Read Online Terms of Surrender by Craig Schaefer - Free Book Online

Alone.”
    They walked away from the bustle of the workers, the tent city in slow-motion collapse at their backs. They found a shady spot by a full wagon waiting to be hitched up and hauled away. Columba looked Amadeo in the eye. Then her gaze dropped.
    “I have committed,” she told him, “an unforgivable sin.”
    He blinked and reached out to touch her shoulder. She flinched, jerking away.
    “I’m not convinced that such a sin exists,” Amadeo said, “much less that you’ve committed it. Talk to me, Columba. Share your burden.”
    “You’ve heard this talk about Livia. And her
miracle
.”
    He couldn’t miss how her wrinkled eyes tightened when she spoke Livia’s name, or the way she practically spat the last word.
    “I have. I wasn’t there, myself, but many bore witness. They’re taking it as a sign, the Gardener himself proving Livia’s right to rule.”
    She put her withered hands to her eyes. They came away wet.
    “Father,” she said, her voice breaking, “I tried so hard to stay silent. I hoped…perhaps she’d see the light and confess on her own. Or…I don’t know
what
I hoped. I helped
raise
that girl. I loved her too much to turn her in. But that doesn’t make what I did any less wrong.”
    Amadeo glanced around, making sure they were still out of earshot.
    “Sister, what are you saying?”
    “It wasn’t a miracle,” Columba told him. “Livia is a witch.”
    She described the night of their escape from Carlo’s palace, the night of the Alms District massacre. She’d walked into Livia’s chambers and discovered a scene of horror. Blood on the floor, scrawled in unholy shapes. Blood on the dead, mutilated parakeet. Blood on the knitting needle in Livia’s hands.
    “And beside her on the floor,” Columba said, “a book with that same pattern inked on its pages. A book of spells.”
    Amadeo’s face had gone ashen.
    “I passed two of Carlo’s men on my way to her rooms,” she told him. “Do you remember the barracks fire?”
    He nodded. “Yes. Some of Gallo’s troops set it as a distraction.”
    “There were soldiers sleeping in that barracks. Carlo’s men were in a panic because they weren’t waking up. Lying in the middle of a fire, and they weren’t waking up. I think Livia did it. I think she was trying to escape on her own. With witchcraft.”
    Amadeo thought back to the exodus, standing at the prow of an overloaded fishing boat as they sailed from the burning waterfront.
    “
Two hours
,” Livia had murmured in her grief. And then: “
It’s my fault they died
.”
    If she had escaped on her own
, Amadeo thought,
if we hadn’t led Carlo’s mercenaries to the Alms District…the massacre wouldn’t have happened
.
    “I should have told you,” Columba said, on the verge of sobbing. “I should have told someone, anyone. Father…we helped to put a witch on the papal throne. Those aren’t miracles she’s working. It’s pure damnation from the Barren Fields. She’s not here to save our Mother Church; she’s here to
destroy
it. And it’s my fault.”
    Amadeo gritted his teeth, shooting another furtive glance toward the refugee camp. “Columba, these are…very serious accusations.”
    “I know what I saw. I know what
she did
.”
    “Have you spoken to anyone else about this?”
    She met his gaze, looking forlorn. Adrift.
    “Who could I tell? If I held my tongue any longer, I’d watch this Church—everything I’ve ever loved, everything I’ve ever cared for—burn. If I spoke up, I might be fanning the flames even faster. There’s no victory here, Father. There’s no right answer, just…different degrees of wrong.”
    He held up a hand, trying to calm her.
    “Do this for me: hold your silence a bit longer. Let me look into it. I’m still close to Livia, or at least I think I am. I’ll investigate and find out if your fears are true.”
    She rubbed her eyes, composing herself, and took a deep breath.
    “And then?”
    “And then,” Amadeo said,