Chapter 18
Semras arched an eyebrow. “If I wanted to kill a man, I wouldn’t reveal my method to an inquisitor, Inquisitor.”
“Indulge me,” he said, his voice cajoling her. “Hypothetically.”
She rolled her eyes, then mulled over it, dragging her fingertips across her lips. “Well … I wouldn’t feed him at all.”
Estevan leaned on his desk and hummed attentively.
“If I, a witch, offered you a bite of a nice, big, red apple, Inquisitor Velten … would you take it?”
A sly smile spread across his lips, one corner raising higher than the other. “Depends on the ‘apple’ in question. We are talking figuratively, or literally, or …?”
“Hypothetically,” she declared with a pointed look, “most people would say no, or say yes and not eat it. Or give it to someone else who wasn’t the intended target.
If I wanted to poison someone, I wouldn’t take that chance.
I would—well, everybody knows the difference between a cure and a poison is in the dosage. ”
“That is certainly not common knowledge,” he replied. “Only an herbalist would think like that. Or an apothecary.”
“Indulge me,” Semras parroted his words back.
“Medicine is costly. People don’t usually share their own, so …
that’s what I’d use. I’d mess with their salve or tincture, or ‘mistake’ one ingredient for another, more lethal one.
I might even try to use a poison with similar effects to my target’s current symptoms in order not to raise suspicion. ” She hummed, musing. “What else …?”
Estevan whistled. “I know who not to consult if I ever have a rash.”
“Spare me the thought of your rashes. Hmm … I think that’s all I can think of without more context, but medicine would—” She halted, face blanching. “Are you asking …? Is that why you suspect a witch has killed your victim? He had taken a witch’s remedy?”
Eyes sparkling, Estevan grinned and nodded slowly. “Have you ever been told you are delightfully clever?”
She groaned. “Have you ever been told you are shameless? How can you talk with such levity when lives are at stake?”
“Lives are always at stake wherever I go. It becomes a mere formality after the first few dozen. Now …” The inquisitor grabbed the vial he had taken from Maraz’Miri and dangled it in front of her eyes. “Show me your skills. Tell me what poison this is.”
Semras snatched the bottle from his hand, then examined it.
It was made of brown glass and sealed with a small cork.
No label identified it, except for a small glass-smith mark etched with acid beneath it.
Opening it, she carefully sniffed its contents.
It smelled of some combination of fruit and spice, possibly added in to hide its true nature.
Or maybe not; many plants hid deadly toxins behind their pleasant smells.
“I’ll need my kit,” she said.
The desk had been cleared, and its contents piled onto a nearby bookcase shelf to make space for the witch’s paraphernalia. Estevan’s files and papers were now safe and far away from the flame lit beneath her small portable alembic.
Crouching to face it, Semras wove the fire to her desired temperature.
The inquisitor loomed behind her, watching her process with great interest. “It would have been faster had you used gas to heat it up,” he commented.
“Perhaps, but I don’t want to recklessly use something I know nothing of.
” The witch took the vial and dropped some of it into the alembic.
“When I weave the threads of the Arras, I can see them unraveling elsewhere. That is the nature of our world. We create nothing; we just change them. This ‘gas’ you enjoy takes a toll even if you can’t see it.
I won’t use something I don’t know the price of. ”
The flame’s heat increased, and the room grew a little colder.
Estevan raised his hands in surrender. “Point quite taken.” Sitting back down on his chair, he drummed his fingers on the desk, then grabbed some papers to shuffle through them.
A minute of silence passed before he hummed.
“I should tell you more about the case, shouldn’t I?
The victim is Eloy Torqedan, seventy-three years old.
An important number for witches, if I am not mistaken. ”
Semras clicked her tongue. “I could do without the commentary, Inquisitor. I am trying to work here.”
Her request was swept aside with another one of his hums. “A long-standing member of the Inquisition,” Estevan recited from the paper in his hands. “He was an inquisitor until his retirement from the field ten years ago and had served as a tribunal since then.”
Curiosity won over her desire for some peace and quiet. “What’s a ‘tribunal’?” she asked. “You make it sound like a title.”
