The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(27)

“Yes,” I say. “I know him.”

The table around me goes still.

“And?”

I take a breath. “And we were friends. Once.”

“Friends,” Gareth repeats. “You were friends with the Inquisitor, and you didn’t think to tell anyone this?”

“I didn’t know he was the Inquisitor,” I say.

“Don’t play games,” Gareth snaps. His eyes fall to my hand. “Is that why you broke the glass? Because you’re friends with him still, in league with him? Because you plan on escaping and leading him here? Is that why you stand there, looking so shocked?”

I feel a hot blush climb up my cheeks. That was my plan, of course, and now I feel caught. Cornered by the enemy and exposed by my lies and I don’t know what to do.

“I did tell someone about him,” I say, finally. “I told George. I told him Caleb and I grew up together, at the palace. That we worked in the kitchen together.”

The others look at George for confirmation.

“Aye. She did tell me that. Only…” He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “You didn’t tell me he was a witch hunter.”

I take another breath, force down the tide of panic rising in my chest.

“No,” I say. “I didn’t tell you he was a witch hunter, because I didn’t see any reason to.”

“No reason—” Gareth sputters.

Nicholas holds up a hand. “Let her speak.”

“We were very young when we met,” I say. “We both lost our parents. And for a long time, we only had each other. Then we grew up. Caleb wanted to be a witch hunter; I didn’t. So we drifted apart.”

“You say you drifted apart,” Nicholas says. “Yet you called out for him, the day I came for you at Fleet. Why?”

I feel Nicholas’s eyes on me, and I turn to meet them head on.

“Because I was ill. Because I was in prison for a week and no one came for me. Because I”—my voice catches, and I hate myself for it—“I was hoping that the first friend I ever had would be the last person I ever saw. That’s all.”

No one says anything to this, so I continue.

“I didn’t break the glass because I’m in league with him. I broke the glass because I don’t like the idea of my childhood friend coming after me to try to kill me.”

I look around the table. Nicholas and Peter watch me closely, George, too; but they don’t look angry or suspicious. John is still behind me, his arm still pressed against mine. He hasn’t moved or shifted backward. He’s done nothing to make me think he’s angry or suspicious, either. Only Gareth and Fifer look doubtful, but they looked that way the moment I walked into the room.

“I think she’s one of them,” Gareth says. “A plant. A way for them to try to infiltrate the enemy camp—”

“Five people is hardly a camp,” Peter remarks. “Six, if we include you, and you’ve only just arrived.”

Gareth waves it away. “Then what do you make of her being friends with the Inquisitor?”

“Elizabeth already explained that they’re not,” Nicholas replies. “The evidence of that is clear. Were they still friends, he wouldn’t have left her to die in prison.”

The baldness of his words, the simplicity of them, hits me like a slap to the face.

“Nevertheless, she’s still acquainted with the enemy—”

“It was a long time ago,” Nicholas interrupts. His voice is calm but final. “We can’t hold her accountable for what her friend—former friend, rather—chose to become.” He smiles. “Now, if you please, John, could you take Elizabeth upstairs? Her hand is in dire need of attendance.”

I look down. The white napkin John used as a bandage is now stained through with blood. The glass. I didn’t realize I was still squeezing it.

John steers me out of the dining room, up the stairs, down the hall, and past the endless expanse of paintings and sconces. I don’t remember which door is mine, but he does. We stop in front of one halfway to the end. John leans around me to open it.

On the table beside the bed is a tray piled high: a bowl of steaming water, bundles of herbs, an array of tiny metal instruments, and a stack of clean white towels and bandages. There’s even a pitcher of wine and a platter of food. Yet for all that, there’s no place for us to sit. Well, no place except the bed.

I glance at John, who surveys the scene with a slightly furrowed brow. After a beat, two, he clears his throat and gestures toward it.

“Do you, uh, is that all right…” His gaze shifts around the room as if he were wishing a set of chairs would magically appear—or that he might disappear.

“It’s fine,” I say, and cross the room to the bed, made now—the green coverlet pulled smooth and tight across the mattress. I perch on the edge, my feet firmly planted on the floor as if this might somehow lessen the intimacy of sitting on a bed with a boy I don’t know—or for that matter, one I do know.

But my discomfort is nothing to the worry that underneath the napkin my hand is beginning to heal, the skin stitching itself together by the second.

John closes the door, pauses, then moves to sit beside me, the mattress shifting under his weight and shifting me along with it. We’re so close now our shoulders touch. He looks at me, hesitates, then takes my hand.