Fires of the Faithful (11 page)

Flavia. “Make a witchlight in your hand,” Cassio said. Flavia made a witchlight, and swore loyalty to the Lady.

Now it was my turn. “Make a witchlight in your hand,” Cassio said. I made a witchlight. “Swear your loyalty to the Lady.”

I took the circles. They were warm from all the hands
that had held them, all the lips that had touched them. “I swear that I am the Lady’s humble and obedient servant,” I said. My voice rang oddly in my ears, and I felt a sudden surge of shame that I didn’t have Bella’s courage—even though I didn’t really believe in her god, either. I kissed the circles.

Mira. “Make a witchlight in your hand,” they said.

Mira raised her right hand in front of her. Her expression never changing, she summoned a tiny light. Beside her, I could feel a sudden warmth radiate from her body.

“Swear your loyalty to the Lady,” they said.

Mira dispelled the light, swore her loyalty, and kissed the circles.

Giula. “Make a witchlight in your hand,” they said.

Giula held out one trembling hand. She closed her eyes, cupping her hand slightly. “I—” she said, and stopped. She squeezed her eyes tighter. No light formed in Giula’s hand; I could see Galeria’s eyes flicker.

“I can’t do it!” Giula cried. “I want to, but I can’t! You have to believe me!” She fell to her knees, grasping Galeria’s sleeve and kissing the symbol of the Lady embroidered to the side. “I swear that I am the Lady’s servant,” she sobbed. “I swear it! I’m loyal!”

Galeria pulled her sleeve away from Giula. “Make a witchlight, daughter,” she said. “Show that you are unafraid to use the gifts that the Lady has given us.”

Giula cupped her hands together, weeping. “Sweet and gentle Lady,” she choked out, but no light formed.

Domenico threaded his way through the crowd and grasped Cassio’s arm. “Father Cassio,” he said. “Giula is my student. Really—she’s not very bright, and panics easily under pressure. I can assure you that she uses magery on a regular basis—I’ve seen her use witchlight.”

Cassio patted Giula on the shoulder; his voice became a
comforting croon. “The Lady accepts your profession of loyalty,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

Cassio and Galeria moved on, leaving Giula still sobbing on her knees. No one else failed—or refused—to summon witchlight. When every student at the conservatory had proved that they were not Redentori—or at least that they didn’t have enough faith to die for it—we were herded into the chapel for another prayer service. I sat down in the pew, lightheaded from fear and hunger. Giula still shook with occasional hiccuping sobs; Mira’s cheeks burned with a strange heat, as if the witchlight she’d summoned had kindled a fire inside her.

After opening prayers, Cassio preached a sermon about Old Way apostates. I might have learned a lot about what Bella had believed if I’d been able to pay attention. Instead, despite the danger, I kept almost dozing off. I had stayed up all night and slept only fitfully that morning, and I was exhausted. My mind kept running through the bedtime prayer Giula had started to recite when she hadn’t been able to summon the witchlight.

My hands were ice cold, and I clasped them between my knees, trying to listen to Cassio. He was talking about the Redentori sexual practices—apparently, they believed in picking their own marital partners, rather than letting the Lady pick for them. This was yet another way that they went against the Lady’s will and rejected Her love. I thought that was kind of funny; I mean, normally—in my village—
young men and women would make their choice, then keep trying until the Lady blessed their union. It wasn’t like anyone
really
let the Lady pick for them. I tried to imagine a village where the young women slept with each young man in turn, to see whom the Lady liked best.

When Cassio had finished, Galeria led us in a long, long prayer. For the death of heretics and blasphemers, for the protection of believers, for the peace of Bella’s soul. After each line, we repeated, “So may it be.” I stopped listening after a while; I didn’t want to hear anymore what I was praying for.

Then, to my surprise, Domenico stood up to speak. “After investigation, the Fedeli have determined that Bella was seduced into apostasy by a servant at the conservatory named Giorgi,” he said. “Unfortunately, Giorgi fled sometime last night; rest assured, however, that he will be found and brought to justice. You all know Giorgi, so it may come as a surprise to you that he was an apostate. If Giorgi ever attempted to sway any of the rest of you to apostasy, please know that you are welcome to submit a deposition with Father Cassio and Mother Galeria; this will be used as evidence against him when he is caught.”

