Chapter 27
Fist hanging in front of the inquisitor’s bedroom door, Semras took a deep breath and then knocked.
Attempts at forming a coherent explanation for what had happened ebbed in and out of her mind, yet no words seemed sufficient to alleviate her fault in advancing Callum’s plans.
Inquisitor Velten would be mad about it, but she didn’t care to hear his opinion.
If it weren’t for the sake of her witch sisters, she’d never have come to him.
And if it weren’t for him and his Crone-cursed lies, she would never have made such a mistake to begin with. So he’d let her in, hear her out, and then help her without complaining. He owed her after all he made her go through.
The hinges swung softly, the door opened, and, suddenly, before she felt ready, the inquisitor stood in front of her.
Her throat closed up. Sweat began to run down her spine, sending shudders coursing through her limbs. Trying to gain back control of herself, Semras clenched her entire body into a rigid stance. It only served to root her in place underneath his cold, guarded blue eyes.
She knew he hadn’t killed his mentor. She knew he had imprisoned her only to act as the villain he needed to be. She knew it.
But the deeply rooted dread coiling around her guts didn’t.
Velten stared at her. His gaze roamed over her flaring nostrils and trembling lips, then moved to her body frozen between fight or flight.
For a brief moment, pain flared in his eyes.
Then his expression morphed into affected scorn, and he cleared his throat.
“If you intend to repeat your earlier offer, I will still not consider it. So you can tell …” he said, gaze flickering toward her door, “… whoever should have been guarding you that I am docking their pay for letting you out. Do not think I will let your little stunts today slide so easily.”
“… My …?” She blinked.
Terror turned to indignation, turned to resentment, turned to rage. Pure, blinding, vitriolic rage. Her fear drowned in it.
“My little stunts?” Semras snarled, stabbing her index finger into his chest. “How about we start with yours? You bastard, you jerk, you disgusting scoundrel! How could you! How could you do this to me? I trusted you! I trusted you like a fool, and you tried to—!”
Wordlessly, Velten grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside his bedroom. After looking down both sides of the corridor, he closed the door just as quickly.
The inquisitor’s room was surprisingly sophisticated.
Painted in dark blues and framed by darker wood trims, simple plasterwork decorated the ceilings and walls with a sombre elegance.
The furniture was the same as in her room, except for a desk he kept covered in paperwork, with a colourful Andakkadian carpet lying beneath it.
The dying, golden rays of the twilight sun filtered through tall windows, throwing the room into a mellow atmosphere—broken only by the shadows of ornamental grates stretching over the floor like the bars of a cage.
The illusory prison touched her feet, and the witch’s frayed mind screamed at her to leave before he could trap her in it too.
“You should have escaped while you could,” the inquisitor said.
“Your threats mean nothing to me anymore,” Semras replied, voice as sharp as a blade. “I know what you did.”
“It was not a—” He paused, then stood straighter and cleared his throat. “I do not make threats, only promises. You will regret betraying your word.”
The ridiculous, cliche statements shook off the remains of her fear.
Now that she knew of his lies, she could clearly see through Velten. Destabilized by her unexpected arrival, his villainous act sounded forced, unrehearsed—ridiculous, even.
A cruel, curt laugh escaped her. “All bark and no bite. Trust me, if I had any other choice, I would not be here.” Semras paced around the room, gaze jumping everywhere but on the inquisitor.
“In fact, I really shouldn’t be. After all you dared do to me?
After imprisoning me, and threatening me, and making me believe you’d frame me for your crimes, and making me spend all week in shackles, all alone, going crazy at—”
Hands grabbed her shoulders and spun her until she faced Velten.
“Sit,” he ordered. Gently, he pushed her back until she sank into a seat—the edge of his bed, she realized belatedly.
Semras looked down at her shackled hands. They were shaking; maybe some fear still lingered deep within her.
After dragging a chair in front of her, Velten walked back to the desk—or maybe to the dressing table or the wardrobe. Eyes still fixed on her trembling hands, she couldn’t see what he was doing.
Steps approached her again, and a cup of warm tea appeared between her hands. Looking up, she saw Velten holding it.
“Take it,” he said. “Drink it. Can you tell me what is in it?”
The odd request, so completely detached from her own scrambled state of mind, distracted her momentarily, and Semras took the cup cautiously. Heat emanated from the bone porcelain and warmed the cold iron around her skin. It comforted her, soothed her.
