I know what that is.
The Cathars. TheCathars.Of course. Nine hundred years ago. Languedoc, what’s now Southern France. Heretics. Famously. They believed in…dualism, I think. That the material world was corrupt. Saw no need for priests or churches to find God and live out His will.
And they let women preach.
“Mais tout cela,” the prior says, fighting slightly to be heard above the chorus of hisses, “tout cela peut leur être remis. Tous leurs péchés effacés par le repentir. Car voici qu'elle nous est livrée. Voici qu'elle est?—”
My memory reels, flicking through readings I only half-recall in my panic. 1120? 1130? The Albigensian Crusade—not a crusade of Holy Land battles but of villages stormed, peasants interrogated.
Confessions forced.
Torture.
There’s a click behind me as the office door unlocks. I turn, jump, hoping against hope—but I can see nothing, hear nothing, and all that emerges is another white-robed figure, who kneels briefly before the prior.
“Trouvé?”
“Non, pas lui,” replies the messenger. “Mais un autre.”
I strain to eavesdrop. They were looking for someone? Didn’t find him. But found someone else.
“Plusieurs?” The prior’s hand tenses around his weapon. But he nods. “Bien, ça suffirait. On perd du temps.”
That’ll have to do?I’m just wondering—what,whatwill have to do?—when swift, hard hands grab me once again, clamped on my shoulders. A White Brother lunges for my feet, ripping off my boots and socks. Another rams something onto my head, a tight and prickling circle I can’t see, and yet another thrusts a long, thin candle into my hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask, panic bubbling into my voice. “What is this for?”
But I don’t need to ask. I think I know.
An inquisition.
The prior’s faceless form reveals nothing.
“Marchez,” he orders.
Walk.
THIRTY-FIVE
LANZ
It’sone thing to say you’d die for someone. It’s another thing to say, toknow, in fact, that youwilldie for someone.
And yet, I think, as fire eats through wire and insulation and drywall and burns Camlann House down to charred studs, it’s another thing entirely to say I will die for you today. This afternoon. In approximately four, maybe five hours.
The air ripples and billows with heat, distorting the light even as smoke clouds most of it out. Eyes stinging, I squint through what’s left of the living room and keep my hand firm on the grip of my weapon.
But there you have it, I think. We all have to go sometime. And I’m going to spend whatever life is left in me getting to her.
“Lanz!”
I leap, sideways, just in time, as a heavy crossbeam shudders downward through the air, trailing sparks and ash. It thuds, dense, two feet from where I land in a skid on what used to be Camlann House’s front porch.
“Keepup,” whoever it is—Kai—yells in frustration, already down on the muddy ground.
I’m trying, I think.I’m trying. I’m breathing in flakes of wallpaper and upholstery and probably asbestos, I can’t see for shit, and there’s a fishhook in my heart with a line pulling me straight to Gwenna so hard it’s ripping the breath from my lungs.
Instead of waiting for an answer, Kai jumps from the ground by the porch and yanks me by the upper arm, practically dragging methroughthe banister.
