Page 118 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

But Magdalena… Sweet Christ, guide me.

- Sebastián Salazar

I lowered the diary, my throat tight. Beside me on the wooden floor, Seb sat rigidly, his dark eyes fixed on nothing. Reading these words had painted something horribly raw across his face.

I reached for his hand. His skin was cool against mine, but his fingers curled into my grip.

“We can stop,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “No. I need…” His accent thickened with emotion. “I need to remember. Remember it all.Properly.”

Something told me he remembered everything these diaries recounted crystal-clear already.

I leaned over and pressed my lips to his temple, lingering there. His curls brushed against my cheek, and I caught the faintest tremor running through him.

“Right, then,” I said, keeping hold of his hand as I picked up the diary again. “Let’s remember together.”

October 22nd, 1525

My hands shake as I write. Tonight has destroyed everything.

I followed Magdalena. God help me, I followed my own sister into the woods beyond the city walls. Padre Rodrigo’s whispers proved true—she was not alone. A gathering of women, dancing beneath the winter moon, speaking in tongues that made my blood run cold. Magdalena led their chants, her hair wild, her feet bare despite the frost.

Their voices carried fragments I recognised from my studies of Hebrew—“mother of night, first woman, she who rules the waters.” But worse was their altar: a clay bowl filled with water, and within it, a horrifying figure shaped from wax—a woman with a crown of serpents, surrounded by prowling beasts. The same unholy image from that book she had years ago.

And there, gleaming in the moonlight upon their unholy altar, my silver crucifix—stolen from my chambers. She held it high as she danced, defiling its blessed purpose.

I fled before they saw me, but when I returned home, Padre Rodrigo was waiting in my chamber. How did he know? He pressed me for every detail, his eyes alight, his hands gripping my shoulders until they bruised. “You owe me the truth. You owe me everything,” he hissed. When I confessed about the crucifix, his rage was terrifying. “She must be stopped.”

He’s right that I owe him. Without his guidance, his teachings, his faith in me, I would be nothing. And yet…

He speaks of using my position in the Tribunal. He says I must be the one to bring the charges. “God has placed you here,” he insisted, “for this holy purpose.” When I begged for time to speak with her, to save her, he struck me across the face. I can still feel the sting of his hand, even now.

He’s sent three messages since returning to his chapel. A brother of the order waits below my window even now, watching. Another stands at our gate.

Mother weeps behind locked doors. Father has not emerged from his study. And Magdalena sleeps, unaware that by dawn, everything will change.

Padre Rodrigo is right. He’s right. He must be right.

Sweet Christ, let him be right.

- Sebastián Salazar

31st October, 1525

It is done. My sister is dead.

A week ago, Padre Rodrigo brought the warrant himself after Vespers. “Your signature,” he said, “will save her soul.” When I hesitated, he reminded me of all we had discussed—how a quick trial now would spare her the torture chamber, how my influence could ensure a merciful end.

“Sign,” he whispered, standing so close I could smell the incense on his robes. “Sign, my Sebastián, and prove your devotion—to God, to Spain, tome.”

The ink was still wet when they took her.

Magdalena did not cry out when the guards came. She looked at me only once, but I will carry that look until my dying day. My crucifix—the one she had stolen for her ritual—hung from the guard’s belt. When Padre Rodrigo saw it, his eyes gleamed strangely in the torchlight. “She must hold it,” he announced. “Let her clutch it as the flames rise. Perhaps its blessed silver will grant her final salvation.”

I did not watch her burn today. Neither did Mother, or Father. Cowards, all three of us.

Though even now, I smell the smoke. The crucifix lies before me, stained dark with her blood. Padre Rodrigo placed it in my hands himself, a phantom warmth from the pyre. “Keep it always,” he whispered, his fingers lingering over mine. “A reminder of your dedication to our holy purpose.”

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