Aelia was one hour into sorting through Governor Iraias’ notes when the servants came back. Both Mariel and the serving boy.

  “I...couldn’t find the pitcher, ma’am.” Mariel looked on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “The governor’s goblet was gone too.” The boy looked equally ashamed.

  Aelia gestured to Magistrate Camus to continue working through the notes. Watching Paragons, what she wouldn’t give for Aven’s ability to split his mind.

  “Thank you for your search,” she spoke, largely to give herself a moment to think. If the servants couldn’t find either, then someone was being particular about clearing away evidence. Which in itself revealed new information. The culprit knew the working of the Citadel enough to know where the Governor’s goblet would be taken. And the culprit recognized both pitcher and goblet could be pieces of evidence.

  Both facts, unfortunately, could implicate the very two servants before her. Or any other number of kitchen staff.

  It also implied that the wine itself could serve as some sort of clue.

  “The kitchen utilizes tasters, of course,” Aelia spoke the thought aloud.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mariel said. “Would you like me to fetch them?”

  “No, that will not be necessary,” Aelia replied. She could direct them to Madame Truthteller later. Following standard imperial precautions for gatherings like these, two tasters sampled every dish and every drink in the kitchens to detect poison. Which meant... “The poisoning must have occurred after the wine left the kitchens. Did anyone else handle the tray between the kitchens and the governor?”

  “N....no,” the serving boy whispered. “Just me. But, ma’am, I swear I never poisoned the governor. I swear to every god above!”

  “This is not an accusation,” Aelia replied, before the boy burst into further tears. “I am gathering information.”

  At that moment, Aelia received a thought from Esharah.

  “Will you consent to a Mindspeaker examining your memories of the evening?” Aelia asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boy replied.

  Aelia directed the boy to meet Esharah. While Aelia had nothing remotely like Esharah’s empathic abilities, or even an ordinary person’s reading of others’ emotional states, she couldn’t see the boy as guilty. Horrified, yes. But anyone would be horrified in his position. Horror did not imply guilt.

  They were still short on evidence, though. Especially since both goblet and pitcher were gone. If the key was in the wine, and the wine was gone.

  She suddenly shot up from her chair as a thought struck her. The dress. Splattered with wine, about to be served to Governor Iraias.

  “Magistrate Camus,” Aelia asked. “Who is the most skilled apothecary in Northstar?”

  The magistrate started up from the notes he was pouring over, “Er...I believe Yliann ars-Medis is well respected. Her shop is in Citadel Hill.”

  Aelia was halfway to the door when the magistrate stopped her.

  “Executor,” Magistrate Camus said cautiously, “I assume you have discovered something related to the investigation?”

  “You assume correctly.”

  “Then I believe you should leave that matter to the investigators,” Magistrate Camus said. “Governor Iraias tasked you with running the gathering, not discovering the identity of his murderer. For that matter, the proper authority for this investigation is Madame Truthteller.”

  Aelia stared. And found she had no counterargument.

  “You are...quite right, magistrate,” Aelia sat down, reluctantly. A strange feeling to have something so demanding and still unable to act upon it. Something even more urgent than the documents in front of her. “I will...relay instructions to the inquisitors.”

  There were multiple battlefields at the moment. Aelia had her own. And she had to trust that the others would fight their battles effectively.

  * * *

  Esharah watched the scene unfold through the boy’s eyes. No clear images in this mind, only a whirlwind of panic. One that she couldn’t hope to soothe. Lady Ashnya might have, but she was occupied now in stopping panic from breaking out among the other delegations.

  “Relax, Geoffrey,” Esharah whispered into the boy’s mind, trying to still the panic that kept blurring the memories. She needed to see what the boy had done.

  A tray with three goblets. A pitcher of wine. Not one from the main table, but specifically from the kitchen, because Governor Iraias was picky about his drinks. Concerned about having control over every sip of wine or morsel of food that passed his lips. Justifiably so, clearly.

  Geoffrey didn’t pay attention to the tasters, instead sneaking a bite of cheese from a nearby counter-

  “It was just a bite,” the boy whimpered. “I know I’m not supposed to filch, but-”

  “No one’s going to punish you for a bit of cheese, Geoffrey,” Esharah said gently. Largely because hanging him for letting the governor be punished would be a greater concern if they couldn’t catch the real culprit. Esharah kept that thought to herself, because the boy’s mind was already panicking again. Enough to drown out the memory. She let him panic for a half minute, but then forced her way past that. She needed the memory more than she needed to respect this boy’s privacy at this point.

