by Claire Luana
And before she got up, she palmed the salt shaker and went to the little bed, hiding it beneath the pillow.
Sleep didn’t come easily. Though the sharp insight the cheese had bestowed upon her lingered, those energies now turned to poking holes in her flimsy plan. So many roads led to death and ruin for her and Chandler, her and Lucas. There was only one thin chance where they all got through it alive. All she had to do was expose Greer in public, in a place where the king or his inquisitor could not deny her role without exposing their own. It was a ghost of a chance.
She thought of Lucas, the look on his face as she had passed him in the hallway. At least he believed she was innocent, despite her confession. He had been surprisingly loyal, from that first reckless moment in the Guildhall. She had never met a person like that before, she realized, a person so selfless. Who did something because it was the right thing to do, not because it benefitted him. And look how he had been repaid.
She grimaced. A hard lesson for him to learn, and she regretted that she had been the one to teach it to him. She regretted much when it came to Lucas. Perhaps it would have been better if he had never vouched for her, if they had executed her that first day after Kasper’s death. Perhaps it would have been easier on everyone, herself included. If her foolhardy plan didn’t work, she would most certainly be wishing that had occurred.
Perhaps her most poignant regret, though, if things all went south, was her betrayal of Hale and Sable. True, she hadn’t actually betrayed them, but it hurt to know Wren might die leaving Hale to think she had. She didn’t even know if Sable still lived. And then there was Olivia. All of them had shown true kindness to her. For a brief moment, a span of days, she had felt she belonged. There had been laughter, and fun, and hope. To think she might die a murderer in their eyes… it weighed upon her like a stone.
Eventually, the hallway outside her door grew silent. She sat up, peering out the bars. No guards. Moving quietly in the darkness, she tore a strip off the hem off her dress and filled it with a little pile of salt. With furtive movements, she twisted and tied it, then tucked it into the pocket of her dress. She lay back down. With a grim smile on her face, she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 40
The morning came before she was ready. The clarity and dispassion of yesterday had fled completely, leaving her alone with her fears and worries. When the guard opened the door and revealed Killian as her escort, her stomach roiled with the terror of what this dawn brought with it. This was madness. Why had she so boldly agreed to the executioner’s axe?
“Ready to meet the Huntress?” Killian asked, smelling of fresh soap and leather.
“Does anyone answer yes to that?” she grumbled.
“A few,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Those who walk these halls have burdens a plenty. Some are ready to lay them down.”
“I am only burdened by the truth,” she said with a strength she did not feel. “But I suppose I’m not the only one to take the truth with me to my grave.”
“No.” He smirked. “You are not.”
The execution was to take place at the municipal court, a brick building that sat in the center of Maradis amongst its government-building brethren. Its graceful bell tower stretched towards the turquoise sky, a hand trying to reach the heavens. As she sat in the carriage drawing her from the horrors of the Block to the horrors that would greet her next, she recalled that she had once seen an execution in the wide square before the court.
The square held stocks and a gallows, stern warnings to those who might think to cross Alesian justice. She had been eleven, she thought, in the height of her years in the Red Wraith gang. When she had happened upon the crowd, she’d figured there were too many pockets to pick to pass it all up. She hadn’t realized why the crowd had developed until it was too late.
The suddenness of it had shocked her, the lack of drama and ceremony. Up the steps the man had been shuffled, world-weary with defeat in his eyes. Then the noose had gone around his neck, and then the bottom had dropped out from under him, and he’d hung, shaking and twitching, his face turning as purple as an eggplant. He hadn’t died instantly. He had suffered.
Wren had frozen with her hand in a noble’s pocket, so shocked by the display of casual brutality, stunning even for she, who had seen death. On the streets, boys and girls, men and women fought and struggled and bled, held on to life with a vise grip that betrayed the hopelessness of their circumstances. To see life snuffed out so quickly and efficiently… had been a surprise.
Well, now, she was glad for it. Glad that it would be over quickly, that Lucas and Greer and the rest of the treacherous nobles wouldn’t see her fight and struggle and beg. A quick flash of the axe blade, and it would be done.
Killian was watching her from across the carriage, his dark eyes full of something that might have looked like compassion.
“You don’t deserve the gallows,” he said. “It’s a crude death.”
“The axe?” The word stuck in her throat.
“Lethal ingestion,” he said. “A fitting end for a poisoner.”
Wren blanched. She had never heard of the king executing prisoners via poison.
“Will it hurt?” she whispered.
“No. It makes the hurting finally stop.”
Wren, Killian, and their Cedar guardsmen were the first through the courthouse door. The inside was crossed with soaring timbered beams, and the creamy plaster of the walls was adorned with portraits of past magisters in their black robes. The golden scales of justice inlaid in the parquet floor seemed a farce beneath her feet. The king held those scales in Maradis. And he tilted them how he pleased.
Wren’s hands were unbound. Killian had not bothered restraining her, knowing the threat he held over Lucas shackled her tighter than any irons. She prayed that Lucas and Chandler would forgive her for her last-ditch plan. Either she would succeed and they would live, or she would fail and doom them all. She kept her hands in her pockets, half to keep them from shaking, and half to reassure herself that the precious little bundle she had squirreled away last night was still there. Yes, it was.
