Page 28 of The Year of the Witching

Ezra went very still, as if he feared he’d say something he’dregret. When he spoke, his voice was strained. “What would you have me do?”

The Prophet turned to place his book back on the shelf, and Immanuelle ducked down an adjacent aisle to avoid being seen. There, she found the door. It was small, a good half a foot shorter than she, as if it was made for a child. She was reaching for the handle when she heard the Prophet say, “I need the census accounts of all the women in Bethel.”

A chill raked down Immanuelle’s spine. Hastily, she slipped through the door and began to draw it shut behind her. The creaking of the hinges echoed through the library.

“Did you hear that?” The Prophet’s voice was sharp.

Immanuelle froze, her hand still on the latch. She peered through the crack between the door and its frame. She knew she ought to retreat down the corridor as instructed, but she couldn’t pull her eyes from the scene unfolding before her.

The Prophet coughed, harshly, into the crook of his elbow. When he spoke again, his voice was just a thin rasp. “I could have sworn I heard something.”

Ezra pushed off the altar and strode down the center aisle. “Just the stones settling, most likely. The Haven has old bones.”

“That it does.” The Prophet’s voice echoed as he moved down the aisle where Immanuelle had hidden just moments before. She could have sworn he was limping a bit, but perhaps it only looked that way because of her odd vantage point.

She held her breath as the Prophet drew nearer still, and she cowered behind the door now, knowing she ought to leave. But she needed to know about the names of Bethel’s women. What did the Prophet want with them? What if he had seen something in a vision, or he suspected one of them was behind the plague? What if he suspectedher?

The Prophet’s heavy footsteps were mere paces from the door now.

“Father, the names,” Ezra called out, drawing his attention away. “If I’m to pull the records of all the women in Bethel, that must be at least eight or nine thousand.”

“Likely more than that.” The Prophet walked on past the door, much to Immanuelle’s relief. She risked another peek through the crack. “Make the selections from the census and send the records to my quarters. I want all of the accounts on my desk by the week’s end. Have the scribes help you, if necessary. I don’t care if they have to work through the night to see it through. I want it done. Am I understood?”

Ezra dipped his head. “Is that all you require of me?”

The Prophet mulled this, gazing at Ezra with something akin to disgust. It was a known fact that the Prophet’s chosen son was not often his favorite. Immanuelle imagined it was not an easy thing for a man to stare into the face of his own undoing. The Holy Scriptures were filled with stories of prophets who had tried to kill their heirs in order to extend their own lives and reigns. In turn, several heirs had tried to kill their predecessors to hasten their rise to power.

Watching the Prophet and Ezra then, Immanuelle was reminded of those horrible histories—of violence against son and father, master and apprentice, schisms that threatened to tear the Church apart. The tension between the two of them was as sinister as it was palpable. In that moment, Ezra and the Prophet were enemies before they were kin. One the ruination of the other. Immanuelle could not help but think it was a horrible thing to behold, regardless of whether the Father had ordained it.

“There is one more thing.” The Prophet moved to stand before his son. He drew something from the back pocket of his trousers. Squinting, Immanuelle could see that it was a dagger.

Ezra’sdagger.

The chain was broken, the latch badly bent, as if it’d been ripped from around Ezra’s neck—and Immanuelle realized, with a start, that it had. It was the same blade that Judith had snatched in the midst of her fight with Ezra, the night of Leah’s cutting.

The Prophet let it dangle now between him and his son, the blade catching the sunlight as it swung back and forth. “I found this in Judith’s quarters. Tell me, how did it come into her possession?”

By some miracle, Ezra maintained his composure. “I lost my dagger the night of Leah’s cutting.”

“Youlostit?”

“I was distracted.”

“By my wife?”

“No,” said Ezra, and Immanuelle marveled at the way he could make a lie sound just like the truth. “Not Judith. By something... someone else. When I returned to the place I thought I dropped my dagger, it was gone. Judith must have found it. I’m sure she intended to return it to me.”

“But it was under her pillows,” said the Prophet in a hoarse whisper. “Why would my wife keep my son’s holy dagger beneath her pillows while she slept at night?”

Immanuelle wanted more than anything now to run—to flee and leave the Haven far behind her—but she found herself unable to move; her feet stayed pinned to the floor.

The Prophet took Ezra by the wrist and pressed the dagger deep into the center of his palm, folding Ezra’s fingers over the blade so he was forced to grip it barehanded. The older man paused, his hand resting lightly over his son’s, and he peered into his eyes. Then he squeezed, so suddenly and so hard that his knuckles popped.

Immanuelle watched in breathless horror as blood streamedthrough the cracks between Ezra’s fingers. He worked his jaw, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t break his father’s gaze, even as the blood trickled down his wrist and the blade bit deeper.

“What you do in the shadows comes out in the light.” The Prophet leaned closer to his son. “I thought I raised you to understand that. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

“You weren’t.” Ezra’s expression remained unchanged, but there was something cold and defiant in his eyes, as though his father was the one who had amends to make, not he.

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