Priest (Ratcatchers Book 1) by Matthew Colville

later,” Heden said, rubbing his hand over the stubble of beard on his face, “I was falling asleep and thinking about what happened. I was thinking about the boy, about his fits. I knew he wasn’t possessed. I think the bishop did too. That’s not how possession works.” He looked at Vanora and said, without expression, “that’s not how demons work. I relived the whole thing in my mind, over and over. What the bishop had said, what I had done. I felt very sad for the boy, but…what was there to do?
    “Then I remembered something a friend of mine said. He was smart, smarter than me. He and I and some others were looking over the body of a friend of ours who’d killed himself. He said something then that I didn’t understand. But I never forgot it. He said, ‘I wonder what kind of catastrophic failure the mind is experiencing, to view self-destruction as the only solution.’
    “I didn’t understand him. I thought it was in poor taste, but that moment came to me as I was falling asleep. His point of view. Which I thought I’d never get. I got up and came down here and went to the bookcase,” he said nodding at the books Vanora had been examining earlier, “and I pulled out a book he gave me.”
    “He was a physician. A kind of godless priest,” Heden smiled at this phrase, and the memory of his friend. “His people are the best physicians in the world. I read through the book, took me weeks. But I found a description of what was happening to the boy. All the same things. Like they’d been there when that boy had a fit and just wrote everything he did down.” For a moment, Heden was lost again, remembering his own wonder at how the words from a people fifteen hundred miles away could so accurately describe a boy they’d never met. He knew the gods had guided him to that moment. “Anyway, there was a cure right there in the book. Some plants, herbs. Instructions on how to prepare them. There’s a little magic involved, not much.
    “The next day, I went about collecting the plants. I don’t know why. I’d never encountered anyone like that boy before, no reason to think I would again. Some of the herbs were hard to come by. Anyway I cooked it up, followed the instructions, and then put it away. Packed it in honey to preserve it. Until…yesterday.”
    “Yesterday,” Vanora said, it wasn’t a question.
    “Yesterday,” Heden repeated. “When I was sent to do to you what I did to him, and for the same reason.” Vanora stared at him. She’d realized what his story meant, her role in it. But him saying it so plainly made it real. Horrible, but at the same time…took some power it had over her away.
    “You didn’t,” she said. “You didn’t know what I…”
    Heden picked up his drink. “I wasn’t going to kill another boy. Or girl,” he added. “Bishop be damned.” He took a drink.
    “Anyway that’s it. Long story. It worked, by the way,” he said, putting the drink down. He smiled at her. Vanora smiled a little for the first time. A quirky smile, older and younger than fifteen. “Praise the Hazarite,” he said. She smiled some more, even though she didn’t know what Heden meant.
    “What was your friend’s name?” she asked.
    “Khalil,” he said. She nodded.
    “I should go,” Vanora said, and seemed apprehensive. “Miss Elowen will be upset.”
    Heden shrugged.
    Vanora looked at him, waiting for him to say something.
    “I don’t think she expected to ever see you again. I doubt she knows you’re alive.”
    Vanora looked away and even though Heden wasn’t looking at her, he knew she was trying to avoid crying. Heden was a little proud of himself that being honest with her had worked. He made a mental note to tell the abbot about this.
    “You can stay here if you want. You can go. It’s up to you.”
    Still not facing him, she snorted once, and nodded. “What would I do here?” she asked. Direct. Heden liked that.
    “I don’t know,” Heden admitted. “I’ll think