The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(5)

Caleb frowns. “I warned you about that.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

He peers closely at me, his eyes searching mine as if he might find a better explanation there. Then he shakes his head.

“You know that’s not good enough. If anyone asks what happened today, you’ll need to tell them the same story I told the guards.”

“I know,” I repeat.

“It’s important,” he continues. “If anyone finds out, it’ll get back to Blackwell. You know what’ll happen if it does.”

I do. He’ll call me into his chambers, stare at me with eyes as sharp and black and cunning as a crow’s, and demand to know what happened. Not just what happened here, today. He’ll demand to know everything. The things I’ve done, the people I’ve seen, the places I’ve gone. He’ll demand to know how I lost focus. He’ll wear me down with his questioning until I confess it all and he knows everything.

And he can’t know everything. No one can. Not even Caleb.

“Let’s get out of here,” Caleb says. “The fire will be over by now, and we can’t be seen.”

He takes my arm and leads me out the door and into the streets. We wind through them the same way we came until we reach Westcheap, the wide, paved road that leads from Tyburn all the way to Ravenscourt Palace.

We’re blocks away, but I can still see the mob stretching from the gates into the surrounding streets. Throngs of men—women, too—all of them shouting and chanting, denouncing the king, his advisors, even the queen for their unrelenting policy against magic.

“It’s getting worse,” Caleb says.

I nod. Burnings have never been popular, but they’ve never been protested before. Not like this. It used to be if you disagreed with the king’s policy, you did it quietly: handed out pamphlets in the street, whispered your complaints over drinks at the tavern. It seems impossible that the entire city would now gather in front of the palace gates, armed with sticks and rocks and…

Sledgehammers?

“What are they doing?” I can just make out a group of men, hammers held high, spread out along a stretch of gate where twelve stone slabs hang: the Twelve Tablets of Anglia.

The Twelve Tablets are the laws of the kingdom, etched into stone and posted along the gates of Ravenscourt. Each tablet details a different law: property, crime, inheritance, and so on. After Blackwell became Inquisitor, he added the Thirteenth Tablet. It listed the laws against witchcraft and the penalties for practicing it. It gave rise to witch hunters, to pyres, to the burnings being protested today. It disappeared two years ago—vandals, probably. But even though it’s gone, the laws, of course, remain.

Destroying the other twelve tablets won’t bring about change. They have nothing to do with witchcraft; it wouldn’t matter even if they did. But the men continue to pound away, though they haven’t made a dent. No wonder. The tablets are huge: six feet high and at least a foot thick, solid stone.

Caleb shakes his head. “He’s completely lost control,” he mutters.

“Who?” I say.

“Who do you think? King Malcolm, of course.”

My eyes go wide. This makes the third time in as many months Caleb’s spoken against the king. He’s never done that before.

“He’s doing the best he can, I’m sure.”

Caleb tsks. “Hard to put down protests or stomp out rebellions when you’re too busy hunting or gambling or spending time with women who aren’t your wife.”

I gasp and feel my cheeks redden. “That’s treason.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. But you know it’s true.”

I don’t reply.

“Malcolm’s got to get rid of him,” Caleb continues. “Or we do. It’s the only thing that will end these rebellions.”

Him is Nicholas Perevil, a wizard and the leader of the Reformists. That’s what those who support magic call themselves. Not all Reformists are wizards, but all Reformists seek the same end: to reform the antimagic laws, to abolish the Thirteenth Tablet, to stop the burnings.

Nicholas Perevil should have been just another wizard we hunted and captured and tied to the stake. But before Malcolm became king, his father turned to Nicholas for help. Invited him to court, sought his advice, tried to find a way for Reformists and Persecutors—what Reformists call those who oppose magic—to coexist peacefully.

He soon became the most powerful wizard in Anglia. Not just in his magical ability, but also in his influence. He had the ear of the king; he was changing the policy of Anglia. He was appointed to the king’s council and even brought in his own men. It was unthinkable, his opposers said. Impossible.

They were right.

And five years later they were dead, along with half of Anglia. Killed by a plague Nicholas started, a plot designed to kill his enemies, weaken the country, and put him on the throne, all in one convenient curse. But Nicholas hadn’t planned on Malcolm’s surviving, on Blackwell’s surviving.

And he hadn’t planned on us.

“Maybe,” I say. “But it’s hard to catch someone you can’t find.”

“Then maybe we should try a little harder.” Caleb glances down at his rough wool tunic and grimaces. “I didn’t go through a year of training to dress like some broken-down squire. You can’t be happy about wearing that thing, either.” He points to my ugly brown maid’s dress.