After blowing on it, she observed the pale flaxen water contained within. It smelled of herbs, and … a flower. Chamomile? Mixed with linden, she thought idly.
Semras took a sip, and her lips curved into a slow smile. “Linden and chamomile; it’s a soothing herbal tea,” she said. The hot liquid grounded her. Her focus returned, and with it, a frown appeared on her face. “… And a witch’s brew. Where did you get this?”
He shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“Nimue?” she asked softly. Now that rage had deserted her, the past week’s ordeal was dragging her voice down once more. “Or … another witch? The one who mixed Torqedan’s remedy?”
“Look at you,” Velten said, eyebrow cocked, “interrogating me like an inquisitor. Maybe we are spending too much time together.”
The ease with which he fell back into bantering with her was jarring when compared to his past week’s behaviour. Yet, she still craved it—craved to see him as he truly was, and not as ‘the monster’ she came to think of him. She needed the reminder that he was human.
“We are,” she grumbled. “It’s not good for my nerves.”
“I know how to calm people too.” Velten sat cautiously in front of her, as if he expected her to bolt at any sudden movement. When she didn’t, he grinned. The corner of his mouth curled up just too much for her to take his next words seriously. “Not just make them scream at me.”
That smile always preceded his peculiar sense of humour—always a little wider, with one corner rising a little higher than the other. Belatedly, Semras realized she could tell his smiles apart. She knew them now, as she knew her own.
It didn’t matter that she did, she reminded herself. It didn’t.
“Cael told me the same thing about himself,” she muttered.
Velten’s smile dropped. “‘Cael’? You are on a first-name basis with him?”
“How is that the only thing you take offence at? I spoke with him in private. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Looking away, he nodded. “… Yes. You went to ask for his help in escaping me.”
“I did.” She blew on her herbal tea and took another sip. “Went to him, I mean.”
Velten didn’t probe any further, and a heavy silence settled between them.
Seconds that felt like minutes passed before Semras broke it. “He wanted to talk to me too. He said he was worried about you.”
He scoffed. “He is worried about the Inquisition’s reputation, more likely.”
“He wanted to know about the state of your investigation. He wanted me to report your every move.” She looked down at her tea. “I asked him to take me home instead.” In her hands, the cup shook.
“And?”
“He said that I … I had to make myself useful first.”
Velten took a deep, long breath, muttering curses too lowly for her to understand them.
Semras stole a glance at him. The inquisitor seemed calm, but a tension was building up in the cords of his neck. “Seeing as you are here,” he said slowly, “in my bedroom, and not in a carriage, I will suppose you did not.”
“I didn’t want to. Callum wanted to use me—just like you.” Semras threw him a dark glare. “You are both so similar I’d have taken you for siblings!”
“You are closer to the truth than you know,” he replied, grimacing. “My father adopted him when we were mere boys. We got along like cats and dogs.”
Her mind came to a halt.
Cael Callum, the half-fey, his … “Brother?” she breathed.
“‘The bastard and the changeling,’ people used to call us. Until Father made them regret their words.” Velten chuckled. He didn’t look like the monster when his eyes brightened like that. “Not with violence, mind you. I did not inherit my penchant for it from him.”
There was something deeply human she’d been yearning for in the lightness of that subject. It soothed the cracks in her soul; it didn’t fill them, but now she felt a little more solid. A little more grounded.
A little more like herself.
And he, a little more like himself—like the Estevan she knew.
“Your father,” she said with a stronger voice, “you mean the cardinal?”
Estevan nodded with a thin smile. “I am his bastard son, yes. Do not misunderstand; he never calls me like that himself. He is a kind man, much kinder than I am.” Resting his forearms on his knees, he looked down at his hands.
“Has to be, to adopt a boy accused of being fey-touched by his own birth family. I was not as understanding as he when I was younger.”
“That’s … not a kind accusation,” she replied, “but not entirely inaccurate.”
Brows furrowed, Estevan lifted his head. “Listen. Cael and I might have grown apart over the years, but I do not tolerate anyone calling my brother—”
“No! I didn’t mean it that way!” Semras raised her hands in defence. “I mean that he has fey blood. It was painfully obvious when I met him.”
The inquisitor blinked. “… It was true? I do not think Cael himself knows. How can you tell?”