Page 87 of A Weave of Lies
He shouldn’t be smirking like that. She was trying to insult him, not flirt with him!
“… A rake? A dissolute man? ‘Lecherous’ is the word you seek, perhaps. You did call me that once,” he supplied helpfully. “If it changes anything, I never said he was my firstborn.”
“Wonderful. How many children have you sired, Inquisitor?” Semras replied, smiling through her sarcasm.
“Who knows? I travel so much.” He looked far too amused. “Did you wish to contribute?”
Looking forlornly at the vial she had just analyzed, she sighed. If only she could have shut him up forevermore with its content. Old Crone knew she wished so dearly to poison him.
One day she would, she promised herself. With something violent—wolfsbane, perhaps. She had some seeds in her bag; she could use them. Their purple flowers would look so beautiful on his grave, growing out of his corpse after she’d fed them to him.
Semras pushed the delightful vision away with a deep exhale. “I don’t know what Nimue sees in you,” she lied. “You are the worst bastard I’ve ever met.” That part wasn’t a lie.
“You are so adorably easy to tease,” he said, chuckling.
“And you are so infuriatingly—!” Semras paused. Something was wrong.
Estevan was dancing around the subject, never entirely admitting to his relationship with Nimue … and he had called his own mistress with the polite title of ‘miss.’
“Oh,” she muttered. The bastard.
“Just ‘oh’?” An irritating grin spread across his lips. “If you need help to untie that sharp tongue of yours, I have been told mine was clever.”
She rolled her eyes, refusing to meet his bright gaze. “Nimue is not your lover.”
He laughed. For a man caught in yet another lie, he sounded far too entertained. “Finally letting go of your preconceived opinion, I see. I have to admit, it entertained me quite a lot. You looked very miffed about it all.”
“Very funny, inquisitor,” Semras seethed. “Is the child a lie too?”
Estevan cleared his throat. “Ah … no. I cannot deny his existence.” He raised one hand to silence her retort. “He is an unexpected accident. I take care of them both, of course, but his mother is not interested in a relationship with me, and neither am I.”
So she had understood it all wrong. Casting her gaze down, Semras stared quietly at her notes. An odd mix of relief, bitterness, and trepidation flooded her heart, drowning it in confusion.
“So that’s why you don’t care about your child’s name …” she murmured—to him, or to herself, she couldn’t tell. The truth hurt more than she had expected.
It wasn’t as if Inquisitor Velten—of all the men she could have ever wanted—would be the one to indulge her childish dreams of eternal devotion. He had his title and his oath, and she had … she had an analysis she should be returning to.
His fingers drummed against the desk. “I do care,” he replied quietly. “I think I know what she chose, but I do not want to bepresumptuous. It is her decision, not mine. All the involvement she expects from me is to provide a house and an annuity for her and the baby. Nothing more—and it suits us both perfectly.”
The confusion in her swelled even more. Estevan was doing the right thing, and they both seemed perfectly fine with that situation … but her heart still wilted. There had been something between Estevan and Nimue, and as fleeting as it turned out to be, it … it still confused her.
“Am I still the worst bastard you have ever met?” he asked.
Semras fidgeted with her quill pen. “Not the worst, I suppose.”
The inquisitor slid his fingers beneath her chin, lifting her face to meet his gaze. Wordless, she stared at Estevan and that smile of his—the one with a corner slightly raised higher than the other. He did that one often around her.
“But still a bastard?” Estevan winked. “Clever witch.” He let go of her, and his touch left her with a tingling, burning imprint on her skin.
Before it could burn her alive, Semras busied her hands with blotting paper, tapping it lightly over the long-dried ink of her notes.
It changed nothing, she told herself. Estevan was an inquisitor, and she was a witch. If anything, his and Nimue’s lack of mutual interest despite the child between them only served as further proof that such a relationship could only be a passing tryst and nothing more. Semras would return home after analyzing the cause of Torqedan’s death, and then she’d never see Estevan again. So it changednothing.
And it certainly did not change the fact that she’d have to face a corpse before sunrise. They had more important matters to address than daydreaming of vows and love and black-haired children with yellow eyes.
She sighed. “May I remind you we were speaking of murders?”
“Ah yes, Tribunal Torqedan’s murder.” Estevan scratched his nape. “You were saying witches wanted him dead.”
