The Confectioner's Guild, page 28
“Agreed,” she said. “I’ll testify against Chandler. Tell them that he paid me to murder his rival Kasper to increase his guild’s influence.”
Killian’s gaze warmed. “Excellent. Guards,” he called, “fetch me paper and ink.”
“I have one more condition.”
“I don’t think you understand how negotiation works, girl,” he said. “You need to have leverage to make demands.”
“It’s a small thing. An indulgence that will help you as well. I want to confess publicly at my execution. And I want Greer there sitting in the front row, so I can look her in the eyes as I die. So she knows I’ll be waiting when the Huntress comes for her.”
“Impossible,” he said. “Give you a platform to spout off accusations? You must think me a fool.”
“You forget, you have Lucas’s life in your hands. I know it is forfeit if I don’t behave. A public confession will be better for the king anyway, an accusation of Chandler that will shock the city, ring through the guilds. Invite the guild heads so they will all be there to witness his downfall. After the performance I put on, there will be no way anyone can accuse you of forcing me to speak the words. All this, before the drama of me losing my head.”
He considered. “I cannot agree to a public confession. Can’t have your fellow guild members making some last-ditch defense of your innocence. But I can secure Greer’s attendance. And the attendance of a few more. A private party of sorts. Witnesses to your final hours. And Chandler’s.”
Wren nodded curtly, her heart sinking a little lower into the blackness that already surrounded it. Though she didn’t know if she had any friends left at the guild, part of her still hoped they cared. That they would take note, perhaps be there at the end. Killian had dashed those hopes, like he had dashed all others.
“Why do you want this? Truly? Not just for revenge with Greer.”
She offered him an answer that held a kernel of truth. “I don’t want to die alone.”
He stroked his chin, as clean shaven as his bald head, before giving a curt nod. “You have a deal.”
The inquisitor brushed aside his instruments of pain and cruelty to make room for Wren to write her confession. She took the quill with clumsy fingers still roaring with pain from Killian’s earlier attentions. Slowly, she penned her confession, the spiderweb of lies that would seal her fate and perhaps Chandler’s. She risked so much… too much? She couldn’t know. Though doubts plagued her, the clarity that had come from the infused cheese soothed her fears like a balm. She finally had all the pieces, saw all the angles. It was time for one final gamble.
When she was done, Killian picked up the parchment and read it. “Very eloquent,” he praised. “Quite a tale indeed. You could have had a future in the arts of espionage. Together with your Gift… it’s really a shame to lose such an asset.”
She sighed. She was growing weary of bantering with this horrible man. “Is it sufficient?” she asked.
“Indeed. You have met your terms. Lucas is being released—”
“Lucas!” she exclaimed. “He’s here? Why?”
“He did vouch for you,” Killian explained, as if to a child. “So I was within my rights to arrest him. I brought him here to ensure you were properly… motivated… to confess.”
“You’re a bastard,” Wren hissed, a low anger thrumming in her veins.
“Spare me your righteous indignation. He’s being released as we speak. But he will be at the execution. To remind you what you have to lose if you get any… wild ideas.”
Wren found strange comfort at the thought that Lucas would be at the execution. If her plan went awry, at least there would be one kind face to look on as she left this world.
“When?” she asked simply.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“So soon?” she asked, her stomach dropping.
“The peace treaty with the Apricans failed. They already move on our border. The king has a war to fight; he can’t be concerned with petty matters of guild politics.”
“Is that what I am?” she said bitterly.
“Don’t be morose,” he said. “You’re giving up your life in the service of your king. Think of yourself as a soldier of sorts. There are far more pointless ways to die.”
They walked into the hallway together, side by side, the guards traveling behind them. It was almost like they were equals now. Co-conspirators in the king’s grand design. Her mouth twisted in a hard line. The king deserved to pay for playing with their lives as if he were a puppet master. But he wouldn’t, she knew. The rich and powerful never paid the price. Always people like her.
She was lost in a downward spiral of despairing thoughts when they almost crashed into another set of guards and a prisoner coming from an adjoining hallway.
“Lucas!” Wren said, her eyes roving over him for signs he had been mistreated. He looked tired and disheveled but unharmed.
“Wren,” he breathed, his hand partially reaching for her before falling.
“How lovely.” The inquisitor clapped his hands in mock delight. “A final reunion. And farewell.”
“They say you confessed,” Lucas said. “That you’re to be executed tomorrow. I’m being released.”
She looked at Killian, biting her lip. “Can we have a moment alone?”
“No.” He snorted, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.
She sighed, looking in Lucas’s dark eyes, trying to say with her eyes what she couldn’t with her lips. “I did confess,” she said. “I deceived you. I did murder Kasper.”
