It didn’t make sense for Fell to start lying now. Damari had already proven herself to be a danger to every guard in the city. They needed to know what had happened up north that compelled Fell to lie in their meeting. She wondered if it was possible Fell wasn’t the Witchkiller he claimed to be.
“Do you think he lied about killing the previous Witch?”
If Toran was taken aback by her question, he didn’t show it. His hand combed through his hair. “No. He didn’t lie about that.”
Nes tapped the flask hidden beneath her shirt. “How do you know he didn’t lie?”Tap tap tap.“He didn’t kill the last Witch in Orlonea, right?”
She felt Toran’s frown like a hand on her back.
“Right. The last Witch was from Kehr. Fell killed her there, in a village near the mountains. They had a hidden saltwater lake. Why does any of this matter?”
It didn’t. Not yet. Right now, there was nothing to prove.
Her heart sped along, faster than the fluttering wings of a hummingbird, as her excitement built. “Were there any witnesses? To the Witch drowning?”
People shuffled by them, some grumbling about getting out of the way. She didn’t care if they were impeding the flow of traffic. She cared only for the color leaching from Toran’s face.
“Yes,” he said, and she noticed how his hand drifted to the hilt of the sword at his hip, how he clutched the handle like he might draw it right there. “Me.”
Her excitement died, his words the blade slicing through her. Emotions she couldn’t put to words, heavy like boulders, tumbled through her at his revelation. Toran had been the one to watch as Fell drowned the previous Witch. The Witch had been killed eighteen years ago, so Toran couldn’t have been older than three. Three years old and he’d watched a man murder someone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Toran blinked, his face opening, and looked down at her. “What for?” He shook his head. “She was the Witch. She had to die.”
Nes said nothing. Overhead, a seagull cawed at them. Another cawed an answer back.
“We should talk to this Genna person,” she said at last. “See what she knows.”
“I don’t think Fell was lying about leaving her behind.”
“Maybe not, but she could still know something. Even if he left her behind, she was the first person to see Fell when he returned to Rakne Bay and the only person who accompanied him back to Gadore.” Her mind drifted to days spent on the road with her father—to theconversations they’d had just to fill the silence. “It was a long trip back,” she continued. “She might know more than you think.”
Toran dropped the hilt of his sword, both hands patting down his every pocket. At last, he pulled the piece of paper with the symbol on it from a pocket in his jacket. “We need to speak to her, anyway,” he said, eyes locked on the symbol. “After your plan with Phineas failed, I did some digging. Genna’s father is a Brother at the monastery and an expert on languages. Genna might recognize this symbol.”
If they could learn the meaning of the symbol, they would be that much closer to understanding Damari—to understanding the magic surrounding her. And that was something Nes yearned for.
Toran’s lips thinned. “I’ll find Genna, and we’ll meet up with you later.”
She nodded as she stared down the street, past the people scurrying about and the seagulls swooping for pickings and the rats skittering between feet. She turned to leave, but Toran’s hand at her elbow stopped her.
Above those pure eyes, his eyebrows crinkled. “We’ll question her together, okay?”
She pulled his hand from her arm but squeezed it once before dropping it. “Okay.”
He hesitated like he wanted to say more, do more, his eyes drifting to her limp hand. But in the end, he only nodded. He left, leaving her wanting.
There was stillone thing she needed to do alone.
Because while Toran had her following Fell, Phineas still had someone following her. It was insulting, really, to think she wouldn’t retaliate. More so when she figured out who was following her and realized shecouldn’tretaliate.
Suri’s foot was like a hammer as it came down on a misshapen spider.She stood on the threshold of the Siren’s Hair, her face wrath incarnate. Nes glanced between Suri and the dust-covered man her friend had just thrown from the gambling den. The man writhed with an odd sort of energy, as if there wasn’t one person but several thousand trapped in his skin.
With a slight tilt of her head, Nes sniffed the air. Strawberry syrup wafted her way, its scent delicious and intoxicating. She scowled at the man.
Suri lifted her boot and, to Nes’s surprise, the spider beneath picked itself up and skittered over to the man. Suri’s features twisted in disgust. Nes was sure her own expression wasn’t far off.
It was then that she saw the rest. Spiders, dozens of them, crawling over the man’s skin, under his clothes, and through his hair. One crept over Nes’s toes, and she took a step back. But not before she got a good look at it.