  Geoffrey took the tray, a small smile on his face from the cheese. He walked back, passing a half-dozen other staff. He didn’t spill drinks anymore, not after getting beaten for it the first time. And the second. Now he was careful. Meticulous enough even for the standards that Governor Iraias demanded. So he made it to the great hall without incident. Took it to the Governor, but then the boy with bright red hair burst up and spun around and knocked the drinks from his hand-

  “That’s when I left,” Esharah said. “I saw that. But you went back and got more drinks, right?”

  “I-I did!” Geoffrey squeaked. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to remember...”

  The images shuddered, reformed. Back to the kitchens again. A new tray filled with wine and cheese. He appeared back before the governor and the older Genthi woman. No sign of the Tenebras delegate.

  “What happened to him?”

  “I-I don’t know,” Geoffrey said. “He just...left.”

  No more memories of him. Just of handing Governor Iraias and Lady Elesmara Genthus the drinks and then retreating. Back to the kitchens with the final goblet. Which the head cook confiscated from the tray and downed in a single quaff, leaving the tray completely empty.

  “And he wasn’t harmed?” Esharah asked.

  “N...no...?”

  Three goblets drawn from the same pitcher. Two drunk without incident. One poisoned. It had to be something added after the tray left the kitchen, but before it reached the governor’s hand. In that short period of walking across a crowded hall where dozens brushed past him.

  “Did anyone bump into you while you were carrying the tray?”

  They flashed through the memories. Dozens had passed by him. Half of his attention was spent not running into someone. And there were a hundred distractions. Like the way the serving maid Kaelyn smiled at him as he passed...

  Esharah sighed and rushed to look for anything relevant. But it was all too tangled up in the boy’s mind. Too much happening at once.

  She pulled back into her own mind, reeling slightly from the panic. “Nothing.”

  “I’m sorry,” the boy whispered, eyes still on the floor, head in his hands.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Esharah rested a hand on the boy’s trembling shoulder. “It’s alright, Geoffrey. You’ve been very helpful. There is no blame on you. Whatever this was, it was a calculated attempt. Far above what a simple serving boy could have hoped to notice. You did nothing wrong.”

  “But...the governor will be all right, won’t he?” Geoffrey asked.

  Esharah looked at the boy carefully. His fear was real, but the question... “You know the governor personally.”

  “I...he’s...” The boy’s panic spiked. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Geoffrey,” Esharah’s mind pulsed with command. “It is very important that you tell me everything you know about the governor. He is more than your employer, isn’t he?”

  The boy flinched back. And with that fear, something else seeped through. Not just panic, but a deep, protective loyalty.

  “He...he helped me.” Geoffrey finally said. “My family and I. My older brother...was a criminal. A smuggler. Sent away to prison.”

  Fear spiked through Esharah. Horror. “...Hellfrost?”

  The boy slowly nodded, looking fearful.

  “What...was his name?”

  “Voran Morson, ma’am,” the boy replied.

  The name hit Esharah like a hammer. Because she’d been the one to send the boy to Hellfrost. In Hellfrost, she’d watched him die.

  ***

  “Voran,” Esharah purred, putting a hand on the boy’s arm. “That’s a strong name.”

  The boy chuckled, face flushed from wine as much as from her compliment. He was a nice one. A guardsman’s son. Not a vis himself, but he’d inherited enough of his father’s strength and courage. And he had a rebellious streak. How deep that streak went was her task to find. “Is it?” he said, trying to look modest and failing.

  This tavern was the perfect place to practice. Madame Truthteller wasn’t only teaching Esharah to lie. She was teaching her to become a phantom. Three dozen minds in this tavern. Any of them should have recognized her. She’d been coming here for weeks after all. But each time, she nudged their minds just a bit away. Just enough to ignore her presence. To find her forgettable.

  Until now, when she was making sure Voran found her anything but forgettable.

  “That’s expensive wine,” Esharah noted, lacing her voice was admiration, sending a pulse into his mind to stoke the boy’s pride. “You said you were a trainee guard, right? I had no idea guard’s could afford such a vintage.”

  “Most can’t,” Voran threw all caution to the winds. If he had any to begin with. “But I’ve got friends who can get anything.”

