“Take it,” he said. “Drink it. Can you tell me what is in it?”
The odd request, so completely detached from her own scrambled state of mind, distracted her momentarily, and Semras took the cup cautiously. Heat emanated from the bone porcelain and warmed the cold iron around her skin. It comforted her, soothed her.
After blowing on it, she observed the pale flaxen water contained within. It smelled of herbs, and … a flower. Chamomile? Mixed with linden, she thought idly.
Semras took a sip, and her lips curved into a slow smile. “Linden and chamomile; it’s a soothing herbal tea,” she said. The hot liquid grounded her. Her focus returned, and with it, a frown appeared on her face. “… And a witch’s brew. Where did you get this?”
He shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“Nimue?” she asked softly. Now that rage had deserted her, the past week’s ordeal was dragging her voice down once more. “Or … another witch? The one who mixed Torqedan’s remedy?”
“Look at you,” Velten said, eyebrow cocked, “interrogating me like an inquisitor. Maybe we are spending too much time together.”
The ease with which he fell back into bantering with her was jarring when compared to his past week’s behaviour. Yet, she still craved it—craved to see him as he truly was, and not as ‘the monster’ she came to think of him. She needed the reminder that he was human.
“We are,” she grumbled. “It’s not good for my nerves.”
“I know how to calm people too.” Velten sat cautiously in front of her, as if he expected her to bolt at any sudden movement. When she didn’t, he grinned. The corner of his mouth curled upjust too much for her to take his next words seriously. “Not just make them scream at me.”
That smile always preceded his peculiar sense of humour—always a little wider, with one corner rising a little higher than the other. Belatedly, Semras realized she could tell his smiles apart. She knew them now, as she knew her own.
It didn’t matter that she did, she reminded herself. Itdidn’t.
“Cael told me the same thing about himself,” she muttered.
Velten’s smile dropped. “‘Cael’? You are on a first-name basis with him?”
“How is that the only thing you take offence at? I spoke with him in private. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Looking away, he nodded. “… Yes. You went to ask for his help in escaping me.”
“I did.” She blew on her herbal tea and took another sip. “Went to him, I mean.”
Velten didn’t probe any further, and a heavy silence settled between them.
Seconds that felt like minutes passed before Semras broke it. “He wanted to talk to me too. He said he was worried about you.”
He scoffed. “He is worried about the Inquisition’s reputation, more likely.”
“He wanted to know about the state of your investigation. He wanted me to report your every move.” She looked down at her tea. “I asked him to take me home instead.” In her hands, the cup shook.
“And?”
“He said that I … I had to make myself useful first.”
Velten took a deep, long breath, muttering curses too lowly for her to understand them.
Semras stole a glance at him. The inquisitor seemed calm, but a tension was building up in the cords of his neck. “Seeing as youare here,” he said slowly, “in my bedroom, and not in a carriage, I will suppose you did not.”
“I didn’t want to. Callum wanted to use me—just likeyou.” Semras threw him a dark glare. “You are both so similar I’d have taken you for siblings!”
“You are closer to the truth than you know,” he replied, grimacing. “My father adopted him when we were mere boys. We got along like cats and dogs.”
Her mind came to a halt.
Cael Callum, the half-fey, his … “Brother?” she breathed.
“‘The bastard and the changeling,’ people used to call us. Until Father made them regret their words.” Velten chuckled. He didn’t look like the monster when his eyes brightened like that. “Not with violence, mind you. I did not inherit my penchant for it from him.”
