Page 121 of A Weave of Lies
A knock rattled the door. Panicked, Semras swept the pieces of paper away. “A moment! A moment, please!” she begged.
Some fell on the floor at her feet, near a bundle of dirty clothes lying there, while others scattered on the desk over scattered pages of blank paper. Most of them ended up shoved into her sleeve.
The knock returned. “Miss Semras?” Themas called out. “Meal and laundry are here.”
Right. Velten had ordered the maids to come in twice a day for meals and room cleaning. She had forgotten about it.
“Oh,” she said. “Let them in.”
The door opened to reveal a young woman next to the knight. Holding a platter of food in one hand, she rested a basket against her hip with the other one.
“Here, miss.” Themas held the door with a kind smile. “Do you need help with anything else?”
After shaking her head timidly, the maid stepped into the room and brought the platter to the desk.
Semras stayed immobile in her seat, fearing the scraps of paper in her sleeve would fall if she moved. They kept too many secrets and lies she didn’t want anyone finding out.
Once the maid stepped away, the witch released her breath.
The young woman set out to tidy the room, gathering the discarded linens lying around and remaking the bed. Themas and her watched her work wordlessly. When he noticed they were doing the same thing, he winked at Semras.
The maid retrieved her laundry basket with both hands, nodded respectfully, and then crossed the doorway.
The knight trailed after her. “I insist, miss, allow me to help you carry the basket below stairs. A young woman like you lifting all this weight alone …” The door closed, and his voice faded away.
They were gone. Semras exhaled in relief.
Discarded left and right on the table, her mind map rested partly beneath the platter of food. Over painfully long minutes, Semras assembled the scraps of paper one by one, fingers fighting their metallic cage at each new shred to pick. Once done with those on top of the desk, she bent down to gather those that had fallen at her feet.
She found none.
Semras blinked. Then looked again. Some had fallen that way—she’d swear she saw them fall. Right before the maid came into the room, she had shoved most of the scraps into her sleeve, and then—
Oh. Oh no. The maid. The laundry.
Inquisitor Callum’s request.
He had told her that an agent of his would retrieve any message slipped into her laundry; her written musings would fall into his hands if she didn’t get them back in time.
Old Crone take her; if the wrong papers had fallen, he would learn about how Velten was about to thwart his plan. Worse—he could have her written word about the poison being from a witch, and then he wouldn’t even need to manipulate the investigation’s outcome. He’d just go straight to the tribunals with it, and then war would drown the land in blood.
And it would all be on her hands.
Semras sprang to the door. With trembling fingers, she retrieved the key Themas had given her earlier. It slipped fromher shaking hands and fell to the floor, and she wasted precious minutes retrieving it with unwieldy, cold iron-laden fingers.
At last, she slid it into the keyhole. The mechanism clicked.
Semras threw the door open and then ran.
Anhourpassedbeforeshe found the laundry room, lost amidst the labyrinthine basement the servant’s staircase had led her into.
With ragged breaths, Semras barged inside the warm and steamy room, startling the maids working within. Some yelped away from the clothesline. Others dropped baskets of laundry onto the blue-tiled floor.
Her eyes hunted for her clothes and didn’t find them.
“Where is it?” Semras stepped inside, gaze still scanning left and right. “Where is the basket containing my laundry?”
A matron with sturdy arms and wary eyes silently pointed toward a copper boiler. Semras found her clothes soaking in it. If the shreds of paper hadn’t been removed first, then the water would have destroyed them by now. She had no way now of knowing what had been lost or not.