As they entered the chamber that would likely be her last glimpse of this world, Wren let out a bubble of manic laugher. “Where did you find an interior decorator who specializes in beheadings?”
Killian grinned a sly smile.
The room was round, with rows of seating lining the curving walls. Directly across the door was raised-box seating which must have housed the magister, and beside it a smaller box with an iron ring for manacles. For her. But in the middle, the middle was a massive oiled wood block, with a gleaming axe propped decorously on top of it. Channels in the floor began where the chopping block sat and ran between a row of seats and out through a tiny hole in the side of the room.
“The nobles demand things to be tidy. Nothing worse than attending a beheading and getting blood on your brocade slippers. But don’t worry, sweet Wren. None of your scarlet blood will fill those marble veins. You’ll die quietly in your chair.”
She swallowed thickly. He reached out and twirled a lock of her auburn hair in his finger before letting it fall. “It is a shame I have to kill you,” he murmured.
She stiffened, suppressing a shudder at his nearness.
“Please go sit. The rest of the attendees will be arriving soon.”
The attendees. Like he was hosting a party. She turned to the little wooden box, biting her lip. Its yawning mouth mocked her, as if once she entered, she would be gobbled up forever. But its wooden sides and front would disguise any surreptitious actions she took from the eyes of the crowd. And so with steps of lead, Wren stepped into the box and sat.
Wren fiddled with the ragged hem of her dress as the room filled in, trying to focus on something, anything besides what was about to happen. The magister arrived, a fat beetle of a man with black robes and a shiny bald head. Next Wren caught sight of Guildmaster Pike in a fine crimson coat and polished black boots. He looked relaxed, leaning back in
his seat, not meeting her eye. She found herself disappointed, expecting his to be a friendly face.
As more attendees arrived, the chattering voices, vibrant clothes, bursts of laughter, and the fragrant cups of coffee mingled together, threatening to overwhelm her. The reality of this day, this moment, this place, struck home as one figure walked through the door.
Greer. The woman wore an elegant gown of purple trimmed with thread of bronze. Wren recognized the seamstress Elda’s masterful hand. Greer’s blonde locks were twisted into a fancy knot, her face serene. She carried a lace handkerchief in her hand. The mourning sister, come to witness justice for her brother. She caught Wren’s eye briefly, and then looked away at Wren’s grim smile. Good. At the least the woman felt a kernel of guilt for dooming an innocent guildmember.
Greer sat across the room from her, halfway between the box and her door. Wren’s mouth went dry. No, that wasn’t right. Greer needed to be close to her for her last-ditch desperate scrap of a plan to work. No, no, no.
She flexed her hands to try to work some feeling back into them. Her injured nails screamed in protest, but she embraced the pain, wrapped herself around it, let it focus her. “I don’t suppose—” she began.
“That I would spare your life?” Killian asked. “No, that I cannot do.”
“Worth a try,” she said weakly, her mind racing to think of what she could do.
“Would you mind moving Greer closer to the front?” she asked. “I want… to be able to look her in the eyes as I die, so she knows that I will be waiting for her in hell. You promised me.”
“So ruthless,” Killian said, a hint of admiration in his voice. “I will find her a spot of honor.” Killian crossed the room with a predatory swagger, bowing before Guildmistress Greer. Wren’s eyes were pulled from his retreating form with magnetic force when another entered the room across from her. Lucas.
She drank in the sight of him, from those flecks of gray in his dark hair, distinguishing his otherwise youthful appearance, to the sprig of rosemary in his buttonhole to the soles of his wingtip shoes. His mouth was set in a hard line, the muscles of his jaw working, his hands in fists at his side. He was flanked by two Black Guards. King’s guards, loyal to a fault. A sad smile ghosted across her lips as they looked at each other from across the room, volumes passing between them, words unsaid, kisses unkissed. The hint of a future that hung only by one tender thread. She mourned him, mourned what they might have had, where this world had brought them. To the edge of the abyss.
But still, there was a chance. As Greer settled into a seat within a stone’s throw from Wren, hope bloomed. One final chance.
The magister settled into his seat above her, cracking his gavel on the wooden podium. “Let’s get started,” he announced in a nasal voice.
Wren wiped her sweaty palms on her dress as the crowd quieted down, slipping her hand in her pocket to confirm, for the hundredth time, that the tiny packet was still there.
“We are here today to hear the confession of one Wren Confectioner, and to witness her execution before the gods. She has been accused of the crime of the unlawful killing of one Francis Kasper, Head and Guildmaster of the Confectioner’s Guild, and the attempted killing of Aiyani Sable, grandmaster of the same guild. The Grand Inquisitor has heard her confession, which has been written out and will be read for our edification today. Is this so, Inquisitor?”
“It is.” Killian inclined his head, leaning against the little box where Wren sat, a picture of ease. He must have been here a hundred times, ushering terrified criminals and victims alike to their grave. And no doubt he would be here many more times after she was gone.
