Page 56 of Slouch Witch
She licked her lips. ‘Just let us go.’
‘We’ve been to see your boss,’ I told Bell End. His eyes flew up to mine. My smile grew. ‘I thought that would get your attention.’
‘Did you tell him about us?’ Alice demanded. ‘Does he know we’re here?’
‘Unfortunately not,’ Winter replied. ‘On account of the fact that he’s dead.’
While Winter studied Alice’s reaction, I did the same to Bell End. He appeared momentarily alarmed then he relaxed, as if he’d decided that we were lying.
‘It’s true,’ I told him softly. ‘Look into my eyes. You’ll be able to tell.’
‘Was it you?’ Alice asked. ‘Did you kill him?’ To her credit, there wasn’t so much as a quiver in her voice.
‘No. We did not.’ Winter continued to watch her. ‘But it looks like whoever did already knew him. He was found in his kitchen with one of his own knives sticking out of his gullet.’
Bell End moaned. He believed us now.
‘I’ll ask again. Why did he send you here?’
As his gag was still in place, Alice answered for him. ‘You know why. We were to cast herbs so we could track Harrington and Adeptus Exemptus Winter.’
‘And Diall asked you personally to do this.’
‘Yes,’ she said tiredly. ‘We’ve been through all this.’ She seemed genuinely upset about Diall and I almost felt sorry for her. Her shoulders drooped. ‘Take us into the Order. We’ll admit to it all.’ She sighed. ‘Just don’t keep us here any longer.’
I met Winter’s eyes. He nodded. Removing Bell End’s gag, I moved closer to him. ‘Did Diall ever mention the Cypher Manuscripts?’
He screwed up his face in response. ‘What? Why would he?’
‘Did he ever ask you to go and look at them for him?’
‘No.’
‘Did he spend any time studying them?’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Bell End blasted. ‘You stupid bitch! How many times do I have to say the same thing?’
Winter abandoned Alice and came to my side. He knelt down and regarded Bell End soberly. ‘If you ever call her that again,’ he murmured, ‘you will live to regret it.’
It wasn’t Winter’s words, it was the way he said them. A shiver ran down my spine and I wasn’t even the one he was threatening. Feeling the sudden urge to create some space between Winter and me, I took his place next to Alice.
‘How about you?’ I asked. ‘Was there ever a time you heard your boss talk about the Cyphers?’
Her eyes spat fire. She didn’t like me very much. Shocker. ‘He might have mentioned them in conversation once or twice,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I really don’t remember.’
‘Well,’ I told her, ‘you really should try harder.’
‘He said once that they should be more accessible. He wanted to be able to take them out of the library and study them in more detail.’
Finally we were getting somewhere. ‘And did he mention which volumes in particular he was interested in?’
‘No,’ Alice replied flatly. ‘He did not.’
‘Can’t you ever keep your mouth shut?’ Bell End grunted from the other side. ‘It was Volume 9, okay? He wanted Volume 9.’
Over their heads, Winter and I exchanged looks. Well, well, well.
***
