Chapter 20
“Well?”
Semras stared at a spot on the carriage floor—the same one she had since they left the tribunal’s house.
The minutes following their exit had passed in a blur for her.
She remembered stumbling past the Venator sword-bearers, her shoulders firmly crushed between her captor’s hands as he guided her back into the carriage.
He had told them something, some excuses about her not feeling well after seeing the corpse.
Or maybe he hadn’t. It didn’t matter with the witch-shackles still binding her hands.
Now Semras sat taut like the obedient doll he wanted her to be, body ready to run and mind spinning with plans on how to achieve that.
Stuck in close quarters with her captor and in an unfamiliar city, her options were limited. Until she could create an opportunity to escape, she needed to lower Inquisitor Velten’s guard by acting as his subservient puppet—and by answering him when he spoke.
“Well, what, my lord Inquisitor?” she asked.
She didn’t use the lofty title out of respect for him. Rather, it served her to draw a clear line between them, captor and prisoner—one she’d highlight as often as she could. She’d never let him forget what he had taken from her.
Sitting opposite her in the carriage, Inquisitor Velten leaned toward her. “Now that you have accepted my deal, I require your … amiable collaboration,” he said. “I have questions, Semras, and you will provide me with answers.”
“Do not call me by my name,” she snapped before mentally castigating herself for slipping up.
He dared laugh. “Decide. You wanted me to use it, didn’t you?” His cold smile flashed like a knife against her throat. “You mentioned the victim drank comfrey. Where can a witch obtain it?”
“You obtained it. They can do it the same way you did.”
The murderer clicked his tongue. “Try again. Make yourself useful this time.”
Before he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble, he meant.
Semras paled. “… The coven grounds. That’s where a witch would go for anything she needs. Even if she wanted to grow comfrey in her garden, she’d still have to buy the seeds there.”
“What about you?” he asked, smiling indolently. “Where would you acquire some?”
The witch bit her lip. She had to answer carefully, or else he’d use her words to fabricate evidence against her.
Her stalling made him huff. “It is not a trick question. Call it …”—he paused, humming—“… curiosity. I bet a skilled herbalist like you would acquire comfrey differently, and I want to cover all possibilities. If you serve me well, I might let you choose who exactly will take the fall for me. So think it over carefully, Semras. You have friends in your coven you would like to spare, do you not?”
The inquisitor had only asked her two questions, yet a numbing anxiety was already creeping up her throat. “I’d … I’d gather it myself,” she replied, voice strangled. “If … if I wanted to avoid leaving any traces of what I’d be planning.”
She could prepare comfrey, and extracting its potent poison was laughably easy. The real challenge lay in balancing its harmful effects to get the most out of its powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
“It grows in the region, then? Where exactly? How far does it grow?”
Her teeth clacked together in a nervous tick. She hadn’t realized he would deduce so much out of her words.
Her captor was shrewd. Any information he’d extract from her could bring harm to her sisters.
Her only hope was to gamble on what he didn’t know to ask about.
On what she could conceal behind a passive compliance, volunteering no more information than the minimum of what he requested—such as the exact variety of comfrey he had used to murder Torqedan.
“Where does it not grow?” she replied. “You’ll find plenty of comfrey along moving water, or in pastures, and even in ditches along countryside roads.”
Pushing away the carriage’s curtains, Semras observed the city scrolling by.
Beyond, the world had kept on turning despite the nightmare she’d been thrust into.
Castereina cared not for the sorrowful soul trapped in its cage of metal and stone, and each breath taken within its boundaries only made it clearer that this place was not her world. That she did not belong here.
How she longed to return to the soothing shade of her forest, with its singing birds rousing with the sun and its moths dancing under the moonlight. To her little creek and the soft sound of water gurgling down the rocks, wild and free.
Inquisitor Velten hummed, cruelly dragging her back to reality. “And you say witches can buy these plants at their coven grounds?”
Semras froze. Had he noticed what she had omitted?
“… Yes,” she replied carefully.
He stayed silent. It alarmed her, but she didn’t dare to look at him and give away her agitation.
