Page 12 of A Love of Wrath and Rapture

I just need to project an air of confidence. I’m innocent. If I know that, then they will too.

“I see,” Hilda says.

She turns to the four other elders with a raised eyebrow. Jeremiah sets the papers back down on the table.

“And what were you doing out there,” Polyn asks, his spectacles reflecting the candle flames.

I gulp and take a deep breath.

“I was fulfilling my assignment. Searching for valuable resources as tasked.”

Even from here, I can see Jeremiah’s hands shaking, his eyebrows contorted into a scowl.

“And just when did ‘gathering valuable resources’ mean ‘summoning an ancient evil you can’t control?’” Jeremiah asks, his voice wavering. “What gave you the right!”

Hilda clears her throat. Jeremiah leans back in his seat.

I feel a genuine fear crest over me, now more real than ever.

I struggle to find my voice, realizing that this meeting is not innocuous. I’m currently on trial.

“Look,” I say, noticing the distress among the elders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Polyn nods. Jeremiah rolls his eyes.

With every breath and every word, I feel myself digging my grave.

“It was just meant to be a harmless joke,” I say.

“A harmless joke?”

Jeremiah chuckles to himself, madness present in his voice.

“You scared your dear friend Renee?—”

“She’s not my friend,” I attempt to interject, finding myself shouting in spite of myself.

“—half to death. She came to us justifiably terrified!”

Hilda nods.

“You are being awfully cavalier about this,” she says, though I still sense some disapproval toward Jeremiah’s emotional outcry.

“I didn’t mean to terrify her. I thought it might be funny because she said she wasn’t superstitious.”

Jeremiah shakes his head.

“You didn’t just go out into the forest and play a prank. The way Renee described it, you reenacted a ritual with details our texts don’t even go into. There’s a reason we don’t let that information fall into common hands.”

I feel my jaw clench.

“It’s dangerous,” he says.

“The way Miss Renee described it, it was almost as if you were possessed,” Polyn says. “And those are her words, not mine.”

“It was very concerning to hear,” Harold agrees.

I feel myself shaking my head.

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