Page 96 of A Weave of Lies
Semras paled. “… The coven grounds. That’s where a witch would go for anything she needs. Even if she wanted to grow comfrey in her garden, she’d still have to buy the seeds there.”
“What about you?” he asked, smiling indolently. “Where would you acquire some?”
The witch bit her lip. She had to answer carefully, or else he’d use her words to fabricate evidence against her.
Her stalling made him huff. “It is not a trick question. Call it …”—he paused, humming—“… curiosity. I bet a skilled herbalist like you would acquire comfrey differently, and I want to cover all possibilities. If you serve me well, I might let you choose who exactly will take the fall for me. So think it over carefully, Semras. You have friends in your coven you would like to spare, do you not?”
The inquisitor had only asked her two questions, yet a numbing anxiety was already creeping up her throat. “I’d … I’d gather it myself,” she replied, voice strangled. “If … if I wanted to avoid leaving any traces of what I’d be planning.”
She could prepare comfrey, and extracting its potent poison was laughably easy. The real challenge lay in balancing its harmful effects to get the most out of its powerful anti-inflammatory properties.
“It grows in the region, then? Where exactly? How far does it grow?”
Her teeth clacked together in a nervous tick. She hadn’t realized he would deduce so much out of her words.
Her captor was shrewd. Any information he’d extract from her could bring harm to her sisters. Her only hope was to gamble on what he didn’t know to ask about. On what she could conceal behind a passive compliance, volunteering no more information than the minimum of what he requested—such as the exact variety of comfrey he had used to murder Torqedan.
“Where does it not grow?” she replied. “You’ll find plenty of comfrey along moving water, or in pastures, and even in ditches along countryside roads.”
Pushing away the carriage’s curtains, Semras observed the city scrolling by. Beyond, the world had kept on turning despite the nightmare she’d been thrust into. Castereina cared not for the sorrowful soul trapped in its cage of metal and stone, and each breath taken within its boundaries only made it clearer that this place was not her world. That she did not belong here.
How she longed to return to the soothing shade of her forest, with its singing birds rousing with the sun and its moths dancing under the moonlight. To her little creek and the soft sound of water gurgling down the rocks, wild and free.
Inquisitor Velten hummed, cruelly dragging her back to reality. “And you say witches can buy these plants at their coven grounds?”
Semras froze. Had he noticed what she had omitted?
“… Yes,” she replied carefully.
He stayed silent. It alarmed her, but she didn’t dare to look at him and give away her agitation.
“You are hiding something from me, Semras,” he said, voice hardened. “This plant grows everywhere in the region, where anyone could have gathered enough to kill a man … and yet, you did not have a single doubt that it came from a witch. Why? Tell me what made it look this way.”
Eyes still strained on the window, Semras tensed up. Nothing would have linked his murderous deed to witches had she not mentioned it herself. Now, thanks to her folly, he knew one could take the fall for him. Had she lied, he could have used anyone else. She rued her foolishness.
And she rued his uncanny ability to know when she was lying—she never had any true chance at concealing what she had learned. What a perfect trap he had crafted for her.
“You do not want to speak? It does not matter; I already know, of course,” Inquisitor Velten said. “It was a specific sort of comfrey. One that does not grow so liberally across the peninsula. One that can only be obtained by witches from their Coven, just like you said. What I do not know is its exact type and how it can be used to link it to someone else. I could have a chemist analyze the body’s remains to find that out, but I want you to prove your loyalty.”
Semras stared at him with quiet horror. He had deduced this much when she had deliberately avoided talking of plant varieties; tricking him would be much harder than she had dared hope.
“It’s … prickly comfrey,” she answered in a small, miserable voice. “Growing that sort is banned all over the Vandalesian Peninsula. It’s the most potent variety.”
His smile widened, sharp as a blade.
The witch returned her attention to the street, trying hard to ignore the inquisitor’s gaze on her.
Midnight had long since come and gone, and yet the streets were still full of life. Lampposts spit their ghastly gaslights out onto the paved road, hitting the edges of oriel windows jutting out of rows of buildings. As the carriage drove by them, the space between the tall metal posts plunged them into sporadic shadows.
Between light and darkness, Semras saw women selling their flesh and children running through the pockets of their potential customers. Overworked horses carried a festive carriage from party to party; from it, the ringing laughter of drunk and drugged youths echoed through the dark alleys. No star shone above the sleepless capital.
This place was not a city. It was a cloud of locusts, devouring all that had once been good and kind.
Where would it leave her bones? If she failed to escape, would her captor bury her under the trees of his courtyard or throw out her remains into the accumulated filth of street gutters?
Knots formed in her stomach. She was no longer Inquisitor Velten’s guest; he might choose to keep her somewhere else now, and she’d never see those trees again. And if he locked her up with her shackles still on … she’d never even get the chance to escape him.
Semras risked a glance toward him. “Where are you taking me?”
