“Go in peace,” he said, the formal words of dismissal. “To love and serve the truth of what’s right.”
I left the confessional feeling lighter and heavier at once. Heinrich followed, and in the candlelight I saw recognition on his face, as if he’d finally understood something about me—or perhaps about himself.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “For Leibchen. For…understanding.”
He reached out and took my hand in the dark. “She was lucky to have you. As am I.”
There it was again—that moment when we weren’t priest and parishioner anymore. The only sound was our breathing, deep and unsteady, and all it would have taken was one small step forward to cross that line. One small step, and I would be pressed against him, his arms wrapped around me as I surrendered to everything churning inside me.
I stepped back instead.
Our hands parted, and I turned away without looking back. I fled the nave nearly as quickly as I had entered it.
The touch had lasted only a moment, but his warmth lingered on my palm long after. Descending through the cold stone corridors back to my chamber, I realized the hollow grief had shifted into something else.
Heinrich always had that effect on me. He’d said my desires were not a sin, but he didn’t know the depths of what I wanted. How I wanted him. But he was a good man, one of the only ones in Bamberg. I would wrestle with my own damnation, but I would never drag him down with me.
Yet the need inside me clawed until it became an ache I could no longer ignore. I settled beneath my thin wool blanket, the cot hard beneath me as I rolled onto my stomach. My hips pulsed against the tight fabric as I tugged up my chemise, my fingers finding their home quickly.
This had become as familiar to me as my evening prayers—and so much sweeter. The tension coiled as I pinched and tugged at my clit, but as I remembered the feeling of his hands and his soft voice, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I slipped one hand farther back, pressing one finger, then two inside myself, wondering if it was what he would feel like.
No, he would be so much better. His long scholar’s fingers reaching deeper than I ever could, the soft Latin he would whisper in my ear as he worked me slowly, not with the rapid desperation I felt now.
I groaned, my forehead pressing into the rough surface beneath me as the throbbing pressure built. It felt distant tonight, blocked by the guilt that never left me alone, even in the dark.
Dirty. Desperate. Damned.
But tonight the words drilled into me in the convent came in Heinrich’s voice as his hand tightened at the back of my neck. Tonight I didn’t want his kindness, but his admonishment. For him to finally see the sinner that I was and treat me accordingly.
You deserve this. Your body deserves this.
I moaned his name into the night as that flicker of pleasure passed through me, like a candle being snuffed out. It was nevermore than that. I rolled onto my back, panting until my breath fogged in the cold air.
You deserve this. Your body deserves this.
I curled in on myself as hot tears of frustration streaked down my cheeks, and sleep slowly claimed me. As it did, I dreamed of tiny feet and the buzz of wings, soft mouths drinking my tears away.
Chapter 7
Katharina
Ihung the small bundles of rosemary and elderflower above my doorway to welcome good luck tonight and protect against anything emboldened by the thinning of the veil. I’d grown too old to believe such stories, but it felt wrong not to keep up the tradition my mother had taught me.
In Bamberg, the last night of April was Walpurgisnacht, though Mother had told me it came from something even older—a celebration of the shifting of the seasons and God’s gift of fertility to our land. A time when all sorts of spirits roamed the earth, both benevolent and demonic. I looked up at my small bundle of herbs and sighed. The demons didn’t need the door in Bamberg; they were already here.
I made my way to the main square just outside the cathedral. Bonfires blazed against the purple dusk, sparks rising into the darkening sky. But tonight these fires were not a punishment, but a celebration. All of Bamberg had gathered for Walpurgisnacht—even the Witch Bishop could not forbid a tradition this old, though he’d tried to sanctify it with prayers and crucifixes. Still, the old ways crept through. Young couples leapt over the flames hand in hand for fertility, children wove flower crowns, and the may wine flowed perhaps a bit toofreely.
I filled a small cup for myself and skirted the edge of the celebration, just outside the bonfire’s light. Always in the shadows. The night felt alive in a way I hadn’t felt in ages, but perhaps that was just the wine. I wandered quietly, observing, until I heard a flurry of laughter.
Heinrich sat surrounded by children, his cassock forgotten in the rectory, wearing simple clothes that made him look younger, less burdened. He was telling them the story of Saint George and the dragon, of the epic battle between the saint and the beast. Firelight caught his face as he gestured dramatically, and little Wilhelm squealed with delight at his impression of a fleeing dragon. All the children joined in, pushing one another until they collapsed into a joyful heap.
My chest ached as I watched him. Across the square, the baker’s daughter sat practically in her sweetheart’s lap, his arms wrapped around her as they swayed to the fiddler’s tune. No one looked twice. But if I so much as sat too close to Heinrich, the whispers would start—the witch’s daughter and the priest. Even here, even tonight when the normal rules bent, we could not be what…well, what I wanted. The lightness I’d briefly felt disappeared, and I downed the last of my wine.
Someone pressed another cup into my hand. It was Sister Margareta, her usually stoic face softened by the firelight.
“Careful now,” she said. “Don’t let the sweetness fool you.”
I took another sip, the woodruff and strawberries not quite masking the wine’s strength. I drank deeply anyway, trying to drown the crawling longing that threatened to pull me under. Heinrich looked up, caught my eye across the fire, and smiled—the smile that was mine and mine alone. Then Wilhelm tugged his sleeve, demanding another story, and the moment broke.