As soon as Domenico said that Giorgi had fled, relief swept through me like a warm wind. While a group of six conservatory girls would have stuck out like a six-toed foot in the area around Bascio, Giorgi would be able to disappear. There was nothing about him that was so unusual that the Fedeli would be able to identify him from a description. If they blamed Giorgi, but couldn’t
find
Giorgi, then the rest of us were—probably—safe.

“If you have anything to tell Father Cassio or Mother Galeria, please come by my quarters tonight,” Domenico said. “They will be leaving early tomorrow morning.”

Domenico sat down, and after a final prayer, the service
ended. As we filed out, a bell rang—it was time for the evening meal.

Bella’s space at the table was painfully empty. Flavia and Celia sat a little closer together, trying to make it less obvious. I was too hungry to think about much of anything other than food. Knowing that the Fedeli were leaving had made the mood almost festive; the conversation around us was loud and boisterous, if still a little nervous. The soup had meat in it—technically, this was a festival meal, but I suspected they hadn’t planned to give us meat until the Fedeli showed up. I was surprised that I was able to get it down.

After the evening meal, I took my violin and a candle to go practice. I had barely had time even to tune my instrument in the last few days, and I ached to spend some time playing. I was fairly certain that I didn’t need to convince Celia not to turn us all in, nor to convince Giula that she wasn’t going to die.

Besides, I wanted to mourn Bella alone.

As I closed the door of my practice room, I wished that I had the courage to play the Old Way funeral music. That was what Bella would have wanted—a Redentore funeral, or the closest thing to it that I could give her. With the Fedeli still at the conservatory, though, I didn’t dare. Instead, I played some music that Bella had liked—first an achingly sad violin piece that I’d played in recital a few years earlier, then the tune of her favorite trumpet serenade. “Rachamin, Arka,” I whispered when I was done, very quietly, my eyes closed. “Rachamin, Gèsu.”

I remembered Bella’s fascination with the Wicked Stepmother song and plucked the tune gently on my violin.

The door to my practice room slammed open, and I stared into Galeria’s furious face.

“How dare you!” she shouted.

For some reason, the first thing that came into my head was a terrible fear that she would throw my violin to the ground, as Cassio had thrown Bella’s trumpet. “Please don’t break my violin,” I said, backing up. “Just let me put it down,
please
.” All I could think was,
the Lady told them that Bella was an apostate, and now she’s told them that I am, too
, but I was too busy defending my violin to say anything incriminating.

“Where did you learn that song?” Galeria demanded.

It took me a moment to remember that I hadn’t been playing an Old Way song—I’d been playing the song about the poisoned honey. “It was all over the conservatory a few months ago,” I said. “I don’t remember whom I first heard it from.” Celia, I remembered a moment later. “We thought that the ‘poisoned honey’ referred to a heresy—something that looked sweet, but would rot you from the inside. Some people thought that the Fedeli wrote the song.”

The fury on Galeria’s face had eased, and now she gave me what was doubtless intended as a reassuring smile. “No, daughter,” she said. “Your own innocence is clear, but that song doesn’t do justice to you. It was written by apostates, to turn people against the true faith. The
Redentori believe that the Lady’s gift of magic is evil—like poisoned honey. That’s what the song is about.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll never sing it again.”

“The Lady understands that you played it without malice,” Galeria said. She stepped forward, her eyes searching mine. I forced myself to meet her gaze.

“I can see that you’re afraid of me,” Galeria said.

I didn’t dare deny it. “Bella was a friend of mine,” I said.

“I see,” Galeria said. “Kneel, daughter.”

I knelt at her feet, and she clasped my head in her hands. Then she raised my chin so that I was looking up at her face, and her eyes were full of tears. “ ‘Innocence doesn’t need to hide,’ ” she quoted. “Daughter, the Lady assures me that your heart is as pure as Bella’s was black. Be at peace, and remember that the Lady loves you.” She raised me to my feet and left, closing the practice room door behind her.