“But Chandler…” he said.
“Chandler was my patron in this dark deed,” she said. “I’m sorry… for everything. I never wanted to lie to you. What was between us… It was real.”
He shook his head, the muscles in his jaw working. She could see he didn’t believe her. Good, she thought, a desperate relief flooding her. Please don’t believe me. She didn’t want him thinking the worst of her. To see distain on his face, disgust where there had once been esteem… she thought it would shatter whatever fragments of her heart remained, whatever torn bits of her resolve.
“If you did this for me…” he said. “It’s not right, for you to die… for me.”
“You risked everything for a girl you had only just met,” she said. “Am I not allowed to do the same for a man…” A man that I love, she realized. She wanted to say it. But not here. Not in this place, with the howls of prisoners and Killian’s sneer bearing witness. Better it die with her. And so she finished her sentence. “That I respect.”
“All right,” Killian said, shoving off the wall. “Tearful goodbye time is over. I have places to be, people to torture.”
Lucas’s guards began pulling him down the hallway, away from her. “Wren!” The word was mangled.
“Thank you for these weeks,” she called. “They were an undeserved gift. And Lucas…” she called. “The Destrier, keep him on his estate!”
Killian snorted as they kept walking. “Nice coded message. I hope you take comfort in the fact that Mr. Imbris is powerless in all of this.”
“You’re an ass,” Wren grumbled under her breath. But her thoughts weren’t on Killian. They were on Lucas and Chandler. She hoped upon hope that Lucas understood her message. Keep Chandler away. Give him an opportunity to escape, if her confession truly implicated him. If her tenuous plan went wrong.
Killian laughed out loud. “It’s really a shame we have to kill you.”
They reached a cell and the guard opened the door, shoving her inside.
“This is new,” she said, looking around the interior, which boasted a small bed with a shabby straw mattress, a bucket of water, a table, and chairs. It almost looked like a room at an inn.
“I thought you could use a little comfort on your last night on earth.”
“You don’t want me talking to the other woman and telling her our little arrangement,” she quipped.
“Smart girl.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I could put you in with the men… You wouldn’t get much talking done.”
“This is fine,” she said hastily. “Thank you. And I’d like to make a request for my last meal.”
“Your last meal?” He arched an eyebrow. “You’ve heard about that, have you?”
The Block was notorious for two things. One, the cruel ends prisoners met inside it, and two, the elaborate last meals they earned before they died. Maradis was a city that loved its food, and this macabre little homage reflected that.
“I want puffed pancakes with maple syrup and fresh loganberries, and eggs scrambled with spinach and truffles, and bacon. The thick kind with peppered edges.”
“Breakfast for your last meal?” He raised a dark eyebrow.
“Breakfast food is the most delicious,” she said. “I never understood why such things were relegated to the morning.”
“Very well.” He inclined his head slightly. “I will have the guards inform the cuisinier of your order.”
And with that, the door clicked closed.
Wren was deep in her own misery when her last supper was delivered hours later. The injured fingernails on her hand burned like fire when she moved, a palpable reminder of her weakness, her helplessness. Had she been a fool to agree to sell out Chandler in exchange for Lucas’s life and one last shot at her own? It was bad enough that the king had gotten away with murdering Kasper, but if things went wrong, she’d be ridding them of another guildmaster in the process.
It wasn’t fair. She had figured it out. She had solved the puzzle, had exposed the real killer. It should have been enough. It should be Greer in this cell, her last meal like ash on her tongue, while Wren was finally, after so many years, free to live her own life.
“Life isn’t fair,” she said out loud, reminding herself. The powerful have the means to keep their power, and the weak stay weak. She had learned that at a very young age. From her father, from the head of the Sower’s orphanage, and then from Ansel and his gang. Just look at the guilds themselves—the Gifting. The entire system was designed to funnel wealth, power, and privilege up to those at the top, and ensure that no one else had access. It would take a revolution to change the way things were—a revolution that may or may not ever come. And she was out of time.
She had come so close. But in the end, close wouldn’t matter.
Wren’s dinner was getting cold, and so she tore herself from her rumination and dove in. She ate her eggs first, shaking on salt and pepper, enjoying each fluffy bite. Next she slathered the airy rounds of puffed pancake with glistening maple syrup, fresh succulent berries, and powdered sugar. Last, the bacon, thick crisp slices that mingled salty with sweet. She savored the interplay of flavors on her palate, the sensations of chewy and crispy and smooth. Taste and smell and touch—a good meal and a full belly—the sensations of being alive. The honesty of flavor and texture and pride of craft. These were the things she would miss when she was gone. When she was done, she picked up the plate and licked the maple syrup off it with a smile. Might as well enjoy every morsel.
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.
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.”
