The Confectioner's Guild, page 30
No… it couldn’t be. But… it was. Guildmaster Callidus.
“Guildmaster, the matter is closed,” the magister said, his words laced with annoyance. “The girl has been sentenced, and the execution must be carried out.”
“I have new evidence. By law, new evidence can be presented before the time of execution, and it must be fairly considered by the court,” Callidus said, striding into the room. “Get away from her.” He pointed to the guards, who seemed to shrink under the weight of Callidus’s thin finger.
Killian slowly stood, re-stoppering the vial with animal grace.
“The girl has confessed.” The magister huffed in annoyance.
“A forced confession,” Callidus said. “Trust me, you will want to hear this evidence.”
He held his hand towards the door, a showman revealing the grand finale. Through the door came Hale, bearing Sable in his arms. Sable’s face was pale and gaunt, her fingers still tinged that unnatural gray, but her dark eyes were open and sharp. Hale looked at Wren with silent apology written across his face, his handsome face haggard with worry and exhaustion.
The sight of him filled her with relief, laced with an undercurrent of curling fear. She could still feel his hands around her throat, choking the life from her.
“Grandmaster Sable,” Callidus said. “Can you point out for the magister your attempted murderer?”
Sable dramatically swooped a shaking finger across the room, past Wren, to land on Greer. “It was Guildmistress Greer. She nicked me with a poisoned knife and gloated that she would frame the girl. She gloated about poisoning her brother as well.”
The room exploded into a din of chatter and shocked noises.
“It’s a conspiracy!” Greer said. “The three of them seek to frame me.”
“What reason would I have to shield the identity of my attempted poisoner?” Sable sneered at Greer.
“Perhaps the word of a journeyman has no value against the word of a guildmistress,” Callidus said to the magister, “but surely two grandmasters have some say. And I tell you, this woman is guilty. It is as plain as the blue on her face.”
The magister gave a long-suffering sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Guards, take Guildmistress Greer into custody. She will be questioned by the Grand Inquisitor.”
Wren sat back, too stunned to understand all that was happening. Her mind struggled to process it. Would Willings and Killian abandon their support for Greer now that she had been exposed? Cut their losses?
But Greer made the decision for them. She drew a knife from her belt and bolted towards the door. “It’s poisoned,” she shrieked, clearing her path as people struggled to avoid the wild swipes of her blade.
It only took one guard to block her path with a powerful blow from the shaft of his spear. She doubled over, the wind knocked out of her, and another guard wrestled the knife from her fingers with a gloved hand.
They locked irons on her wrists as she struggled like a wild animal, her hair falling in disarray around her, the blue stain on her face lending her a bedeviled look.
“It was Willings!” she screamed as they hauled her away. “I was working for the king’s steward! My task was official, sanctioned by the king himself. He paid me to do the job!” Greer shouted as the guards tried to haul her from the room.
Steward Willings’s face turned as red as his hair, and he tried to slink through the crowd undetected.
The magister seemed to wilt at the chaos around the room, the roiling bodies and shouts.
“Steward Willings, where do you think you’re going? You’ll have to accompany the Grand Inquisitor until this is all sorted out. Take him into custody as well,” the magister said. “Gently!”
The sounds of Greer’s shrieked confessions trailed off as she disappeared out the door and down the hallway.
“There is the matter of my journeyman,” Callidus said to the magister, who was wiping his brow with the sleeve of his black robe.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Quite an exciting day. Take her irons off, Grand Inquisitor, if you may. In light of Guildmistress Greer’s confession and Grandmaster Sable’s testimony, Miss Confectioner is cleared of all charges.”
Wren reveled in every sensation as the carriage jostled beneath her. The shaft of morning light flickering through the curtains, the sound of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestones, the teeth-jarring bumps when carriage-wheels hit a pothole. Even Callidus’s grimace as he gazed out the window, steadfastly refusing to meet her gaze. The mundane made miraculous. She should be dead right now. On her next journey to meet the Huntress, or the Piscator, or whatever god came to claim her to gloat at the mess they had made of her life. But here she was. She had been given a second chance.
She found herself grinning, giddy at her narrow escape from death’s cold grip, at Callidus’s refusal to show he cared, despite so clearly revealing that there was a heart beating within that frigid body.
“You saved me,” she said, her smile so wide, her cheeks hurt.
“Yes, well,” he said, still looking through the slit in the curtains. “Lennon refused to leave my office, yammering like a dog at a squirrel about them taking you, about Greer calling the guard to secret you out of the hall. Plus, there was the matter of the traitor in our own house who needed to be dealt with.”
