I should have kissed him, before all of this. When he was still himself. I should have been brave enough to damn myself for something real. I should have touched him the way I’d wanted to touch him, should have said the words that I knew now had never been a sin.
I love you. I loved you. I’m sorry.
Would he come? Would the demon wear his face one last time, come to gloat, to offer me damnation when I was already condemned? Or would they keep him away, afraid of what a witch loving a priest meant?
Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe we were both already damned, already lost. Maybe the only question left was whether I would die powerless or die fighting.
Maybe there was no Heinrich left to save…
No. I’d seen his face as he fought for me. He was still there; I knew it. He would come, and I would walk through the very fires of Hell to save him, even if it meant losing him.
Chapter 23
Katharina
Ihad managed to doze off somehow, my face plastered against the inside of my arm. Everything tingled like a thousand tiny insects walking all over my skin.
No, not a thousand. Three.
Three bees, dancing on my knee, each exchanging positions with the others in a repeated loop.
“What does it mean?” I croaked, my throat dry from lack of water. They continued their circles, then all paused, their wings beating rapidly.
I heard shouting down the hall. Then footsteps, and three shadowy figures appeared outside the cell bars. My chest felt it might cave in with how rapidly my heart beat, but one stepped forward, and I knew that body, that gait.
“Katharina Müller, I have come to hear your last confession.”
Heinrich.
I said nothing as one of the guards lifted a ring of keys. The metal screeched as he turned the lock, the loud thunk echoing off the stone walls.
Heinrich walked in, torchlight bending around him. Not much, barely enough to be noticeable. But I noticed.
The cell door slammed shut behind him and groaned again as the guard relocked it.
“Ten minutes, Father,”the guard sneered, hitting the iron bars with the key ring as he and his partner stalked away.
Heinrich watched them go. As their footsteps faded, the only sound left was my breathing, as if he had turned to stone.
The door at the end of the hall banged shut, and then he fell to his knees before me.
“Katharina, my Katharina. Are you all right?”
The movement was so sudden I jolted back as he reached for my face, slamming my skull against the wall and sending lights dancing before my eyes.
He pulled his hand back immediately, but his eyes continued to roam over me.
“They hurt you.”
I let out a dry laugh, closing my eyes and leaning into the pain. “Not as much as they soon will.”
“If that damn fool had just let me?—”
My eyes shot open. “Heinrich?”
He let out a low growl. “He nearly tore us apart fighting me, trying to get to you. It seems you are not the only one who doubts my dedication to you.”
My Heinrich, still there, still fighting. I had seen him. It had not just been a wish of my breaking heart.
