “Impossible.”

Nicholas waves his hand, and the candles abruptly die out. “Improbable,” he says. He waves his hand once more, and they relight. “But not impossible.”

We stare at each other across the table.

“Let me get this straight,” I say. “A cursed wizard needs a witch hunter to find a tablet cursed by yet another wizard, so that said cursed wizard can rid the country of the laws that were created to prevent the curse in the first place.” I smirk. I can’t help it. “Yes. That is how irony works.”

Nicholas’s mouth twitches.

“I have terms, of course.”

“Terms?”

“For finding your tablet.”

“Ah.” Nicholas raises a finger. “I didn’t ask you.”

Inwardly, I roll my eyes. These old wizards are so set in their ways. He probably wants to issue a scrolled proclamation for me to sign with a plumed pen in front of robed witnesses.

“There’s no need to stand on ceremony,” I say. “You can just ask me.”

“I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple.”

Outwardly, I roll my eyes.

“If I ask you to help me, I’m asking a witch hunter to come into my home, to be around the people I care about. To put them in danger. As it stands, I have done that already. It simply cannot continue.”

This, I was not expecting.

“It would be far better for me to die than to continue risking their lives on my behalf.” Nicholas slides his chair back and stands. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways.”

“You aren’t serious,” I say. “You don’t want me to find your tablet because I’m a witch hunter? It’s because I’m a witch hunter that I can find it.” I shake my head. “You didn’t really think an untrained witch could manage that, did you?”

Nicholas arches an eyebrow. “Why are you so eager to help me?”