“Proceed.”
Killian handed her parchment confession to Wren, giving her an encouraging smile that didn’t touch his eyes.
Wren took the parchment and unrolled it on the wooden bannister before her, her hands shaking. As she cleared her throat to begin to read, she saw a figure slip through the doors across from her and take a seat. His arrogant smirk pasted across his pockmarked face, his red hair clashing against the rich gold brocade of his tunic. Willings. She narrowed her eyes. Here to see the results of his handiwork, no doubt.
“I, Wren Confectioner…” Her voice was small and thin in the vastness of the room, the vastness of the moment. She coughed, a dry rasp, a tickle deep down that could not be itched.
“Do hereby confess to the unlawful killing of Guildmaster Kasper.” She coughed again, longer this time, trying to clear her throat. The crowd shifted in their seats, impatient, the sounds of murmurs and slipping of silk against wooden benches permeating the quiet room as they fidgeted.
She tried to continue. “The murder was premeditated and executed through the use of the Gemini poison…” She coughed again, her body shuddering, as if her lungs were rebelling against her, unable to say the lies.
“Will someone get the girl a glass of water?” Killian said, motioning to a servant with a flick of a hand. The servant disappeared.
Wren tried to continue. “The poison was administered through a…” More coughs. “Cupcake that I baked. The second half of the poison was administered…” She shuddered into another coughing fit.
The servant returned, red-faced, with a sloshing glass of water offered to Killian.
He handed it to Wren, who took it, drinking gratefully. As if this charade weren’t bad enough.
She returned to reading with a shuddering hand. This was getting to the bad part, the part she didn’t want to read, the part that named Chandler, a man who had seemed smart and savvy and kind. Such a rare package for a powerful man. Like Kasper had been. But she couldn’t stop, and so as she continued reading, while her hands moved below the wood bannister of the box surrounding her, retrieving the packet of salt from her pocket, opening it and pouring it into the water with nimble fingers.
“The second half of the poison was administered through a whiskey that was gifted from Guildmaster Chandler, of the Distiller’s Guild.”
She looked up, surveying the room. Killian was nodding encouragingly, while Willings was leaning forward, a gleam in his eye. Greer was doing her best to look disinterested, but she sat as straight as a board, her body tense.
And Lucas. his face was pained, his body quivering, as if he might stand up at any moment and shout for the atrocity to stop.
“No,” she said loudly, looking at the magister. Her voice rang out over the room. “This confession is a lie, forced from my lips at threat of death.”
She saw Killian’s eyes narrowing, his muscles tensed to spring, as if he could capture the words before they came from her mouth. The time to act was now.
“The truth is, the murderer is in this room. She is among us, and I can prove it.”
Wren stood and scrambled over the side of the box, the glass of salt water in her hand.
“Stop her!” the magister cried, and the crowd parted before her, dashing out of her way.
Killian lunged for her, but he was too late.
Wren threw the glass of water in Greer’s face, just as she had done with the Gemini poison not twenty-four hours before.
Killian grabbed her around the waist, bearing her to the ground. “Lucas is dead, girl, I swear it,” he hissed in her ear. “I’ll kill him myself.”
Wren looked up from where she sprawled on the ground to see Greer brushing the water from her face. The damage was done. The salt water had revealed the undeniable truth. Greer’s face was dyed blue with poison.
Chapter 41
“What is the meaning of this?” the magister bellowed. “Order! Restrain that girl!” He banged his gavel before him.
The guards who had accompanied them from the Block moved in, snapping irons on her wrists and hauling her to her feet.
Killian motioned to the door, and they began to march her towards it.
What? No! She couldn’t be taken away to some secluded location where they could kill her in private!
“Inquisitor!” the magister called, his
voice cracking like a whip. “You aren’t going anywhere until this mess is sorted out.”
Wren sagged in relief. Bless the fat little man.
Killian turned on the magister, a predatory smile on his face. “The girl is clearly mad. I apologize for wasting the court’s time. She must have tried to throw some poison in the face of Guildmistress Greer to try to cast suspicion upon her. We know she is well-versed in such dangerous arts.”
“No!” Wren cried. “Guildmistress Greer killed Kasper! And tried to poison Sable. She framed me. Her face is dyed blue because the poison reveals itself when exposed to salt water! The poison that killed Kasper was hidden in her room! I found it there!”
The room erupted into whispers and shocked gasps.
The magister banged his gavel again. “Silence!”
Greer’s face was livid under the blue mottles on her flesh. The crowd parted around her with wary looks and shuffling feet. Greer’s fists were clenched and she looked as if she would pounce on Wren at any moment.
“That is an outrageous accusation,” the magister said. “Inquisitor, did you not receive a confession from this woman?”
“I did.” Killian ground his teeth. “It was quite clear.”
“He tortured me!” Wren said desperately, struggling against the guards. “I would have confessed to anything.”
The magister banged his gavel again, seeming to soften at that. Killian’s methods were well known throughout the kingdom. “No more outbursts from the prisoner!” He pointed at her. “Now, give us your account, Confectioner. Briefly.”