“You are hiding something from me, Semras,” he said, voice hardened. “This plant grows everywhere in the region, where anyone could have gathered enough to kill a man … and yet, you did not have a single doubt that it came from a witch. Why? Tell me what made it look this way.”
Eyes still strained on the window, Semras tensed up. Nothing would have linked his murderous deed to witches had she not mentioned it herself. Now, thanks to her folly, he knew one could take the fall for him. Had she lied, he could have used anyone else. She rued her foolishness.
And she rued his uncanny ability to know when she was lying—she never had any true chance at concealing what she had learned. What a perfect trap he had crafted for her.
“You do not want to speak? It does not matter; I already know, of course,” Inquisitor Velten said.
“It was a specific sort of comfrey. One that does not grow so liberally across the peninsula. One that can only be obtained by witches from their Coven, just like you said. What I do not know is its exact type and how it can be used to link it to someone else. I could have a chemist analyze the body’s remains to find that out, but I want you to prove your loyalty. ”
Semras stared at him with quiet horror. He had deduced this much when she had deliberately avoided talking of plant varieties; tricking him would be much harder than she had dared hope.
“It’s … prickly comfrey,” she answered in a small, miserable voice. “Growing that sort is banned all over the Vandalesian Peninsula. It’s the most potent variety.”
His smile widened, sharp as a blade.
The witch returned her attention to the street, trying hard to ignore the inquisitor’s gaze on her.
Midnight had long since come and gone, and yet the streets were still full of life.
Lampposts spit their ghastly gaslights out onto the paved road, hitting the edges of oriel windows jutting out of rows of buildings.
As the carriage drove by them, the space between the tall metal posts plunged them into sporadic shadows.
Between light and darkness, Semras saw women selling their flesh and children running through the pockets of their potential customers.
Overworked horses carried a festive carriage from party to party; from it, the ringing laughter of drunk and drugged youths echoed through the dark alleys.
No star shone above the sleepless capital.
This place was not a city. It was a cloud of locusts, devouring all that had once been good and kind.
Where would it leave her bones? If she failed to escape, would her captor bury her under the trees of his courtyard or throw out her remains into the accumulated filth of street gutters?
Knots formed in her stomach. She was no longer Inquisitor Velten’s guest; he might choose to keep her somewhere else now, and she’d never see those trees again. And if he locked her up with her shackles still on … she’d never even get the chance to escape him.
Semras risked a glance toward him. “Where are you taking me?”
He was looking at his hands. Lifting his head at the sound of her voice, he gave her an affable smile.
“Back to the comfort of my home. I am sure you are yearning for it as much as I am after a week on the road.” She must have made a face, for he averted his eyes.
“Forgive me. That was … insensitive of me.”
“So you are capable of remorse.”
“For all my faults, I remain human, Semras.”
Patience for such ludicrous words had deserted her long ago. “The comforts of home …” She let out a strident laugh. “I wonder what comfort you have reserved for me. May I request a pyre be lit in my dark, damp dungeon cell to keep me warm?”
“I am not dragging you into a cell. As long as you cooperate, you will be treated as a—”
“Accessory to crime. I’m well aware of it, my lord Inquisitor.”
“I was about to say a guest.”
What she’d give to pluck the threads of his tongue out until no word could ever be drawn from him ever again.
Instead, she shook her shackles, drawing his attention to them. “You must not be a very popular host if this is the hospitality you offer your guests.”
The inquisitor didn’t notice or, more likely, didn’t care for her hostility. It was a good thing too—her bitterness had made her reckless. She needed to adapt better if she wanted to live long enough to escape him.
At least he promised her no cell. A small sliver of hope nested in her heart at the thought.
She could do this. As long as he trusted her enough to let her roam, she’d find a way out of this nightmare.
Soon after, the carriage entered the courtyard of Inquisitor Velten’s mansion. He stepped outside first, then dragged her out. Forcing down an ardent desire to spit at his feet, Semras let him.
Against her better judgment, she looked at the coachman, hoping to find a sympathetic face there. On the way to the tribunal’s house, she’d been too nervous about her upcoming task to notice who had driven the carriage.