Estevan exhaled. “Nothing. Just … curious, Mother.”
The matriarch rolled her eyes, then turned to Semras and smiled. “I suppose I will find his wefts around your warps, girl? You will both tell me all about it later. For now, let’s see what I must work with …” Leyevna took her hands in hers and surveyed them. A deep, concerned frown slowly appeared on her face. “This looks suspiciously like cold iron burns, and some latent poisoning of the blood too … Someone did this to you. Who?”
Semras paled under the warwitch’s inquisitive stare but still held her gaze. Estevan had lied to his mother for her before; she owed him the same.
“A Venator knight put me in witch-shackles for a week,” she lied. “Este—Inquisitor Velten removed them for me.”
The warwitch raised an eyebrow. “You are lying, Semras. I can see the threads of your blood pulsing faster.”
Semras’ gaze snapped to the inquisitor. “That’s how you knew! You always went on about how you could tell lies from truths. It makes so much sense now!”
Crossing his arms, Estevan leaned back against the chair. “Mother taught me a few years back. This trick of hers was very inconvenient when I was younger and causing trouble. I learned to lie using truths very quickly.”
“That worked only on your father,” Leyevna replied. “I still know when you try to hide things from me, my boy. And this ‘trick,’ as you call it, is a skill usually only taught to elderwitches, so be grateful you know it at all. And for the love of the New Maiden, do not let it be known you do! EvenIshouldn’t know it!” Clicking her tongue, Leyevna returned to examining Semras’ hands. “You did this to her, didn’t you,Vanya? We’ll talk about it later.”
He grimaced. “Please do not. I will carry that guilt with me for the rest of my days. Your lecture will contain nothing I have not told myself already.”
“We talked it out, Warwitch Leyevna,” Semras added. “It’s … fine.”
The matriarch whistled. “Well, well, well. Look at you both getting along now.” Then her eyes grew dim and blurry as she peered at the Unseen Arras.
For long, anxiety-inducing minutes, Leyevna examined Semras’ hands.
At last, the matriarch came back with a shake of her head and a frown. “You tried weaving while wearing the witch-shackles, girl. I can see small lesions all across your skin.”
“ … What does it mean?” Semras breathed.
Leyevna sighed deeply. “It means you have shards of cold iron tainting the flesh of your hands. These Crone-cursed shackles are designed to act as a deterrent, and they do it very well in a very insidious way,” she replied. “If you do not weave, you are fine. But if you do it, they will cut your hands to let particles of cold iron into your flesh. And then …”
Estevan leaned closer. His expression had turned into a blank mask, but his eyes spoke loudly of his worry. “And then?”
“Well …” Leyevna gave them both a thin smile. “We will not learn about that today. You’ve kept your fingers moving, girl. That’s good. It means the cold iron within your flesh hasn’t aggregated to a critical level. Not yet, at least, so let’s see … let’s see if I can draw it all out and save your weaving.”
“She can be healed, then?” Estevan asked. “Her hands can return to what they once were?”
“Possibly. I think.” Leyevna hummed, then clicked her tongue as she slid her attention back to Semras. “Just one way to find out. This will be tricky, even for me, but at least you haven’t aggravated your case by trying to weave excessively. Back in theday, I’d seen too many witches weave enthusiastically after being freed from shackles they had fought against. The result was always ghastly. Poor girls.”
A violent shiver rattled Semras’ bones. Had she tried earlier to stop Estevan by weaving, then, maybe … maybe she’d have spelled her own doom. Even before then, she had been weaving on borrowed time—each instance that made her think her hands would get better had only brought her closer to her own destruction.
“However …” the matriarch continued, “what I will do will hurt you. Immensely. I am not only using the Path of Flesh to heal you, I have to mix in knowledge from the Path of War. I don’t know if it will work as intended, and I don’t know if it won’t cripple you instead. So choose accordingly. I cannot promise anything about the results.”
Semras’ breath shuddered out of her. Fighting back the bile rising in her throat, she took a moment to compose herself, then said, “Please do it. I’m ready.”
If one could ever be ready for such a thing. But what other choice had she?
“I will not stop once I start,” Leyevna said softly. “I have heard screams enough in my lifetime that yours won’t sway me.”
“I understand.”
The warwitch nodded. “Good. Close your eyes and do not look. What I shall do will disturb you enough that you shouldn’t have to keep its memory too.”
Trying to ignore how cold and clammy her hands were, Semras did as she was asked. She shuddered; her stiff chest seemed unable to let her take in more than short, shallow bursts of air. In the darkness behind her eyelids, no one stood by her side to soothe her apprehension.
Hands took hers in, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Deep instincts screamed at her to snatch them back, but a tightgrip held them firmly in place. “Don’t fight me, girl,” Leyevna said.
“I-I know,” Semras replied in a small, quiet voice. Fear twisted her entrails into knots. “I’m sorry. I’m just—”
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sit here alone and go through the promised agony without knowing what awaited her and if it would work, or if she’d end up crippled instead, or worse, or—
