Page 24 of The Year of the Witching

“He owes me a favor,” she said, thinking back to their conversation in the pasture. Ezra had told her that the Prophet’s library was an extensive collection. If there was any information on the practices of witches and how they cast and broke their plagues, it would have to be there.

“Perhaps we should just go outside,” said Leah, in the gentle way you’d talk down a spooked horse. “Take some air. You look like you’re about to faint.”

Immanuelle spotted Ezra then, standing at the foot of the altar where Apostle Isaac had delivered his speech just a few minutes before. He was chatting with a group of friends, but to Immanuelle’s surprise it wasn’t a challenge to catch his eye. When she gestured toward a dark corridor on the eastern wing of the cathedral, he was quick to dismiss himself, shouldering through his friends with barely a parting word.

“Wait—” said Leah, almost frantic in her concern.

Immanuelle waved her off. “I’ll only be a moment.”

And with that, she started after Ezra, wading through the crowd until she reached the empty pew where he stood waiting.

“I thought your grandmother was going to slit my throat. Is she always that intimidating or...?” He faltered, reading her expression. “What’s wrong? I didn’t get you into any trouble, did I?”

“Not at all. I just need a moment of your time, if you have it to spare.”

Ezra’s eyes narrowed but he nodded and led her to a small apse off the main cathedral. Here, there were two prayer benches standing side by side before a stone effigy of the Holy Father. On a low altar were dozens of candles, most of them lit and flickering. In a ceramic platter, incense burned and the fragrant smoke hung on the air like threads of spider silk.

Ezra and Immanuelle knelt on the bench, shoulder to shoulder, and lit candles, as was custom, one for each of them. Immanuelleclasped her hands and bowed her head. “The last time we talked, you mentioned the Prophet’s library. You said there were all sorts of books there. Even books of knowledge, like the one you showed me in the market that day.”

He nodded. “If there’s a book you want, give me the title and I’ll fetch it for you.”

“That’s just it, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. I’d have to be there, in the flesh, sort through the books myself in order to find what I want, what I need.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

“A way to stop the blood plague.”

Ezra blinked at her, and with no small measure of satisfaction, she realized she’d caught him off guard. His expression went from contemplative to troubled. “Shouldn’t you leave the business of breaking plagues to the Church?”

“Why should I when the men of the Church are clearly no more informed than I am?” Of course it wasn’t just that; she’d hidden the truth about her own role in the blood plague, and the way the witches had used her to spawn it. But she couldn’t trust Ezra with such things. He might be a rebel in his own way, skeptical of the very Church he served, but he was still the Prophet’s heir. “I want to help, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to.”

Ezra watched the candles in silence for a long time, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s forbidden for women to walk the halls of the library.”

“I know. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, but—”

“I’ve made you stomach my sin, so now you want me to shoulder yours?”

Immanuelle hadn’t wanted it to come to that, but she nodded. “I’d have something on you, and you’d have something on me. We’d be even. A secret for a secret.”

Ezra considered this for a moment. Then: “When do you need access?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, preferably, while our farmhand can tend to the flock.” When she’d have the time to slip away unnoticed.

He pushed to his feet. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll meet you by the gates of the Haven at noon.”

CHAPTERTWELVE

We are the consecrated, the Father’s chosen. And what belongs to Him is His, forevermore.

—THEHOLYSCRIPTURES

THE PROPHET’S HAVENwas the oldest building in all of Bethel, built in the Dark Days before their faith had scriptures or a proper doctrine. It stood on a lone hill that overlooked a stretch of rolling cattle fields. It was a tall, looming structure, comprised of the main quarters—a collapsing stone cathedral where the first of the faith had once worshipped—and a series of expansions, some of them constructed as recently as a month prior.

The entire estate was ringed by a wrought iron wall that stood some nine feet tall. It was said that during the Holy War, the severed heads of the four witches and their allies had been mounted upon its spikes. According to those same legends, Lilith’s headless corpse had also been strung from the wall’s gate and, on the orders of David Ford, crowned with a deer skull diadem to make a mockery of her reign and slaughter. Walking toward the gate, Immanuelle could almost picture it: the severed heads of the sinners gawking down at her, their jaws nailed shut by the wall’s iron spires; beside them, the witch queen’s skull-crowned corpse strung from the archway, swaying with the wind. Immanuelleshook her head to clear it of the ghastly image and continued on through the entryway.

She found Ezra waiting for her just behind the Haven’s entrance. He sat beneath the branches of a tall cottonwood, back pressed to its trunk and legs crossed at the ankles, reading a palm-size book.

There were a great many people wandering the yard—mainly servants and the farmhands who tended the Prophet’s sprawling ranges—but Ezra still raised his head at her approach, as if he knew her from the sound of her footsteps. He slipped his book into the back pocket of his trousers as he stood, nodding toward the doors of the Haven. “Right this way.”

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