  Friends whose smuggling had caught the attention of Northstar’s inquisitors. For a moment, Esharah wavered. This was no hardened criminal. Just a stupid kid who happened to be of use to the real smugglers. And now of use to her.

  Esharah shoved that doubt and guilt down. She could do this. This was the first test Madame Truthteller set for her. The first step on her path to freedom.

  Esharah gave the boy’s arm a squeeze and leaned in, letting her mental touch attract him more than any natural perfume would, “I’d love to hear more.”

  ***

  Her first great success. Twelve smugglers caught and imprisoned. All sent to Hellfrost.

  Esharah had even felt a little proud of herself for it. Even after all this, remembering her pride made her sick.

  She’d even tortured him alongside Yvris. One of Yvris’ first punishments for her. He’d dragged in everyone Esharah had sent to Hellfrost and had her share in their “penance”. Voran had pled with her for mercy. As if she had any control over the torture.

  “My mam...we were poor off, and she appealed to the governor for aid,” Geoffrey’s words jolted her back to the present. “Governor Iraias was gracious and offered me a job. Me and my sister Mayla.”

  Esharah remembered a pulse of hatred from a young woman in the garden. Hatred so baleful it had almost burned her when she arrived. Apparently, the sister knew what Esharah had done. Geoffrey did not.

  “I’ve...I’ve tried to work hard to repay him,” Geoffrey’s eyes were painfully earnest. “I swear on my life I’d never want him dead. He’s a good man.”

  A good man. The description twisted at Esharah’s stomach. No good man created the Hellfrost that she’d seen. No good man used inquisitors like her as tools. Yet Geoffrey’s loyalty was real, and the governor’s kindness to this boy was real too. As real as the cruelty that Voran had experienced.

  Iraias might be a good man to some, and a tyrant to others. Neither act erased the other. It just meant he was a man. Currently, a man whose death would be disastrous.

  “Thank you, Geoffrey,” Esharah squeezed the boy’s shoulder slightly and turned away. “If you remember anything else that might be helpful, anything at all, please find me immediately.” She left a mental touch with him, a simple anchor so he could send a silent call to her if needed.

  She’d found no answers within the boy’s mind, but there was still the other thread Aelia had found. She had to follow every possible lead.

  ***

  The apothecary’s shop was a haven of perfectly ordered chaos, smelling of dried herbs and chemical compounds. Yliann ars-Medis was a short, stout woman with grey-streaked hair pinned tightly in a bun and an apron stained with a dozen different substances from her craft.

  “Paragons past, do you know what hour it is?” the woman peered at Esharah with sleepy eyes, still wearing a nightcap. It had taken a long while for her to respond to Esharah’s increasingly loud knocks.

  “I’m here on inquisitor business, ars-Medis,” Esharah said.

  “Better be damn important at this hour,” the woman grumbled.

  “The governor’s been poisoned. Alive, but only by healer’s skill.”

  Yliann ars-Medis blinked. Esharah watched the full process of the news unfold in the woman’s mind. First shock, then fear, then a surge of curiosity that quickly overrode both. Her tired eyes sharpened. “What poison?”

  “Unknown,” Esharah said. “But we have a possible sample.” She presented the wine-stained dress. “The governor’s drink was poisoned, and this dress was covered with wine from his goblet earlier that evening. I heard that you’re the best apothecary in Northstar. That if anyone could find any trace of the poison, it was you.”

  The flattery was cheap, but it worked. Yliann took the offered bundle of fabric, her expression already shifting to that of a scholar examining a new text.

  “Let me see,” the apothecary said, pulling on a pair of thick leather gloves. She carried the dress over to a sturdy workbench, lit by an oil lamp with a crystal lens that magnified the light. She took a small pair of tongs and carefully separated a section of the wine-soaked fabric. The stain was already drying to a dark indigo patch on the blue fabric.

  “It was in wine, you say?” The apothecary leaned in and sniffed slightly. At Esharah’s confirmation, she continued, “Did he complain of a different taste or scent?”

  “I...wasn’t present,” Esharah searched through everyone’s description of the incident. “He...didn’t say anything until he started showing symptoms. Difficulty breathing. Slowed heartbeat. Lost feeling in his legs. Vomiting, then seizures. He claimed it was the wine before the seizures started.” Esharah passed along all the details Lady Ashnya and the healers had shared. “Healer Visare did say he was stabilized for now.”

  Yliann ars-Medis gave a low whistle, “I’ll test to make sure, but I’ll bet my good tooth it’s witchflower.”