I discovered that my hands were shaking too hard to play anymore tonight. I waited long enough to feel sure that she was gone, then packed up my violin and headed back to my room.

When I reached it, Mira wasn’t there. She might have been practicing, as I’d been, but I was struck with the sudden fear that she had run away from the conservatory. Her cloak was gone, and her violin. I knelt to look under her bed for personal belongings—there was a box under her bed, like the one where I kept letters from my parents. She wouldn’t leave without her letters, I thought.

Still, I couldn’t shake my fear that she’d vanished like Giorgi. Grabbing my cloak again, I went back out to the practice hall, but the halls were quiet. I tried the north practice hall next, crossing the courtyard and finding my
way to the crumbling building beyond the chapel. I didn’t see the flicker of candlelight, but it occurred to me that Mira might have feared that the Fedeli would see a candle and grow suspicious. I opened the door and stared into the cold darkness. “Mira?” I said.

There was no reply, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see a shape huddled on the floor.

“Mira?” I said again, and knelt beside her. It was Mira; I took her hand. I had expected her hand to be cold from the wind and the damp stone floor she lay on, but it was so hot I wondered if she was running a fever. I made a witchlight to see her face, and she cried out as if I’d burned her.

“Put it away,” she said, and I flicked away the light.

“Mira, do you need help getting back to our room?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I need to stay here.”

“I’ll stay with you, then,” I said. I lay down on the floor beside Mira, wrapped in my cloak. Heat radiated from Mira’s body like a fire.

Mira was silent as I arranged myself beside her. Then—“Do you know why I left Cuore?” she asked.

“So that you could play the forbidden music?” I said.

She shook her head. “That’s why I came
here
, not why I left Cuore.”

“Why, then?” I asked.

“My grandmother died,” she said. “She was the person who’d taught me to play the violin. My parents sent her violin to me in Cuore, along with a letter. And that was when I knew I had to leave.”

“Was she executed by the Fedeli?” I asked.

“No,” Mira said. “She lived in Verdia, like my parents. She died from the famine.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It was my fault.”

I didn’t know how to answer that—how could the famine be her fault? So I touched her hot arm with my hand and said, “I was afraid you had run away.”

“You thought I’d lose my nerve now?” she asked. “After all this? If I were going to leave, I should have gone when we first saw that they’d come.”

“Galeria heard me playing the poisoned honey song,” I said. “She was furious. She told me that heretics wrote it to slander the Lady.”

“But she let you go?”

“I told her that we’d thought the poisoned honey referred to a heresy. She believed me.” I laughed bitterly. “She made me kneel, and then she told me that the Lady had told her that I was pure, just as the Lady told her that Bella was an apostate.”

“They’re liars,” Mira said. “The Lady doesn’t talk to Her followers.” She rolled away from me and coughed. The heat from her body was fading.

“Mira—”

“You should leave me alone,” Mira said. “I don’t deserve your loyalty.” She pulled herself to her knees and retched.

When she had finished, I drew her away from the pool of vomit, and covered her with her cloak. “Mira, you’re my friend. I’ll stay with you.”

Mira was silent for a while; then she retched again. Her body began to shake. The warmth she had radiated before was gone. “I can’t do this again,” she whispered.

I wrapped my arms around her, as I had in bed, and said nothing. I could hear her weeping; then her body stiffened against my arms, and I realized that she was having a convulsion, as she had when she first arrived. I tried to hold
her, but the convulsion wrenched her out of my grasp. When the convulsion ended, she slipped into unconsciousness, and I pulled her into my arms again.

“My fault,” she muttered suddenly a while later.

“No,” I said, and stroked her hair. “It’s not your fault.”

“I could have stopped them,” she said. “The Fedeli. I could have stopped them.”

“You would have been one against all of them—Galeria, Cassio, all their guards,” I said. “There wasn’t anything any of us could have done.”

“No,” Mira said. “When he drew the knife. I should have—” She broke off. “I can’t tell you,” she said. “You shouldn’t know.”