What had Silas told her before when he’d offered an alliance?You will find the dangers in this city require concessions to survive them.
“How did the Church never suspect you had magical blood?” Eight years he’d been gone. Eight long, cruel years he’d learned the trade of torture and confession, to violently root out heresy from the body.
“They didn’t.” Henryk’s voice turned whisper-soft as he said, “Alchemy doesn’t just change one thing into another. It can change the mind, Ree. Bodies. Even blood.”
She’d seen as much herself from Marie’s memories—flashes of the nightmarish vessel,La Lune,the ways in which the Brotherhood had warped time and space itself.
“There is a secret ritual among the Brotherhood’s highest order. A transfiguration rite.Alchemization.They will perform it on their enemies and even their own.”
“Their own?” She should not be so surprised at the Brotherhood’s appetite for cruelty, that their hate might turn inward. She was reminded of the stone at the end of Silas’s staff, that terrifying beast that consumed itself.
Henryk gave a bitter laugh. “Especiallyon their own. If there are thoughts of defection, if there is a whiff of mutiny, they will be alchemized. No one ever defects from the Brotherhood of the White Hand. No one,” he said. Ree thought of Silas’s fateful words to her mother in the dark corridor of that cursed steamboat.There is always a way out.“Alchemization need not transform minds. It can changemagicitself. Turn it into something more. Or into nothing at all. It was done on me as a child to keep my magic hidden. Even from me. It would take powerful magic to undo what was done to me, and I believe you did that in the tomb when I tried to save you.”
“Why would the Brotherhood alchemize you?” Her breath caught. “Unless you’re…” She looked at him with eyes anew. “…Brotherhood,aren’t you?”
The truth hung between them, a fragile thing he couldn’t bring himself to name. Not right away. “I am Gailon’s son, yes.”
Gailon, Silas’s vile predecessor. She had seen the Brotherhood change men into beasts, transform entire vessels into hellish voids for their own amusement. Why then would it be impossible to consider they might work their strange magic upon their own?
“Make no mistake, he was a cruel, pitiless man,” said Henryk. “I didn’t mourn him. When my mother didn’t want me to become Brotherhood, he had her killed. And after he was killed, Antoine took me in, gave me a chance to make right my father’s sins, to atone for his legacy and be a part of a secret reformation of theChurch. It would be a long road, he warned, a dangerous one. But I hadn’t cared. Not until, of course, I met you.”
Ree stared at him, her fury matched only by her sadness for him, for how much pain they might have avoided causing each other. “You never told me.”
“What was I going to tell you? That I was the son of a hateful monster? That I was never going to be a priest like Antoine? That I was going to be an Inquisitor? Awitch-hunter? Would you have cared for me then?”
Ree was silent. She didn’t know the answer to that question. Every line between them was completely muddled now, and she couldn’t see straight. She recalled the words Antoine had spoken to her at Marcel’s funeral.You made him believe in more once. Maybe not in magic itself. But in you.She hadn’t believed him then, couldn’t much afford to. But now?
“It hardly matters now. You must know a special tribunal is forming as we speak. Some of the most dangerous witch-hunters in the world will be here in one place for the first time in years. We’ll never have a chance to move like this again.”
“Youwantedthem to come. To draw the Inquisition in.”
“Yes.”
“And I was the bait.” Her mind was spinning.
“Eight years ago, when I began to understand, to really understand what bringing an Inquisition meant, I…couldn’t do it, Ree. I struggled to…” He faltered and did not say more.
“Tell me, Henryk.”
I struggled with everything,his gray eyes told her.With myself.With you.“You may think the Church is awful, but you’ve surely seen what the Brotherhood of the White Hand is capable of. It has to be stopped. Eradicated.”
“And Silas?” Ree paused. “Will you stop him too?”
“Silas believes his pact with Antoine will save him. He thinks by aligning with the Voodoos, you can kill the Inquisition before it kills you all. But I don’t intend to allow the Brotherhood to survive the Inquisition, Ree. I will make sure the Brotherhood is gone for good, and Silas with it.”
So, he’d planned on double-crossing the Grand Wizard all along. It was a risk Ree wasn’t sure he could afford—none of them could. She had seen the depths the Brotherhood’s alchemy might sink to. In many ways, war with the Brotherhood might be far more dangerous than the Church.
“Does Antoine know of your secret plan?”
“Antoine is far too idealistic for his own good. It is better if he doesn’t know.” He paused. “When I began this path, I didn’t care about reforming the Church. Or stopping an Inquisition. Those are Antoine’s dreams. Iwantedthe Brotherhood destroyed, the one thing I hated most. But then I met you. And everything changed. And I understood that if the Church destroyed magic, that would mean destroying—”
“Me,” she finished. “Is that why you asked me to leave with you eight years ago?” When he didn’t answer, Ree cursed. “Henryk, answer me, damn it!”
“Because I knew what I would become! What I would be made to do toyou,” he said brokenly. “And the truth is, I couldn’t do that because I was in love with you. And I’ve been in love with you since the moment I opened my eyes and saw your wicked little face. And I might be—” He stopped himself.I might be in love with you still.
“I—I don’t know if I can believe you.” She thought back to the interrogation. “You’ve hurt me.” But he had also saved her, hadn’t he? In those small, discreet ways she could see now. Suggesting she save Anabelle from the burning pyre, protecting her from Marcel’s undead form. The demon. Even when he had questioned her, he’d tried to get her to give up her mother to save her own life.
“I know. And for that I am sorrier than you’ll ever know.” The look of pain on his face told her this was the truth. But it did not matter. Apologies would not change where they were now. Maybe nothing would. “You became a complication in my plan, Ree. And I didn’t know how to finish this while keeping you safe at the same time.”
