Chapter 22 #2
She went back to kneel in front of it and slid as much of the knifepoint inside as she could.
Her mind scrambled to translate the vision she’d seen in the Arras—the keyhole’s bolts and springs laid bare—into a plan she could follow to pick the locks.
The witch had never done anything like that.
She had never needed to. Not with the warps and wefts at her fingertips, not until she could no longer reach for them.
Tongue trapped between her lips, she twisted the knife at different angles, trying to move it into the right position. It didn’t work. But it had to work. So she tried again.
A soft breeze caressed strands of hair away from her cheeks, then slid down her arms. Once more, the witch angled the knife. Her hand cramped around its handle, unable to hold it efficiently through the restraints of the shackles. Just a bit further, just a little more precision, and …
It clicked.
Had she had any tears left in her, Semras would have cried out of relief.
Instead, she glanced around anxiously, her mind conjuring visions of the monster standing next to her. With how concentrated she’d been, the small door leading to his room could have opened, and she wouldn’t have heard it. He could have caught her in the act.
But he hadn’t.
With a soft, careful push, Semras opened the door and stepped outside her cage for the first time in days.
No one stood behind it; she released a breath of relief. Just as she had hoped, her guard was indeed missing.
Semras walked further into the corridor, abandoning behind the room that once imprisoned her. A soft, refreshing draft blew over her face. It wasn’t yet freedom, but at least it was a step toward it.
Sneaking down the mansion’s corridors, she kept her ears strained for the low chatter of the roaming night staff. Those working in rooms, she avoided easily with careful steps as she passed by them. Others walked through the hallways, and she darted into dark rooms to hide from them.
No one expected a witch to lurk in the shadows, and Semras made it through the second floor and down the first without being caught.
Once she arrived on the landing, the murmur of voices drifted down from the floor she had just left. They sounded close. Too close.
The witch looked left and right for a hiding place. With rising alarm, she noticed light seeping beneath every nearby door. More staff worked on this floor than the last one—nowhere was safe.
The words became clearer and morphed into the voices of two women. “… tell you, this house is haunted.”
“Stop being ridiculous. You saw a couple of papers get swept up by the wind, that’s all.”
“There was no wind, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! By the Radiant Lord, I swear there was no wind!”
“Uh-huh. I believe you. The holy residence of an inquisitor, a church property, is haunted. I wonder who they should call to purge it.”
The voices came from a thin door next to the staircase. Any moment now, it would open, and Semras would be caught.
She froze in place. A silent panic had numbed her limbs, and she listened powerlessly as the voices crept closer.
“You don’t have to mock my beliefs. We’re all from below stairs.”
“And below stairs is where we’re bringing this laundry to.
Come on, you haven’t worked here for long, but you’ll quickly learn there are drafts everywhere in this old mansion.
You Andakkadians may live in the Empire next to your diabalhs and elementals, but here in Vandalesia, the Inquisition keeps a tight watch over any stray spirits, so there’s no need to believe that … ”
The voices drifted further away, and Semras never saw who they belonged to. Baffled, she stared at the small door, then crept closer. Slowly, carefully, she opened it.
The dim light within revealed a narrow staircase going up and down, with barely a landing to get out of it from the door she had opened. The women had descended directly downstairs; they never needed to step out and go through the main staircase.
Exhaling with relief, Semras softly closed the door, then prowled further down the corridors.
When the study’s door stood at long last in front of her, no light seeped from beneath it. Tension seeped from her shoulders. She had made it.
Trying to escape the mansion would have been foolish. The inquisitor’s dutiful Venator dogs would have caught her before she’d even reached the gates, and then he’d throw her into a real cell this time. If she wanted a chance at fleeing Castereina, she needed her hands back.
And she needed proof of her innocence. Otherwise, as soon as she’d run, the murderer would sign an arrest warrant designating her as the culprit, and she’d spend her life jumping at shadows. She couldn’t leave until she had proof that she was being framed, at least.
That was why she stood there, in front of his office in the small hours of the night. If the monster had any spare keys to her witch-shackles, she’d find them there, along with whatever fabrication of guilt he was working on.
Semras had told him he wouldn’t get away with this. She’d make good on her words.
The door yielded to her soft push with a low creak. Behind it, the study was in an advanced state of chaos—even more so than the last time she stood there. She crept inside, then carefully closed the door behind her.
Darkness permeated the room. Rows of books lay on the floor, left open here and there. Semras cautiously stepped around them to approach the desk.
The contents of a nearby evidence box had been spread on its surface.
One by one, she examined each item. First, an autopsy report, dated the day after her imprisonment, confirmed all she had told the murderer about the toxicology.
Other papers revealed he had been busy cross-checking the victim’s staff testimonies and combing through his correspondence, which he had summarized in notes visibly written under poor lighting conditions.
In their margin, a few scribbled lines had been highlighted multiple times: ‘Torqedan’s secretary wrote all of his correspondence. Might know where the missing letter is? Need to interrogate.’
And beneath: ‘Did not know. Incriminating letter still missing.’
Frowning, Semras took a mental note of that ‘incriminating letter.’ If she could get her hands on it, maybe she could use it to shield herself and her sisters from a false accusation.
But she couldn’t put any hope on it; the inquisitor was still looking for whatever paper he had mistakenly left behind, and he’d most probably destroy it if—no, once—once he found it.
Among the papers lay many of the personal effects of Eloy Torqedan. Two caught her attention: an unfolded letter bearing an apothecary guild’s seal and a small diary opened to one page.
The witch seized the letter and scanned it eagerly, then dropped it with a groan.
