The Tribunal.
It almost makes me think of witch trials of the past because what I’m wearing is ceremonial, and if there's one thing I’m sure of, it’s that The Society stands on ceremony.
I pull my still-bare feet up onto the cot and hug the blanket to myself. No shoes. My feet are freezing. I’ve eaten the bread and another bowl of cold soup. This time, there was an apple too, and I devoured that. The water is gone. Now I sit here waiting for him to return. I’m anxious for it. The longer I sit here, the more time I have to make up stories of what happened. To ruminate over Santiago’s collapse. I won’t let myself go further, though. He’s not dead. I have to believe that. But what happened?
I’m nodding off when I finally hear the sound of footsteps outside. When I sit up, I catch a fast-moving shadow pass by the window before hearing the key slip into the lock. Before he pushes the door open, I remember to pull the blindfold down. I tied it looser so I can open my eyes behind it. I can at least make out shapes then.
He walks in and stops. I wonder what time it is. It’s pitch-black now. But the canopy of trees could be making it seem later. I’ve slept off and on and have lost all track of time.
“Up,” he says.
I stand, dropping the blanket.
He looks me over, and I see his head move in a nod. “Good. Arms out.” He walks toward me as he says it and drops something on the cot.
“Tell me first about my husband. Tell me—”
“We are not bargaining,” he says. “Arms, or I’ll bind them behind your back.”
My head is tilted up to his face. He’s still wearing the cloak, but even without the hood up, it’s too hard to make out any features between the dark and my blindfold.
I extend my arms, and he binds them, the same cool feel of leather from his gloves against my skin. I wonder if he wore them so he doesn’t have to touch me. Once my wrists are tightly bound, he leans to pick up whatever he’d tossed onto the cot, and I realize it’s a cloak when he drapes it over my shoulders. The heavy wool scratches my neck and smells musty. Old. He closes the clasp at my throat, then pulls the hood over my head.
My heart races. I’m on full alert as he takes my arm and leads me toward the door. I’m slow, though, too slow for him.
“Come.”
“My feet,” I start as I climb the stone steps and then walk out onto damp grass.
“A small price to pay,” he replies before I can say more.
He leads me with an iron grip, and I have to trust he’s not going to steer me into a wall, but soon, the grassy floor gives way to gravel. Small stones. And I hear the sound of a car engine start. A door is opened.
“In.”
Climbing into the car, I smell the leather of the seats and feel the dry, comforting warmth of the heater. He gets in beside me and closes the door. A moment later, I feel the car shift as someone else climbs in—the driver, I guess—and we’re off.
We’re headed to IVI’s headquarters. At least I'm pretty sure that’s where The Tribunal sits. I know what it is. I think I knew when he first told me, too. The Society’s version of a court where members who break the rules are questioned, tried, and sentenced. It wouldn’t stand up in any court of law in the world, and I’m sure it’s illegal, even, but those sort of things don’t seem to hinder any IVI activities. The Society is a self-governing organization independent of the law, almost like a country in and of itself.
It’s where Hazel will be sent if she’s ever found. She’ll have to stand before The Tribunal, where three probably hundred-year-old men will determine how she’ll be punished. No trial for her. Just sentencing. It’s how it works. Our father won’t even be there to protect her, and there’s not a chance Abel would help her.
Is that what’s going to happen to me? But why? Why would I stand before a tribunal? What have I done?
A chill runs through me, and I turn my head to look in my captor’s direction.
“What do you think I did?” I ask, my voice small. Because I am being punished. Or I will be. By keeping me in that cell, he’s holding me until…I pause. Until things go one way or the other with Santiago, I guess.
Which means he’s still alive. Or he was.
My heart sinks.
He turns to me. I see that much. “We found the source of the poison.”
“Poison?” My mouth goes dry.
“Cleverly done. But not clever enough.”
The car pulls through the gates at IVI, and he falls silent as I hug the cloak closer around my trembling shoulders.
5
Ivy
He removes my blindfold the moment we are inside but then draws my hood back on. My cloak is scarlet red.
I look up at him as my eyes adjust to the dim lights, but all I see beneath his hood is the hard surface of a black mask.
He studies me for a long moment, then turns to walk ahead of me up the wide, winding staircase, his every step echoing off the stone.
Someone clears their throat, and I glance behind me to see two men standing there. He’s not taking a chance that I’ll run. Not that I’d know where to go or get far if I did.
I turn back to watch his form round the corner, then take a deep breath and follow.
We’re not in any part of the compound that I’ve been in before. This place is darker. Colder. Lonelier. From the window on the first landing, I pause to glance outside at the small courtyard below. The single platform there. The post.
Panic takes hold of me, and I fall back a step only to bump into the rock-hard chest of one of the men behind me.
“I…” I shake my head, backing away from him. He doesn’t touch me, and I feel like a pariah. All of them avoid touching me. He doesn’t come after me but waits as I steady myself. I glance once more through the barred window at that platform, and my mind wanders back to my history lessons. How the condemned man or woman would watch as the scaffold was built outside their window and see the place where he or she would be executed.
Obviously, they don’t carry out executions here, I tell myself. Surely, that’s a step too far. But there are other things. Other medieval punishments.
The man behind me clears his throat, and I continue up the stairs, not letting myself look out the window on the next three landings. When I reach the last one, my captor is waiting for me outside of two hulking doors, dark wood carved with the insignia IVI.
“Come,” he says when I stop moving.
My bare feet are silent on the cold stone as I approach and stand before him. He unclasps the cloak and pushes it off my shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. I see his gaze drop to the strange garment, and I remember how vulnerable I am. How naked beneath this sheath.
They think I poisoned Santiago. Has he died? Is that why I’m here now?
The question of what they’ll do to me is second to the echoing of has he died circling round and round in my head.
A sound like a gavel comes from inside, and my heart jumps as I face the doors when they are opened. My mouth goes dry as the large circular room comes into view. Raised high in the center is the dais upon which three men—The Councilors, my judges—sit behind a large desk made of the same wood and decorated with carvings as intricate as the doors.