A myriad of emotions gathered in Semras’ chest—relief, wonder, gratefulness. She felt whole again. Words of gratitude for Leyevna tangled together in her throat, clogging it and leaving her speechless. Instead of fighting her emotions, Semras conveyed her thanks with a quivering smile and tearful eyes.
At the corner of her vision, Estevan passed his hand over his face, lingering over his eyes a moment before continuing down with a shuddering breath.
Semras beheld him. He hadn’t forgotten his promise to her, not even with the looming threats of war weighing on his mind. And now, he had fulfilled it.
With a tired sigh, the matriarch dropped into a chair. “Now, was that all you came here for?”
“That was the main reason, Mother,” Estevan said. “But my visit also concerns Master Torqedan’s medicine. Did you—”
“Ah, no! No, no,Vanya. I gave you the last batch to deliver two weeks ago, and my last letter to him was very clear. Did he not read it?”
The inquisitor stilled. “The letter?”
“Yes, the one telling him to shut up for good,” Leyevna replied. “Listen,Vanya. I know Torqedan is your mentor now. I am making efforts to be cordial to him for you and for your father’s sake—yes, even for him! I’m still mad at him for saying Torqedan deserves a second chance, but …” A sly smirk slowly spread across her lips. “… I am also petty enough to try to prove the all-forgiving cardinal wrong. So, I made the damn thing Torqedan wanted one last time—but no more.”
By the time his mother was done ranting, Estevan was frowning. “You mean that Master Torqedan wrote to you while I was in the Anderas?”
“Incessantly! And I told him he may still have as much willow bark tea as he wishes to deal with his chronic pain, but I was veryclear about the ointment’s dosage.Andthe danger of applying more to his skin. He’ll make himself very sick, the idiot.”
Estevan let out a sigh. “So—”
“So, no! I will not make him more, no matter how much he begs for it.” She rolled her eyes, then continued, “Can you imagine,Vanya? The Hammer of Witches, begging a warwitch? The world has changed so much since the war.”
Semras frowned to herself, remembering the traces of ointment in Torqedan’s mouth. “You told him to apply it to his skin? Those exact words?”
A silence welcomed her question. Then Leyevna twitched her jaw, a glint dancing within her icy blue eyes. From memories of another pair of similar eyes, Semras recognized it as aggravation.
“Obviously, girl,” Leyevna said. “You are not insinuating I don’t know my Path, are you? I used prickly comfrey to maximize the anti-inflammatory properties. That old rat waved a ridiculously large hammer around his entire life, and now his joints are done for.” She shook her head and muttered a low curse. “No amount of weaving can fix that kind of damage—not that he wanted to see me in person anyway—so I upped the dosage as much as I dared to. There’s so much extract in his ointment, it could kill a horse if it licked it.”
Semras’ throat thickened. What the inquisitor had found at the coven grounds was an incriminating receipt, and Leyevna’s innocence now hung only on the letter with her dosage and warnings.
Estevan closed his eyes. “Do you have a copy of that message? Dated, preferably.”
“A copy? What do you take me for, a city clerk?” Leyevna took her cup of tea, now lukewarm. She drank it anyway. “Why are you asking me such things?”
“Because Master Torqedan is dead, Mother.”
Leyevna stilled. Her gaze slowly fell to her cup. “Oh. I need … I need something stronger than tea to celebrate this!” Abandoning her cup on the table, the warwitch strode toward the stairs, then halted midway. “Ah, no! First, my little book!”
The warwitch grabbed it from the fireplace’s mantle. Flipping the pages, she walked back to her guests.
Exhaling deeply, Estevan hung his head down. Semras longed to reach for his hand, to squeeze it in support, as if to say they’d be alright, that they’d find something else to stop Callum with.
She didn’t. Instead, she gazed at his side profile, his chiseled cheeks and the days-old stubble growing there. Wild strands fell from the hair he had perfectly coiffed back when they first met.
Estevan Velten looked very different now than he did then. He had been cold, arrogant, and dressed neatly—a perfect embodiment of control. Now, his shoulders hunched under the weight of burdens too heavy for him to bear alone. Deep circles marred his eyes, and sweat had dishevelled him more than once in the past hours.
Despite it all, he remained one of the most attractive men Semras had ever met. He truly was one of the Fair Folk, and it was blatantly obvious now that she knew it.
Estevan caught her staring at him, and she turned her head away, face flushing.
“Ah, there it is!” Leyevna pointed at a page. After nicking the side of her finger on her teeth, she spread a bead of blood over one line. “The last one in my little black book!” she said proudly, presenting the pages to them.
Rows of names filled Leyevna’s book, each of them crossed with old, blackened blood—except for one.‘Eloy Torqedan’had a bright scarlet red line over it.
“What a miserable death for a miserable old bastard,” the warwitch declared with a laugh. “Taken by old age! I’d neverhave guessed that’s how he’d die, back when we fought during the war.”
Semras paled at her words.
