The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(41)
“She’s a murderer, same as us. End of story.”
Elena said nothing in reply as a small wren landed on the windowsill between the bars. It preened and bowed and then flew inside the cell to perch on Sidra’s outstretched hand. The sorceress whispered to the bird, and the bird sang back. After a brief exchange she petted the bird’s head, then plucked a daddy longlegs out of the straw and dangled it in front of the wren’s open mouth.
“How can you talk to the bird? Don’t the runes prevent magic?”
“They block spells,” Sidra explained, “but not even a place like this can strip away a person’s essence. I need no spell to talk to birds.”
Was it possible? It must be. Hadn’t she heard the lamenting of the dead surface through the liminal space as she passed through the corridor?
Yvette picked up a handful of damp straw and threw it at Elena’s feet. “This new one smells like alcohol. Can’t stand a drunk for a cellmate.”
“It’s wine and oak.” Sidra pinched a silverfish between her fingernails and offered it to the bird. “It’s the scent of someone who works in a cellar.”
Yvette scrunched up her face. “You mean she’s a vine witch? In here? Never heard of nothing like that before. What reason does a fancy witch like her got to kill someone?”
“Good question.” Sidra’s eye lingered on Elena a moment before she whispered a last message to the bird. It flapped its wings and slipped out the window. The sorceress tracked the wren’s flight through the open sky, unable to hide the yearning to follow.
Elena sat against the free wall and drew her legs up defensively, hugging them to her chest. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Well, you don’t get locked up in here for making bad wine.” The young woman, who couldn’t have been out of her teens, transformed again from ingénue to cunning street urchin, the soft angles of her face hardening as she stiffened her jaw. She inched closer and flashed a four-inch piece of sharpened metal she’d pulled from her hair. “And you don’t get to sleep with both eyes closed unless we can come to an arrangement.”
The shiv, once an ornate silver hairpin, had been filed down to a deadly point, one Elena did not doubt could draw blood. It was the sort of thing that ought to have been confiscated, but savvy Yvette had somehow managed to smuggle in a little nonmagical protection. Clever.
Elena stared at the point aimed at her throat. “What sort of arrangement?”
Seeing she was going to get her way, Yvette’s eyes brightened. “You’re going to pay for your side of the cell.”
“With what?”
Sidra made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Do we have to go through this every time?”
“It’s all right for you in here,” Yvette snapped back. “You got that bird to pass the time. What have I got?” Sidra dismissed her with a shake of her head. The young woman turned her venom back on Elena. “A witch like you ought to have plenty of rich friends. Whatever they bring you when they visit they got to bring me too. I want a clean blanket, food, and a change of clothes. And new silk stockings. I can’t wear these worn-out rags another day.”
“No one’s going to bring you those things in here,” Sidra said.
“Why aren’t they?”
“Because no one’s going to waste money on a carnival tramp like you.”
“Better me than a dried-up old hag whose neck is about to feel the kiss of la demi-lune. Your birds can’t save you from fate’s hand on the guillotine.”
The young woman’s waspish tongue had found its mark. The sorceress got to her feet. The rattle of metal followed. Beneath her robe a heavily linked chain attached to her ankle trailed back to a solid metal ring affixed to the wall. Elena worried she meant to attack the young woman as she loomed over the dour pixie. If the chains and bars had not held her back, the sorceress might have annihilated the young woman with a single spell, so threatening was her look. Instead, Yvette scuttled away to the other side of the cell, safe in knowing, for the moment at least, she was the more dangerous of the two. Sidra kicked at the straw, then pulled her scarf over her head. She returned to the wall and faced her back to them to gain the only privacy available in such tight quarters.
“Is that true?” Elena asked the young woman. She risked drawing the wrath of both inmates, but she couldn’t help wondering about her own fate. “About . . .” She subtly gestured with her fingers drawn against her neck.
An inkling of regret crept into Yvette’s voice as she leaned her head back to stare up at the small square of sky framed by the window. “Her execution is in three days. That’s why she’s chained.”
The chill in Elena’s body sank from her skin to the inside of her veins, where it swam in a circle around her heart and lungs so she couldn’t get a proper breath. Yes, she had wanted Bastien dead. Yes, she had distilled the poison to do the deed. She had even written a spell to bind it to his stomach so he couldn’t cough it back up. She did it all, accepting the consequences to her soul if she followed through. But building doubt had created a wall in her mind that she couldn’t get over. His denial, spoken only moments after he’d nearly run her down, had been given time to ferment in her thoughts. He’d always been proud of the control he exerted over others, bragging about having neighbors hexed or competitors’ fields jinxed. If he’d been responsible for her curse, he wouldn’t have backed away from the triumphant moment when he could finally take credit for it. The realization was enough to give her second thoughts, and so she’d stored the poison in the cupboard above her worktable and focused instead on making a wine so superb it would erase the name of Du Monde in the valley. Only now she was trapped behind bars and accused of killing him, possibly facing the same deadly fate as the women beside her.