Page 113 of A Time of Witches

But she nodded and rose quietly.

Silent as a mouse, she slipped through the bars. She shrank down as she passed the guards, as if she could make herself small as a mouse as well.

The younger guard stirred, and she froze.

Sybil’s heart lurched from where she watched.

After a long pause, the girl stealthily stepped forward to the barred entry leading to the open bay. One set of doors from there and she would be free.

As if sensing the girl’s nearness, the younger guard snapped awake, just as the girl was about to leave the room of cages.

He stared at her, incredulous.

Sybil’s heart throbbed a frantic beat, and she slid her leg through the bars, to see if she could glide through as well, only to be stopped by her hip bones.

All she could do was continue to watch, helpless.

The little girl shook her head, eyes wide and fearful. And then, a single word escaped her lips. “Please.” She put her hands over her chest, and she gazed up at him with a hope so visceral, even Sybil felt its charge. “Please.”

The young guard’s shoulders softened. Then he turned away from the girl and lowered his head to the cradle of his arms.

Sybil almost gasped with relief.

The girl looked back at Sybil one last time. Then the child who had been such an incandescent spark of hope was gone, fading into freedom.

Sybil hoped that little girl spread her wings and soared into the world she was meant to have. That she could cherish life for them all.

For Sybil knew the outcome of her trial before it began.

Death would come for her soon.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Sybil

The prison was silent the following morning, heavy with threat of the impending trial.

In the place of the traveling assizes, oyer and terminer had been granted—a court approved to hear special criminal cases with a group of men gathered with the intention of condemning the witches to death.

With so many imprisoned, only two dozen could be seen in the one day. Sybil was among them, as the guard had claimed. As was Margery.

The courthouse had been stuffy, overcrowded, filled with the men and women she’d cared for in past years. Women whose children she had assisted in delivering when a midwife was not available, men whose farming injuries she helped heal, parents to children she saw through the pestilence and the starvation that followed.

These townsfolk who had once been grateful for Sybil’s aid now watched her trial, eyes gleaming with bloodlust as the accusations were hurtled at her feet: curdling the neighbor’s milk, spreading sickness and war, and killing Henry. This abomination had been signed by a member of her staff. As yet still unnamed.

Sybil stood in the box of the accused, damned by their judgment, as she was charged first with witchcraft—a crime punishable by hanging—and was found guilty.

The blow had left her staggering under the weight of the conviction.

Then came the charge of having used witchcraft to kill Henry, drawing the plague seeds to him, resulting in suffering and death, leaving her a wealthy widow. The punishment for this crime of petty treason was being burned alive.

She was found guilty.

Her world swam around her, fading in and out in the moist heat of the courtroom, the air rank with judgment and stained bloodred with malice. With hate.

She would die in the most horrible fashion, lashed to a stake amid a pyre and set alight like a bit of kindling. And like kindling, she would peel and split in the flames.

The horror of her future curled around her shoulders. Her death would be slow. Awful. Witnessed by those she had so freely given her time, her coin, and her love.