Tilting the poison vial onto a smaller plate, Semras counted its drops. She sniffed them, then took down several notes on a piece of paper next to her. “I always thought it referred to a group of people.”
Estevan leaned against the back of his chair. “It used to, back when the Inquisition was boasting thousands of members. Since then, it has been reduced to a title. A tribunal is a single ecclesiastical judge for the Inquisition now, made even more prestigious for their growing rarity.”
“Aren’t inquisitors judge, jury, and executioner already? That’s how my Elders described you, at least. What’s left to judge once you’re done?”
Estevan scoffed and muttered ‘left to judge’ under his breath.
“We demand accountability precisely because we do not want wild inquisitors needlessly harassing the innocent. A tribunal reviews the cases of inquisitors to ensure there was no mistrial or corruption. Or, well, unprofessional behaviour.”
Semras peered at him from behind the bottle. “I am sure your methods have never attracted a single censure,” she said mockingly.
Estevan laughed, and the witch returned her focus to the tests, trying to ignore how mirth had pleasantly creased the corners of his eyes. After observing the liquid’s colour and consistency, she jotted it down.
“Oh, I have had plenty of complaints thrown at me, yet the tribunals have never put me under any formal sanction. Think what you will of me, witch, but I do try to act as ethically as I can … although I will admit that I am no Inquisitor Callum.”
It was the second or third time she had heard this name in his voice. “You seem to know him well. How is he as an inquisitor?” Semras tapped on the alembic, then scribbled down a note onto the paper in front of her, mouthing the words to herself as she did so.
“A boring one, with not a single strand of his red hair out of place. Cael keeps putting his nose in my cases to criticize every instance where I slightly bend our laws.” Passing his fingers through his hair, Estevan huffed.
“He is a pain in my side, and he cannot be reasoned with, but I suppose that I would rather the Inquisition count on more men like him than not. At least he follows the rules to the letter.”
Bubbling sounds came from the alembic, and Semras looked at the result of the poison’s distillation.
Her brow furrowed. Returning to her notes, she scribbled several more lines.
“As opposed to you, who follows the rules in spirit only? Forgive me for saying so, but somehow, I doubt they’d want more of you. ”
Estevan chuckled. “The Inquisition can no longer afford to be picky with how few of us remain. I do not think we are more than a dozen left in all of Vandalesia, and I am counting the tribunals in that number.”
The witch blew out the flame of the alembic, then left the apparatus alone to cool down. “You don’t seem very concerned,” she said.
“Why should I be? The Inquisition is a dying institution; denying it will not change that. There are those who want to see it live on, like Cael, but I am not one of them. At least, not as it is now. It needs to adapt, evolve.”
Semras hummed distractedly, tapping her quill pen against her cheek. Tiny drops of carbon black ink spattered onto her skin.
Part of her mind worked on the puzzle in front of her, while the other kept being drawn to the subject of their conversation.
She couldn’t fully concentrate on either, but shushing him wasn’t an option—any drops of information inadvertently given to her could be useful for her Coven.
She hadn’t forgotten about the threat of an upcoming witch purge.
“Hard to tell how the Inquisition should do so, however,” Estevan continued.
“As of now, each time a witch is burned, we grow in power. Fear is our most efficient instrument, you see. It makes us powerful, respected.” The inquisitor walked around the desk, circling around her like a bird of prey.
“And there is nothing the common people fear more than what they cannot fight back against. When the Deprived are violently reminded of your kind’s existence, the Inquisition receives more donations, more public support … and more recruits.”
Unnerved by the implication, Semras stilled. Her wary eyes slipped away from her task and toward the inquisitor.
He had wandered to one of his bookcases—the one she had taken the report from earlier.
“You may imagine then how burning a witch can become a political tool,” he said, running his fingers where hers had done the same before, “and an opportunity for propaganda. So you see, some inquisitors are just dying to provoke another witch purge and revive the Inquisition from its embers. Create the reason you are needed for, and you will always remain relevant. I am sure you understand what I mean.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “What’s your position on that matter?”
He turned to face her. “My position is that, one day … there will be no more witches left to burn. And then what? Then what, indeed …”
Delightful; Semras gave him a scalding glare. “That’s a lot of words to say you’d like us to keep existing for your own profit, Inquisitor Velten.”