Page 46 of Turncloak

“Who summoned the Silvercloaks?”

“My companion did, upon realizing the victim was deceased.”

Interesting, Auria thought.

Someone was lying.

“And did you recognize the victim?”

“No, they were not known to me.”

“What about the suspect?” Auria sipped again at the delicious cinnamon-sweet coffee, praying it staved off the fresh migraine bulging behind her eye sockets. “Were they familiar to you?”

“Not at all.”

The answers were growing shorter, less certain, as though Riv had veered off the edge of a known map. It made note-taking easier, and suspicions sharper.

“And were you and your companion the only patrons of Anila’s to attend the scene, or were you merely the first?”

“The only. I went to find Anila while we waited for the Silvercloaks to appear—my companion stayed in the room with the corpse.”

“Was this something you agreed upon, or did you leave without a word?”

A short beat. Riv’s gaze flicked over to a large wall-mounted mirror and back to Auria. “We agreed upon it. Porak was happy to stay behind.”

Porak Zemni, the other eyewitness, was a Tarsan immigrant with a profoundly large appendage. He spent approximately ninety-four percent of his waking life in pleasurehouses. Were he not a Ludder, his magical well likely would’ve been full enough to hold the Great Wards alone.

“Happy?” Auria raised her eyebrow. “He wasn’t worried the suspect would return to the scene of the crime?”

Riv shrugged. “You’d have to ask him that.”

“Did you have a prior relationship with Porak?”

A faint blush of pink appeared on the apples of Riv’s cheeks. “We met for the first time that evening.”

“Did you notice anything unusual at the pleasurehouse prior to the screams? Unexpected sights, sounds, body language? Any conflicts, large or small?”

“No, nothing like that.”

They were nearing the end—for now. Auria couldn’t wait to leave the room and tell Jebat what she suspected. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

A tight, too-pleasant smile. “No.”

Gathering her notes, Auria rose to her feet, silver cloak falling around her ankles in silky waves. “Thank you for your time. Let me have a quick word with my colleague—he might have some follow-up questions.”

Jebat was waiting for Auria in the second room behind the wall-mounted mirror.

“Well?” he asked, a stack of papers clutched to his chest and a mug of ambertea in his hand.

Auria paced wildly, the excess coffee making her feel like she might either bite a horse or smash the moon. “Something isn’t sitting right. While the eyewitnesses both relay the approximate shape of events in the same way, there are discrepancies. They each stated that the other summoned the Silvercloaks, for example. And then, when I asked whether they agreed one should go looking for Anila while the other remained behind, one said they did agree and the other said it was spontaneous. It’s possible one of them is misremembering, but…I don’t know. Especially earlier on in the questioning, there was an air of performance, of rehearsal, to their accounts. Identical turns of phrases. Such a blur and a flash of white cloak as the suspect leapt out.”

Jebat sipped at his tea, the dangling jewels of his septum ring clinking against the porcelain rim of the mug. “What are you suggesting?”

Auria stopped abruptly, swirling on her heel to face him. “The witnesses could have been planted. I was so sure that when I lost them on Broad Row, they were going to be killed. Karvas warned me that the Whitewings would send someone to assassinate them, and with the suspect still at large in the area…it seemed miraculous when I found them unscathed. But what if they were unscathed because the Whitewings wanted us to find them?”

The lines on Jebat’s forehead deepened. “Why would the Whitewings plant witnesses to incriminate themselves? Why wouldn’t they say it had been a scarlet cloak fleeing through the window?”

“To keep it as close to the truth as possible. To minimize the chance of being contradicted by genuine witnesses, but without enough accurate detail for a conviction. Switching up certain information where they know they have scope to do so. Saints, if only Dematus would allow truth elixir in the interrogation room.”