Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,47

pretending all will be well before turning around and using the information to further dismantle the institution.

Guilt strains my fingers as I knit my hands together in my lap and bite my tongue to keep from shouting, “Please! Don’t tell me!”

My morals are slipping away faster than I can even think to tie them to me for safe keeping.

“A mother came in,” he continues, the angst in his voice weighing down my own conscience. “Her son attends Queen Mary.”

Queen Mary. As in the same university that Peter attends, Queen Mary.

Thank God for the screen separating us because Father Bootham goes on, completely unaware that all the blood has drained from my face. “In any other circumstance, I might hesitate to relay this information, but I find that I cannot hold my tongue. When the son visited for family dinner, he was . . . inebriated. He confessed that he had joined a group—led by one of the university’s professors—who believe that . . . that Saxon Priest killed the king.”

“He didn’t do it,” I whisper, feeling every bit the liar that I’ve become. “It wasn’t Saxon.”

“I know.” Father Bootham sighs. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, you know. I know when someone gives me untruths, just as I know when someone bleeds good faith.”

I tremble.

Right there in the confessional, before God, before Father Bootham, I tremble with fear. Saliva sticks to the roof of my mouth, and no matter how many times I swallow, I find myself on the verge of tearing out of this prison box of worship and hightailing it out of Christ Church, never to return again.

I half expect Father Bootham to wait me out until I confess to all of my misdeeds, but he doesn’t, too wrapped up in his own quandary to ponder my sudden silence. “I was told they’ve hatched a plan to do away with Saxon. The details are sketchy, at best, and not entirely reliable. The boy was drunk, and the mother too horrified that her son was concocting a murder scheme to demand he tell her everything.”

Finally, I manage, “Did she go to the police?”

I can practically imagine Father Bootham shaking his head. “The Met is unreliable, as you well know. They’d just as soon put her boy in a prison cell as praise him for doing what most of the city wants done.”

The likelihood that this boy and the men that Peter overheard talking are two different groups seems far-fetched. Peter told me in warning, so that I wouldn’t inevitably involve myself and get caught in the middle. Father Bootham is telling me now so that I can warn Saxon.

Which I’ve already done to no avail, the stubborn bastard.

I run my fingers through my hair, digging my fingertips into my scalp. “If I tell Saxon, you know what will happen.”

A small pause before, “That is my own sin to bear.”

“But you believe in him.”

“I believe in him as much as I believe in myself.”

I’m working with a stubborn bastard and a foolish priest who can’t see the truth staring back at him. Saxon Priest is not the hero in this nightmarish fairytale. He hates the Crown, and he hates it enough to manipulate a good man like Father Bootham into thinking that they’re working together for the same cause.

A man like Saxon, who claims to be heartless, clearly has no qualms about the subterfuge. But I . . . It feels so utterly wrong to sit here and tell the priest that he’s doing the right thing in saving Saxon’s life, when he’s doing nothing more than turning on the people who are actually his allies.

The boy. The mother.

Slowly, I drag in a breath, letting it fill my lungs with renewed purpose. Of why I’m here. Of what I’ve suffered to be in a position that allows me to chart my life as I see fit. “You said the details are sketchy but if we’re to help Saxon, I need more. Did the mother know where her son met for those meetings? Which professor banded all the students together?”

“Yes,” Father Bootham answers softly, like the word has been torn from his moral compass. “I know it all.”

A pained smile crosses my face as I slip my hand into my coat pocket to pull out a pen. I press the tip to my palm and test the ink. Black beads on my flesh. “I’m listening, Father. Go on.”

17

Saxon

“You’re done.”

Mouth gaping open, Jack shoves a thumb into his chest. “Me?