The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(13)

“Leave us,” Blackwell says.

My eyes fly open. Richard glances at me, and I see a flicker of something pass across his face: It almost looks like guilt. He nods at Blackwell, spins on his heel, and leaves the room.

Blackwell leans back in his chair, a high-backed wooden thing padded in crimson velvet. It could be a throne. By the power he has over me, it may as well be one. He clasps his hands on the desk in front of him and stares. This is his way. He will stare at me until I have no choice but to say something.

But I won’t say anything—I swear I won’t. There’s no point anyway. I’m in trouble and nothing I can say will change that. Seconds turn into minutes and, still, he remains silent. I begin to sway on my feet: tired, my head fuzzy from the absinthe, my gut churning with nausea and nerves.

Maybe I’m making things worse by not speaking. Maybe Blackwell sees my silence as defiance. And the last thing I need right now is for him to think I’m defying him.

Again.

“It wasn’t anything I wanted. With the king, I mean.” I begin like this, preemptively, the words harsh against the silence in the room. There’s no way to mitigate the truth of them, so I don’t even try. “I didn’t encourage it, if that’s what you’re thinking. He sent for me. With a note.”

That’s how it started: with a note. Written in the king’s own hand and given to his guard, passed to a page to a servant then to me, dropped into my lap one night during dinner. I remember unfolding the thick parchment with a smile, thinking it was from Caleb.

It wasn’t.

“He asked me to wait in the hall outside my room at midnight. But I didn’t. Not at first. Why would I? It was a mistake—it had to be. What would the king want with me?”

But it’s a lie. I knew what he wanted. How could I not? There were too many sidelong glances, too many invitations to sit near him and talk about nothing, too much interest paid to someone who should have been no one. Even without all that, I would know. As Caleb always reminded me: Nothing good comes to a girl after midnight.

“The notes kept coming, and I kept ignoring them. Then one night he sent one of his guards for me. I had to go with him. To him. What else was I supposed to do?”

Blackwell doesn’t reply. I didn’t expect him to. Still, I go on. Now that I’ve started I can’t seem to stop.

“I couldn’t stop it from happening, but I could make sure nothing else did. I couldn’t have the king’s child.” I swallow. It’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud, the possibility of it, what I was trying to prevent. “I knew he’d send me away. That he’d shut me in an abbey, to live behind walls forever. Everyone would know. I didn’t want that. I don’t want that. I want to stay. Here, with you.”

If Blackwell is moved by my plea, he doesn’t show it. He continues to stare at me, his face cold, hard, carved in stone. I can read nothing from it.

Finally, he speaks. “How long have you known?”

“How long have I known what?”

“That you’re a witch.”

“A witch?” I shriek the word as if I’ve never heard it before. “I’m not a witch! I’m not—”

“You. Had. Herbs.” His words are a growl; they may as well be a shout. “Witches’ herbs. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you a witch.”

“I’m not a witch,” I repeat. “I mean, I did have witches’ herbs. And I did take them. But I’m not a witch.” Even to me, this sounds weak.

“What else do you have tucked away, besides these herbs?” Blackwell flicks his wrist at them, still lying on his desk. “Wax dolls? Witch’s ladder? Spellbooks? A familiar?”

“Nothing! I have nothing tucked away. I hate witchcraft, just as you do!”

“Not as I do.” His voice is a shower of winter rain down my back. “Not I.”

He falls silent. The only sounds in the room are the crackle of the fire, my own heavy breathing, my own thudding heart.

“I’m not a witch,” I say again.

Blackwell opens a drawer in his desk, pulls out a sheet of parchment. Takes up his pen, dips it in ink, and begins writing. I can hear the nib scratching the paper.

“I’m disappointed in you, Elizabeth.” A pause. “Very disappointed.”

I take a breath. Hold it.

“You have spent years with me, have you not? You were one of my best witch hunters, were you not?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I had my doubts, you know,” he continues, still writing. “When Caleb first brought you to me, he said he could make something of you. I didn’t believe him.” Another pause as he signs the paper, his hand looping out his waving, scrawling signature. He scatters sand on the ink to dry, shakes the excess onto the floor. “But you surprised me. I didn’t expect you to live past the first week.”

I shiver at his bleak analysis. At his thoughts about my chances of surviving, at his tone that tells me it didn’t much matter to him if I hadn’t.

“But you did. And here you are.”

Finally, Blackwell looks up at me, takes me in with a sweep of those cold, black eyes.

“I expected more of you. What I did not expect is this.” He waves his hand. “You broke one law by possessing those herbs. Another when you killed that necromancer”—he gleams at me, so he knows about that, too—“and you have become a liability. I cannot have witch hunters breaking my laws. These are laws I created—your king created—to keep this country safe. You break them, you will be punished for them.”