It was only a pharmaceutical note on the usage and dosage of common comfrey—not prickly comfrey—addressed to Tribunal Torqedan.
The date had been smudged by a water stain, but it meant little when it wasn’t what she’d hoped for: definite proof of where her captor had procured what he needed to tamper with Torqedan’s medicine.
Semras moved on to the diary. Written in a tiny scrawl, the text looked like a mix of memoirs and manifestos. Her eyes jumped from word to word.
‘… is changing into a world where the Inquisition is no longer needed. Alongside us, the witch Covens are in decline too, but their roots are deep and resilient. Long after the fey blood of witches will have diluted into nothingness, their pagan beliefs will have spread, grown, and survived through spiritual successors.’
‘If nothing is done, the Inquisition will fade into obscurity while they endure, hidden behind new secret societies and names. Our holy war against the Ever-Encroaching Void, lost after nearly a millennium of fighting. If we are to survive, we must adapt to modernity, and—’
A hand clamped over her mouth. “Shh!”
Startled, Semras turned to stare into the warm hazel eyes of Themas. Horror shuddered through her. She’d been caught, and the knight would now drag her back to her cage, and the monster would know about her escape attempt, and he would punish her, or kill her perhaps, or worse, or—
“Forgive me for the fright,” Themas whispered, “but there is no need to worry. I simply didn’t want to startle you and alert anyone passing by. I will remove my hand now.”
He did, but she still remained frozen in silence. Was he friend or foe?
Smiling bashfully, Themas gave her a conspiratorial wink. “It looks like we are both in a place we shouldn’t be. I won’t tell on you if you won’t tell on me.”
“… What are you doing here?” she breathed.
He winced. “I was searching for … well, hoping to find at least an explanation for Inquisitor Velten’s behaviour.
He has been erratic for the past few days, staying alone in his room or his study for hours on end.
I am sure it has to do with why he locked you up.
” The knight looked at her with apologetic eyes, then slowly dropped his gaze when she didn’t reply.
“Semras … if there is something you know, please tell—”
He stopped talking, and she followed his gaze to her witch-shackles. Even to her, the crusted blood staining their joints looked dreadful.
“That’s …” She couldn’t finish her sentence before a shudder ripped through her.
Gently taking her hands in his, Themas examined the cruel contraption. His brow creased with growing horror. “… Who did this to you?”
Semras turned her head, fleeing his eyes.
“Inquisitor Velten has gone too far,” the knight muttered. “Nothing can possibly justify this barbaric treatment. I … I am sorry, Semras. I truly am. I didn’t know—”
“If you are, prove it. Unlock these. Free me, Themas.”
A deep sorrow stretched over his face. “I cannot. I do not have the key. Only the inquisitor—”
“There must be a spare somewhere. Here in the study, or elsewhere, there must be—!”
The young knight gently squeezed her hands to calm her; she felt nothing through the cold iron of her shackles. “I just searched the study through and through,” he said. “If there were any keys lying around, I would have found them by now.”
“Perhaps in a … a secret compartment you haven’t yet found …?”
“No.” He held her gaze with pity. “I was ready to leave when I heard someone coming in and hid to see who it was. There is nothing else to find here.”
Shoulders drooping, Semras looked around. Had all this been in vain?
The soft touch of a hand cupping her cheek brought her attention back to Themas.
“There may be nothing here to find, but there’s one place I haven’t searched yet.
The inquisitor keeps a tight watch over the west wing.
If he has any secrets, that must be where they are.
No one is allowed inside except for himself, Sir Ulrech, and a few select maids under the careful watch of Master Sin’Sagar. There must be something there.”
“Then, when will you—”
“Wait,” he said, raising a finger to his lips.
Semras strained her ears but heard nothing.
Themas glanced at the door. “Curious … I’d have sworn I heard … Never mind, we don’t have much time. I can’t go into the west annex; I’m not trusted. But you … you can, Semras. They won’t expect you there.”
“And they will be right not to, because I will be stuck in that cage they call a room,” she whispered back, frowning. “I managed to escape tonight, Themas, but there won’t be another opportunity.”
“I’ll make one for you. Listen, there’s someone important coming here soon.
When he does, Inquisitor Velten will be out of the way for a while.
Master Sin’Sagar and Sir Ulrech too.” Themas’ voice dropped into a drawl.
“I’ll make sure to be the one watching your door.
When the time comes, be ready. You’ll need to slip into the wing, find out what’s hidden there, then come back to the room before the visit is over. We won’t have another chance.”
Semras didn’t like the plan. “What if there is no key there? What if I’m caught? I need to escape, and I need—”
Themas leaned forward and captured her lips with his. Surprised, Semras let his hands grab the back of her head and angle her face upward, deepening their kiss. Urgency made his affection rough, demanding. His tongue on hers sent shivers down her spine—but not the right kind.
There was nothing left of love in her to feel anything, not for anyone. Estevan had taken it all, and the monster had left nothing but a burned husk behind.
Yet she still kissed him back. She kissed him as if her life depended on it—because it did. Semras needed to secure Themas’ help at any cost. It would have shamed her, once, to use him—to use herself—like this.
But no longer.
When he finally released her, Themas leaned his forehead to hers. “Then I’ll find another way. I’ll bring you back home, Semras. I swear I will.”
She did not believe him. She still smiled for him.
Themas had a plan, yet his words made her think of another. It depended on who exactly the knight was expecting, but she had a good guess. Before long, she learned that she’d been right.
For at noon, two days later, Inquisitor Cael Callum sent a message.
He was coming.