The thought came with a flash of irritation that surprised me with its intensity. I stood at the gate, watching her work, her hands moving with the confidence she showed nowhere else. Here, alone in the dark, she was sure of herself.
She didn’t wear her bonnet. Her long hair fluttered softly, turned pale by the moonlight. I loved seeing her like this, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to wait much longer to have all of her.
“You’ll strain your eyes working by moonlight,” I said, stepping into the garden.
She startled, nearly knocking over her basket. “Heinrich. I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” I moved closer, watching her fingers nervously slide along the back edge of her knife. “What are you collecting?”
“Valerian root. For sleep.” She didn’t meet my gaze. “Frau Werner asked for it. Her husband’s nightmares have gotten worse since the war came closer.”
“Akindness, but still you collect in secret.”
Her jaw tightened. “It’s safer this way.”
“Safer.” I crouched beside her and plucked a sprig of valerian from her pile, rolling it between my fingers. “You mean more cowardly.”
She looked up at that, and I knew I’d struck something tender. “I’m trying to protect?—”
“Yourself. You’re trying to protect yourself.” The words came out harsh, but I didn’t soften them. There was something burning in my chest, something that wanted to shake her. “You help these women but act like it’s a sin, like your knowledge is shameful instead of powerful. It is powerful, and that’s what scares them.”
She diminishes herself. Makes herself small.
“That’s why itisdangerous,” Katharina said, her voice tight. “You know what they do to women who practice herb-craft too openly. My mother?—”
“Your mother refused to hide.” I caught her chin, turning her face to mine. “She claimed her knowledge proudly. She helped women in daylight, and yes, they killed her for it. But she died free, Katharina. She died herself. Not some diminished shadow trying to slip through the world unnoticed.”
Her eyes flashed—anger. Yes, finally, some spark of defiance. “She died screaming, alone on a pyre while her daughter watched. Forgive me if I’d prefer to stay alive.”
“This isn’t living.” I gestured at the garden, at her scattered supplies, at the way she’d hunched her shoulders the moment I’d challenged her. “This is surviving—barely. You could do so much more if you’d just stop being so damned careful.”
Tell her, something inside me urged.Make her see. She’s wasting herself on caution when she could be magnificent.
“I could protect you,” I continued, the words flowing now. “Idoprotect you. You could work openly, teach other women. Use my authority, use my position. Use me, Katharina. Stop hiding like you’re guilty of something.”
“Iamguilty.” She pulled away from my touch, her hands clenching in her lap. “I help women with medicines the Church forbids. I dream of—” But she cut herself off there. She was so close to seeing the truth, but she was hiding behind feigned ignorance.
“I’m doing exactly what they burned my mother for, Heinrich.” Tears welled in her eyes. “The only difference is I’m doing it quietly enough that they haven’t caught me yet. I’m still useful enough that most have kept their mouths shut.”
“Then do it loudly.” The intensity of my own voice startled me. “Make them see you. Make them afraid of you for once instead of the other way around.”
She stared at me like I’d suggested she set herself on fire.
She doesn’t understand, the voice murmured, and it sounded almost disappointed.She still thinks obedience will save her. Still believes if she’s good enough, small enough, they’ll let her live.
“You sound like you want me to provoke them,” Katharina said slowly. “Like you want me to give them a reason to?—”
“I want you to stop apologizing for existing!” The words echoed off the garden walls. I forced myself to breathe, to gentle my tone. “Every moment you spend hiding is a moment you’re letting them win. Letting them define what you’re allowed to be. Don’t you see? They’ve already won if you accept their terms.”
“Their terms are survival versus the stake,” she replied flatly.
“I will protect you. I would never let any harm come to you.”
“You can’t promise that, Heinrich. You…aren’t powerful enough to stop them.”
There it was. The true confession. And it might have been truth once, that just one priest couldn’t stop the corruption of the Church here in Bamberg. But I was different now. I remembered the feeling of perfect divine light, of asking one too many questions and falling, falling, falling into truth. A truth that shewouldsee.
“You have no idea the power I hold.” I felt it rising in me now, like anger made of golden flames, like fire and light that woulddestroy everything if I just let it. But she had it in her too; she just needed to see it.
