“This is for Anna Müller,” I said as fire crept up his wrists. The flames reached his elbows and the smell of burned flesh filled the room. I savored it.
“This is for Sister Margareta, who took her own life rather than let you break her. Who died with more dignity than you will ever know.”
His robes caught fire now, the holy vestments becoming his pyre. He was still screaming, still begging, still calling on a god who had no interest in saving men like him.
“This is for Greta and every woman whose name I will never know. The hundreds you murdered. The thousands you terrorized. The children who grew up without mothers because you decided that knowledge was witchcraft and kindness was sin.”
I urged the fire to climb higher as it consumed him inch by inch, keeping him alive far longer than should have been possible. My power sustained him even as it destroyed him, ensuring he felt every moment of hispurification.
“And this,” I hissed, stepping closer until I could see my reflection in his terror-glazed eyes, “is for me.”
I leaned in close enough to see the moment the light began to leave his eyes.
“I want you to know something before you die, Friedrich. I want you to understand.” I smiled, and I knew it was laced with madness. “You were right about me. I am exactly what you always said I was. And I am the last thing you will ever see.”
The fire roared, and Friedrich Förner—the Witch Bishop’s right hand, the scourge of Bamberg, the murderer of my mother—burned. The flames consumed him from the inside out, and the sickening grease of him seeped out, but my shadows gripped tighter. I kept holding on until he was nothing but a smear of congealed flesh beneath me. Until his screams had faded to silence. Until the shadows released what little remained and let it crumble to the floor.
Then I turned and walked out of his study. Behind me, the building began to burn.
I did not look back.
Chapter 26
Heinrich
The Bishop was praying in the cathedral when I found him. How very convenient.
He knelt before the altar, hands clasped, head bowed, the picture of piety. Candlelight flickered across his vestments, catching the gold thread, the precious gems, the symbols of authority he had used to justify so much suffering. Behind him, the great stained-glass window depicted the final judgment. Fitting.
I knew which side the Bishop believed he would stand on.
“Your Grace.”
He did not startle. Perhaps he’d been expecting me. He crossed himself slowly, deliberately, and rose to his feet with the stiffness of a man accustomed to a sedentary life.
“Father Heinrich.” He turned to face me, and I saw no fear in his eyes—only the same cold certainty that had condemned hundreds to the flames. “I wondered when you would come. The witch has escaped. And you…” His gaze swept over me, assessing. “You are not the man who came to my diocese two years ago.”
I smiled. Not the smile of a man, but neither the smile of a demon. Katharina had pulled back the shadows and revealed whatwe truly were. I was still a man of God. I simply served a different God now.
“You’re more perceptive than I gave you credit for.”
“I have spent my life studying the Devil’s work.” He moved toward the altar, placing it between us, as if consecrated stone might offer protection. “I know possession when I see it.”
“You think this is possession?” I walked down the center aisle, my footsteps echoing in the empty nave. “This is union—a demon and a man, joined in service to something greater than either of us.”
“There is nothing greater than God.”
“Your god.” I stopped at the foot of the altar steps, peering up at him. “That god is very small, Your Grace. I have met him. He abandoned his children long ago.”
The Bishop’s jaw tightened. “You speak blasphemy.”
“I speak truth.” I climbed the first step. “For the first time in my miserable, guilt-ridden life, I speak truth. I wanted to devote my life to God’s light, to his love. Your church made that impossible, more interested in earthly power than the souls of the faithful.”
Now, the second step. The Bishop’s hand crept toward a heavy silver candlestick on the altar. I let him. It would not matter.
“I starved and prayed and begged for deliverance. And do you know what your god gave me?” I laughed, the sound echoing through the nave until nothing else remained. “Silence. Nothing but silence, while I tore myself apart.”
“The Lord tests those he loves?—”
