“But the men in New Bethel believed that I was. They believed that I was damned, and that belief was focused and channeled through Brother Furness. I couldn’t fight it. I’m not enough of a credomancer.”
“So because Brother Furness believed you were damned, because he believed that you could not walk into a church, because he believed that the Bible would cripple you …”
“The power of his belief overcame my power to answer.” Stanton tossed away the pine-cone’s now-denuded core. He flexed his fingers as if he longed for something else to take apart.
“What would have happened if you’d gone into his church?”
“If I had gone into his church, with those men despising me as a Warlock, I would have suffered the agonies of the damned they believed I should suffer. There are several gory descriptions of divine retribution in the Bible.”
Emily shook her head. “So … really, even though they despise Warlocks, they’re just like credomancers themselves, aren’t they? Of a sort?”
Stanton looked at her and nodded with appreciation. “Precisely,” he said.
“But what about Caul? Furness said he went into the church—”
“They didn’t know what Caul was, and he was smart enough to make sure they didn’t.” Stanton was bitter. “But it is a great irony, isn’t it? If the Scharfians are going to burn anyone, sangrimancers would be an excellent place to start. I wouldn’t mind piling some tinder around Caul’s feet myself.” He snapped his fingers, muttered the familiar word, stared into the heart of the tiny flame that danced over his thumb.
Emily reached out, wrapped her hand around his, smothering the tiny flame.
“Never mind,” she said firmly. “All’s well that ends well.”
He looked at her hand over his. Then his green eyes went to hers and held them. She flushed. So this was the look Dag had been talking about. Stanton put his other hand over hers, drew her toward him.
“Miss Edwards,” he began softly. But then he fell silent. He took a deep breath. He gave her hand a very brotherly pat. “You have the makings of an excellent credomancer.”
Climbing quickly to his feet, he brushed pine needles from his trousers. “Now, I take it you insist on this suicidal exercise with your lumberman?”
Emily felt slightly dizzy, and strangely cross. “He’s not my lumberman,” she snapped. “But if you’re asking if I trust him—yes. I know he won’t double-cross us. I’m certain of it.”
“Let’s just hope that’s enough,” Stanton said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hemacolludinatious
A few hours later, Emily was sitting high up in a fir tree, trying to keep quiet, and wondering for the hundredth time what Stanton was doing.
Cutter’s Rise was little more than a wide flat spot where the dense pines had been hewn down, leaving thin churned earth salted with granite dust and covered with slick needles. It was not a passenger stop, but rather what the train men called a “jerkwater,” where the engine could take on water from the tall tower before tackling the big climb just up the tracks.
The sun had set and heavy blue darkness had descended over the mountains, bringing with it the cold sounds of night. Train tracks stretched out in both directions, disappearing between the enfolding pines. Above them, the high passes of the Sierra loomed; from far below came the distant sound of a train whistle, thin and piercing.
It must be down in Gold Run right now. Emily listened hard to the lonely sound. About a half hour out.
She hoped Dag would hurry.
She looked back down at Stanton, who was making all sorts of strange and arcane preparations against what he believed was the eventuality of Dag’s betrayal. In the middle of the clearing, in the light of a half dozen magically glowing brands, he was laying out tree branches in a large triangle.
“I thought you were a credomancer,” she called down to him. “What are you doing pushing branches around?”
“I’m engineering a Trine,” he said. “And you’re supposed to be hiding. Be quiet, and keep listening for Komé. She warned us before.”
Emily fished the acorn out of her pouch and closed her fist around it, listening hard for the Maien’s chanting. She didn’t hear anything. In fact, the only thing that popped into her mind was the word “hemacolludinatious,” a word that she didn’t recognize but that seemed strangely familiar. She amused herself with trying to figure out what it might mean while she watched Stanton.
When he finished laying out branches in a triangle, he went to each side, speaking words over them in low rhythmic