Page 174 of A Weave of Lies
The inquisitor kept his blank eyes fixed on him, and Alaran quickly added, “Oh, and because he’s your mentor’s murderer too, I guess. I mean, that first.”
Callum pinched the bridge of his nose. “I do not know for which of these two reasons I should be glad. I would rather not think of my brother’s …” He eyed Semras’ neck, then cleared his throat.
She groaned inwardly. Oh, she’d make her Wyrdtwined pay for them. She’d see how he’d like a necklace of his own.
“A terrorized farmer delivered me your latest report last night, Callhijo,” the inquisitor continued. “You believed Estevan had manipulated the witch into leading him to her Coven. Did they go?”
Semras glowered at Alaran. “So that’s what you had gone to do when you said Pagan bolted.”
And how Callum knew to send orders of arrest ahead of their arrival, she reckoned. He knew they had left Castereina and when they’d be back.
Alaran shrugged at them both. “I wasn’t with them. Velten was onto me from the very start. He kept me at arm’s length, so I didn’t get much information out of him.”
Inquisitor Callum looked pensive. “I see. Are you disposed to tell us what happened, Miss Witch, or do you still believe the lies of Estevan?”
As if she’d tell him anything so incriminating. That trip had included meeting Estevan’s mother and discovering they had the same eye colour—the one Torqedan died lamenting about.
Absentmindedly, Semras bit her lip again, reopening her wound.
Between the tribunal’s last words and his history with the warwitch, that information would perfectly tie Leyevna to Torqedan’s death. The Seelie would jump at the opportunity to use it against them all.
She bit deeper still.
“You are nervous,” the half-fey said. “You have no reason to be.” His attention was fixed on the fresh blood seeping from her lip.
Unnerved by his obvious hunger, Semras hissed, “Do I really? You’reinhuman.”
A cool anger flashed in his eyes, but Inquisitor Callum betrayed no other sign of being affected by her words. His tone remained even, controlled. “Now you are being unreasonable. I am offering you a way out before charges can be brought against you. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is out of compassion.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Semras said, sneering. “I know better than to expect that from a murderer like you. You tried to twist the trutharound, but I won’t fall for it. You won’t cover your crime by using me or Leyevn—!”
She paled. A gasp of horror strangled her throat. How could she have let the warwitch’s name slip from her mouth?
The inquisitor observed her pensively. “Leyevna. You know that name,” he murmured.
She staggered back. “I-I …”
“Semras mentioned her before,” Alaran said, betraying her once more. “But she has never met her, so I didn’t dig deeper into it.”
Callum studied the witch. “Never met? No … that does not sound quite right. She reacted too strongly.” The inquisitor walked behind his desk, retrieved a paper from a drawer, and then returned to Semras. “Read this,” he said, holding it in her face.
Short instructions—on how to dose willow bark concoctions and comfrey ointments for managing the pain of inflamed joints—were written on the paper. Leyevna had signed the letter with the same handwriting Semras read on the potion she’d gifted her and Estevan, but … what it contained didn’t corroborate what the warwitch had told them.
“That can’t be real …” she whispered.
It just couldn’t be. Because if it was, it meant Callum hadn’t killed Torqedan, and that she’d been wrong all along. So it justcouldn’t be real.
Yet the merciless script didn’t care for what it ought to be. It proved her wrong, regardless of how many times she read the words over.
Observing her closely, the inquisitor let her absorb the shock before speaking again. “I found this openly displayed on the tribunal’s desk. Tell me, was this part”—the inquisitor tapped over a specific line—“indeed written by the witch Leyevna? That this isthe dosage and application she intended for TribunalEloy Torqedan to take? Think before you speak. You are in the presence of an inquisitor, and your testimony will be used in its entirety. Tell me the effect of following these instructions on a human body.”
Semras read the paper again, searching desperately to make sense of it—of why Leyevna had written what she did.
She found nothing.
By the time she answered the inquisitor, her mouth had gone dry. “C-Comfrey can be made into a tea,” she began with. She was stalling, trying to find an angle thatwouldn’tincriminate the warwitch. “It’s useful against chest pain, painful breathing, and … um, stomachs. Upset stomachs. That—that would be one reason to drink it. It’s also useful for sore throats and—”
“Focus,” he murmured, and she startled as if he had shouted. “This letter does not mention tea, but an ointment. I have a chemist in my retinue. He identified the exact plant variety, so you will gain nothing by lying about which one.”