  “I’m...unfamiliar,” Esharah replied.

  Yliann snorted, “City born, were you?”

  “I was...but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Because anyone born outside these walls knows to teach their child the difference between winterberry and witchflower,” Yliann replied. “Never heard the rhyme? ‘Bitter taste and midnight blue, on lonely nights a friend for you. Black as void and tasting sweet, but accept her gift and death you’ll meet.’ Winterberry is bitter but makes good wine. Witchflower is sweet but deadly.” She gestured to the stain. “If the wine is sweetened, the taste would be nearly identical. The scent close enough to fool anyone not a connoisseur. But I’ll confirm.”

  Yliann bustled around her shop, gathering glass vials, bottles, powders, and droppers with the practiced ease of a master. She dropped a small piece of the stained fabric into a vial of clear liquid and swirled it. The water turned a faint purple.

  “Now, thing about witchflower,” Yliann spoke while carefully adding another substance to the water, “is that it’s more deadly to vis.” Esharah’s heart skipped a beat. She’d never heard of a poison with such properties. “Reacts with the same life essence that vis use to empower themselves. Strongest can resist, but to vis of second or third circle, it’s a killer. Out in the country, it’s mostly children who it’s a danger to. An adult will get damnably sick, but not in danger of death. Unless that adult is vis. Strong body domains can resist it, but others? It’s death to a mind or soul domain.”

  “But the governor isn’t...” Esharah trailed off.

  Governor Iraias was not vis. That was what she was about to say, because that was the official story. The inability of mind vis to intrude upon his thoughts was a product of self-discipline, not any special abilities. So he claimed. And so Esharah had believed, because she had never had cause to doubt. Until now.

  “The governor is not dead, though,” Esharah pointed out. “Isn’t that confirmation that he isn’t vis?”

  Yliann hesitated. “Possibly. Or too weak of one to meet the worst fate. Only his healers can answer how close to death he came, but I’ll only say that.”

  If Governor Iraias was secretly vis, then the intended assassin apparently had seen past that masquerade. Someone who knew Governor Iraias well, then. And probably someone who was vis themselves, or at least knew such powers well enough to recognize them in the governor.

  Or perhaps Governor Iraias was never the intended target. Both Ambassador Rosval and Lady Elesmara had been drinking with him. The ambassador she had no idea, but she knew from Aven that his mother was a voidtouched. Yet neither showed any symptoms. None that the public noticed, at least.

  The vial of water turned pale yellow. Yliann let out a triumphant “ha” and extracted the fabric sample before adding a single drop of some silver fluid. The mixture immediately cleared.

  “Witchflower, as sure as I’m standing here,” Yliann confirmed.

  Esharah now could put a name to the weapon, if not a name for its wielder.

  “How would this poison be applied to a goblet?” Esharah asked.

  “Tincture would be easy to make.” Yliann shrugged. “Just take a liquid extract then pour it into the wine.”

  And it had passed two tasters. Meaning they were back to the original conclusion: someone had put the poison into the wine at some point between the taste test and Governor Iraias drinking it. Someone put it specifically into his goblet.

  “The goblet was spilled with the poison in it,” Esharah noted. “Then refilled with wine, and given to Governor Iraias. Would the poison have remained in the goblet after being spilled?” Another possibility to examine.

  “Poisoned liquid would have been mostly gone,” the apothecary considered. “Could have been residue. How much was spilled?”

  Esharah thought back to seeing Aelia’s horror unfold while the wine flooded onto her dress in the middle of the crowd. “All of it. The goblet was completely upended.”

  “Then there shouldn’t have been enough to do the job,” Yliann said. “Takes more than just a few drops. It’s dangerous because the sweet taste makes people consume more than just a few drops.”

  Then the poison was applied once on the first trip and again on the second. Without Geoffrey or anyone else around to see it. It seemed impossible. To do so, someone would have to be quick and well-positioned enough to add the poison without leaving any trace of tampering...

  The thought stuck in Esharah’s mind, and she thought back. Something was different. The cheese. When Geoffrey loaded up the tray, he’d added cheese and taken some for himself. Neither Governor Iraias nor Lady Elesmara took cheese.

  But when Geoffrey returned, the tray was empty.

  That cheese was the key. And Esharah had an idea where to find it. She needed Geoffrey’s memories one more time.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  patreon.com/OrpheusDAC