The Butcher went still, his veil boring into me. I so wished I could reach across the desk and lift it, just once, to see what lurked underneath. His body was rigid, the muscles tense under his black tunic. He wore no armour, making the helm appear heavier, somehow.
“That’s it?” I repeated, jolting him awake from whatever thoughts he’d been lost to. He relaxed a little into the chair, shedding the stiffness and dropping his head to rest on his left shoulder.
“You want me to take a little more?”
“No, I…I just thought you were going toinvestigatemy blood.” The parchment dotted with my thumbprints lay unfurled to the side, the pattern like scattered petals.
“I am. I will.” He reached for it, rolling it up and searching a drawer for, what I presumed, a piece of twine to tie it with. “I’m going to expose your blood to certain…stimuli. This will suffice for now.” Knotting the small piece of rope round the scroll’s centre, he tucked it into his waistband, flashing a bronzed, toned stomach as he slotted it in the dip of muscle between his right hip and upper groin. I must’ve imagined the trail of dark hair leading to unspeakable places below, for I was far too preoccupied with the carved likeness of the Sorren Isles on my side of the desk.
“Oh. Well, if we’re done, then.” I made to leave, scraping my chair over the rug underfoot as I stood.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked from his own, helm tilted only slightly upward—I was still shorter than its spikes, even standing. “This may be enough to satiate the other druids for a few days,” he gestured to the parchment, “but I have my own inquisition to conduct.”
Hands twiddling with my sleeves, noticeably button-less, I tried not to balk at the word. “For the High Druid?”
“Not forhim,” he spat. “For me. Or rather, for us both.” He motioned his hand between us. “I told no lies when I promised we’d get to the root of what you’re keeping from me. In fact, something you should know about me, Seamstress, is that unlike you, I never lie. It would be most wise to take what I say very, very seriously.”
My skin pebbled, unnerved by the sincerity in his promise.
“I keep nothing from you, for there is simply nothing to keep.” I hunched back into my chair, feeling a little silly pushed so far out from the desk. All of me was on show to him, from the tip of my toes to the hairs on my head, and though I was certain the truth he thought I kept guarded from him was not the unsent letter, I was nervous all the same.
Two knocks thudded on the door beside us, and our necks swivelled in unison.
“Stay seated,” the Butcher clipped, rising. “Observe the silence of the sisters, lest you damn us both.”
I nodded, threading my hands together. I willed my breath calm, hoping whoever it was carried no other awful truth about the laurels. About Demetri.We fly together.
“Enter,” the Butcher commanded, the bolts sliding free.
A smear of crimson hovered at the threshold, his slight frame swallowed by the druid before him.
“Blood Demands Blood,” the acolyte chirped, dropping to a kneel, his face hidden behind Vetrius’s back. The words, or perhaps just his cadence, had my hairs standing on end.
“And what of you? What is it you have come todemandof me this day?” the Butcher asked, dismissing the maxim.
“I would never dare to demand a druid, Your Holiness. I am simply the bearer of an edict, sent by His Eminence.” He extended a scroll to the Butcher, who snatched it for seemingly no other reason than to make the acolyte squirm. I rolled my lips.
“Regarding?” The blunt snap of the Butcher breaking its seal overlaid the acolyte’s thick swallow.
“I am unsure, Your Holiness.”
“As you are of most things, acolyte. See to it no one else disturbs us, for an inquisition is underway of the mostsensitivesort. You may go.”
“Of course, Your Holiness.” The acolyte bent at the waist, the dark marble of his eye briefly visible beneath the Butcher’s left arm. I wondered if the Butcher shared the same urge I did: to kick him in the chest and see how fast he’d tumble down the turnpike.
But the acolyte turned and walked—not fell—down the stairs, and the Butcher sealed the door shut, relocking its latch. He strode over to where I sat, pulled from the table, hands awkward in my lap with nothing to twiddle. With one hand, he grasped the underside of my chair and dragged it closer to the desk, tipping me back in the process. I tensed, stifling a yelp as he released it, allowing my chair’s front legs to return to the rug.
“What does it say?” I asked, banishing the heat in my cheeks to focus on the scroll in his hand.
He remained standing, half-perched on the desk, helm fixed on the edict.
“A script for the Seventh Day sermon,” he eventually replied, tossing it aside. “Regarding the delay in the offerings, now that the Blood Tree is gone.”
“But you have no enclave,” I said, my statement hopefully prompting the real question buried beneath it.
“I do.”
“Which one?”
