The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(79)

“He—well, he didn’t hear my thoughts as much as he, uh, felt them,” Fifer finally manages. Her face turns as red as her hair. “We have a connection.”

“A connection?” At once, I remember the way they looked at each other inside the knight’s tomb. The way she almost kissed him, the way he looked as though he’d eat her alive. My face goes as red as hers. “Oh.”

Schuyler shakes his head and tsks. “How you belittle our love.”

“Shut up or I’ll let her run you through with that sword,” Fifer growls. Then she turns to me. “I called him here because I think he can help you get the tablet.”

“I already told you—”

“I know what you told me,” Fifer says. “But there’s something we need to tell you.”

“So tell me,” I say.

George steps forward. “Might I suggest we do this somewhere else? Perhaps somewhere where we don’t have half the ship watching?”

I turn around and see at least two dozen sailors clustered around us, clutching handfuls of coins.

“Don’t stop,” one of them says through a mouthful of broken black teeth. “I’ve got ten crowns that says the revenant rips your arm off.”

“Double that says she takes his head.”

“A sovereign says the revenant rips her arm off first, then she takes his head.”

They start cheering and throwing more coins around.

“Come on,” John says. “I had to give the captain nearly everything I’ve got just to let us on board. If we keep this up, he’ll throw us right back off.” He looks around. “Let’s go to the back. You”—he points at Schuyler—“if there’s even a hint of trouble out of you, I’ll throw you off this ship myself. Got it?”

“Always so pleasant, John,” Schuyler mutters. “No wonder she likes you so much.”

A flicker of surprise passes over John’s face. Then he scowls. “Go.”

I pull the sword away from Schuyler’s neck and the five of us thread through the men, who boo and catcall after us, around crates and cannons until we reach the back. One by one we climb the narrow wooden stairs to the upper deck. It’s quiet back here, nothing but piles of rope, more cannons, and barrels of gunpowder.

I look around at all of them. “What is going on?”

Fifer sits down on a coil of rope. “It’s about your test.”

“What about it?”

“That night after you told us about it, and after you went to sleep, Humbert, John, George, and I talked about it. How it works, the magic of it.”

“And?”

“Well, from what you’ve told me, the test sounds like a combination of spells. Rather, a spell within a spell. The first was concealment, obviously: hiding the tablet behind a simple wooden door. Then there was the illusion.”

“It wasn’t an illusion,” I say. “It was real.”

“It was an illusion,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. You saw it, felt it, reacted to it. That’s what made it real. Your fear is what made it real.”

“Then there’s no difference.”

Fifer shakes her head. “Yes, there is. There’s a big difference. Because when you’re inside an illusion, you can—if you’re very skilled or very lucky—make yourself believe it isn’t real. By doing so, you eliminate the fear, which eliminates the illusion. Wasn’t that the point of the test? To eliminate your fear?”

“Yes.”

Fifer nods. “That’s what happened when you sang. You calmed yourself down long enough to see it wasn’t real. That’s why you saw the tablet instead of the door. You saw through the illusion. You’re going to need to do that again.”

“Okay,” I say. “So I do the exact same thing I did before, only now I do it knowing how the spell works.”

I look around at the others. George is sitting now, knees tucked under his chin. John is staring out at the water, arms folded, jaw clenched. Schuyler looks from Fifer to me, his eyes going wide.

“Is there something I’m missing?”

Fifer takes a breath. “Do you know if the other witch hunters had the same test as you?”

“I—no. Everyone had something different.”

None of us talked about our tests, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what they were. The things people screamed in their sleep, the things they avoided when they were awake. Caleb never told me about his, but I guessed it had to do with drowning. It was a solid month before I could get him to bathe, and even now he cringes when it rains.

“That means the test is a spell that responds specifically to a person’s fear. That’s really advanced magic, you know. Blackwell must be extremely powerful—” She breaks off with a grimace. “What was yours? Your fear, I mean?”

“I already told you.”

“I know, but… are you really afraid of being buried alive?”

“Well, I am now,” I snap. “But no. At the time, I—” I hesitate. I don’t want to tell them what I’m afraid of. It feels like admitting to something bigger.

“What was it?” Fifer presses.

I turn away from them, toward the water. I can feel their eyes on me anyway.