Page 171 of A Weave of Lies
Then the cold bite of metal snapped shut around her wrists, and her words died in her throat.
Cold iron shackles. Bile crept up her throat.
“This way, Semras.” Themas shoved her toward the upper floor.
She raged and trashed against him every step of the way. “How dare you, Themas! Let me go at once!”
“Sorry, can’t do,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I ain’t the one who gets to decide that.”
“Then who does? Who?”
Themas shrugged, then led her to a dark, rich walnut door down the corridor. After knocking on it, he said in a quiet voice, “I told you my profession would stand in the way sooner or later.”
Semras snarled her lips at him. “Your—”
“Come in,” called a voice from behind the door.
Themas dragged her inside the room, and the doors closed behind them with a loud, fatalistic thud. Crossing his arms, the traitor leaned against the door. Her withering glare could have scorched him in place, but he only gave her a dimpled, apologetic smile in return.
Scoffing, Semras glanced around at a study disturbingly similar to Estevan’s. The only difference lay in its cleanliness. Here, every book, file, and piece of furniture had been meticulously organized and arranged where they belonged.
A deep, rich baritone voice drew her attention toward the central desk. “We meet again, Miss Witch.”
Hands uncomfortably bound behind her, Semras turned to face Themas’ true master. “I rather hoped we wouldn’t, Inquisitor Callum.”
Chapter 36
Smilingwithpracticedpoliteness,Inquisitor Callum leaned against the desk of his personal study. “This is quite a surprise,” he said, blinking indolently. “I expected you would have escaped back home already. How curious that you did not.”
“What is really curious here,” Semras replied, voice as sharp as the edge of a blade, “is why I have the displeasure of standing before you now.”
He clicked his tongue. “Still so hostile. I do not remember giving you cause for it. Perhaps it was my agent who lacked courtesy toward you?”
“The traitor Themas, you mean?” Semras struggled against her shackles. “I’ll let youguess.”
The Seelie’s smile split far too wide. “The real Sir Themas would be disconcerted to hear this level of undue ire from someone he never met.” He raised his hand and brought her attention to the man behind her. “May I introduce you to Mister Alaran Callhijo, my most efficient infiltrator—and the man you have been calling Sir Themas de Maldoza for the past couple of weeks.”
With disconcerting nonchalance, Themas—or rather, Alaran—gave them a lopsided grin, then picked at the seams of his clothes.
His mask finally off, the spy had discarded all the poise and gentleness Semras had grown to expect from Sir Themas. His face, once noble and kind, now showed only detached interest in the scene happening before him, an actor in a play whose part ended already.
The jarring difference perturbed her. She had let that mankissher.
Forcing down her ardent desire to spit at his feet, Semras turned to the half-fey. “Why am I here? Did you want to gloat before throwing me into a cell?”
Callum circled around her leisurely, studying her with unnerving interest. His mannerisms made him look so similar to Estevan—to the man he had been before she pried open all his secrets, revealing who he truly was beneath—it brought back painful memories of another pair of shackles on her hands and of another kind of trap she once walked into.
But Estevan had done it to save her people in his own obtuse, self-sacrificing way, while the Seelie meant to erase them to achieve his perfect world.
Eyes blazing with scorn, Semras stood with her back straight in front of Inquisitor Callum. There was nothing he could do to her she hadn’t already gone through. “Imprison me while you still can. It won’t last.”
Callum cocked his head. “I have always been,” he said in a low, chilling voice, “fascinated with Estevan’s ability to inspire loyalty. It did not have to end this way, Miss Witch, and yet you chose to side with him against all logic.”
“As if you were the better option!” Semras spat at his feet.
Alaran lunged forward to seize her.
Callum raised his hand, and the spy went still, fingers stretched toward her. “It is alright, Callhijo. We cannot fault the petulant manners of a witch in chains, no matter how much she deserves them.”
