Seraphina cursed under her breath, hating herself for what she was about to do. She took her walking stick from where she’d left it against a tombstone and smacked Rune in the shoulder.
“Up. Now.”
He let out a startled moan, and Seraphina felt tremendously guilty, but she smacked him again, and finally, he picked himself off the ground and stood next to her.
“I’m sorry, but it’s better this way. Trust me–”
“Bear witness to the power displayed before you. Let Heaven hear your prayers.”
Rune staggered backwards but didn’t fall back to his knees. Seraphina held her ground.
“See?” she asked.
“It is better.”
“Let’s move. Shake your body a bit.”
She demonstrated by shaking her arms and torso, then rolling her shoulders back and shaking her head, her long, blond hair falling to her waist.
“He’ll stop soon. Hopefully before people start vomiting all over each other.”
Rune followed her example. Seraphina heard his bones pop as he shook his body and stretched.
When the Voice of God spoke again, it barely affected them.
“Are you ready to go and see now?”
“All right.”
There was reluctance in his voice, but Seraphina could tell he was also curious. She started toward the gate of the churchyard, and he followed. Soon, they were walking down the empty streets back toward the Church of Our Lady, where every single soul in Ingolstadt was gathered in a mass of mesmerized people. The crowd was so large and packed that Seraphina didn’t even attempt to penetrate it. She and Rune stopped at the edge ofit, and Seraphina focused on her own breathing and on the way her body vibrated and her skin tingled. The feeling that she was being watched didn’t return, but she was braced for it.
“There are more people on the church steps,” Rune said. “There’s a man in a blue and silver robe. More people in blue and silver around him, and a few in white and gold.”
Seraphina was impressed by how well he could see from that distance.
“Anyone in green and bronze?” she asked.
“Yes, two people.”
“How about iron gray and black?”
“No, I don’t see anyone dressed like that.”
She smiled to herself, but it was bitter. Two years ago, she’d been the last Sarumite to stand on the steps of the Church of Our Lady on All Hollows’ Eve wearing robes in iron gray and black, looking like a harbinger of doom next to Matteo’s white and gold. Only her blond hair had redeemed her in the eyes of the onlookers.
“Of course, Headmaster Wolff knows better than to show up with pragmatists at his side,” she said. “I’m surprised he brought the two naturalists with him.”
“That’s the headmaster of Krähenstein Academy?” Rune asked, and Seraphina could imagine his blue eyes growing wide.
“Yes. He’s a doctrinist, so he wears the celestial blue and silver of House Rome. The people in white and gold are purists. Those are the colors of House Syracuse. And the people in forest green and bronze are naturalists, wearing the colors of House Cordoba.”
“And iron gray and black?”
“The colors of House Hamburg. Pragmatists.”
“You are one,” he noted.
“Am I still? I don’t know.” She shrugged, but it hurt to say it. “If I’m not up there with them, am I a Sarumite? If I haven’trenounced my ideas as a pragmatist, am I still part of the Order and the resistance?”