“You saved me,” she said again, refusing to let him excuse his kindness away as self-interest. “You protected me. Thank you.”
He finally turned to meet her gaze. “You are a member of my Guild,” he said softly. “It is my duty to protect you.”
Why had she not noticed how young he was? Perhaps only thirty. She had never truly seen him—looked past his unpleasantness to the man beneath. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. There was something there. Something worthwhile.
“How did you know? That it wasn’t me?”
“Olivia came to me and confessed that her grandaunt had asked her to take a tray of food up to your room, though you weren’t at the Guildhall. She thought little of it, but when they found the knife that poisoned Sable on the tray… the pieces fell together. I don’t like being played the fool. Not within my own Guildhall.”
She nodded. “You have my gratitude. And my loyalty,” she said.
He nodded curtly, his coif of black hair quivering. “You’re Gifted. You’re too valuable a resource to squander in light of what’s coming.”
“What’s coming?” she asked.
“Our king has declared war on the guilds. Not open war, but war nonetheless.”
“Murdering Kasper…” Wren said.
“And framing Chandler. Burning the black market yet again. This was the opening blow. The king has always been a tyrant, make no mistake. But he was a tyrant we could tolerate, content to rule over his kingdom while the guilds ruled theirs. But something has changed. I don’t know if it’s Aprica sniffing at our flank or the upcoming negotiation of the Accord, but the king is no longer content to let the guilds rule freely. He aims to consolidate all power and wealth in himself. We cannot allow it.”
Wren bit back a sharp retort about the guilds only caring about threats to their own power. It wouldn’t do to alienate him so soon after he’d rescued her. Callidus wasn’t Kasper. “What will happen?” Wren asked.
“The guild heads have much to discuss. We will need to secure another form of government. A new king. Or perhaps not a king. By all accounts, the king’s eldest son has the worst parts of his father, with more for good measure. Replacing one Imbris with another will not solve our predicament. The sun must set on the Imbris line.”
She swallowed thickly, looking out into the bright sunshine. What would happen to Lucas if the Imbris line was overthrown? She had a sinking feeling that the excitement of the last few weeks was not over.
The carriage came to a stop and Callidus held the door while she stepped down. They walked up the five massive steps and through the Guildhall doors together.
“Guildmaster?” she asked. “What does your Gift do?”
A half-smile. “It’s the luck of location. Of being in the right place at the right time.” And with that, he nodded his head to her and strode up the stairs.
Wren was left standing in the antechamber, dumbfounded. What was she supposed to do now? She looked around the Guildhall, and then down at herself. A bath then. And a hot meal.
She flagged down a servant and asked for both in her chambers.
Wren walked up the stairs to the second floor slowly, still in a daze. When she turned the corner from the landing, she was nearly bowled into by a uniformed inspector and two Cedar Guardsmen. They were escorting… Olivia. Olivia’s cherub cheeks were slick with tears.
“What’s going on?” Wren asked the inspector, who held Olivia’s arm in a firm grip. “Where are you taking her?”
“Just to the station to give her statement. She’s not being arrested.”
“I didn’t know,” Olivia said, a symphony of misery in her voice. “She asked me to bring a tray of food up to you… I didn’t know the knife was poisoned! How could I have known? She was my grandaunt.”
“It’s all right,” Wren said and found she meant it. It wouldn’t have been an easy choice for Olivia to choose Wren over her last living relative, knowing what it would mean.
“Come on, miss. You’ll be able to share everything at the station,” the inspector said, not unkindly, beginning to move again and escorting Olivia down the stairs.
“I’m sorry for what she did… that I waited so long to tell the truth,” Olivia turned, blonde curls caught in fresh tears. “I could have spared you…”
“What matters is that you did,” Wren called. “I will always count you a friend.”
The relief was palpable on Olivia’s face, and a smile crept through the tears.
Wren watched until they were out the door and gone before continuing towards her room, a weight of sorrow descending on her. It seemed impossible that her and Olivia’s friendship would ever be the same carefree thing it had once been. Too much had passed between them. How could Olivia truly forgive Wren for exposing her grandaunt’s crimes? The woman would likely be executed. Wren looked at her mangled fingernails, still stinging and raw. Could she truly set aside all resentment at Olivia for the part she’d played, however unwitting, in framing Wren for Sable’s poisoning? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was willing to try.
The door to Wren’s room stood open on its hinges. She surveyed the inside in dismay. It looked like a hurricane had descended. Someone had ransacked it completely, perhaps the guild servants, perhaps the inspectors looking for more evidence of her guilt. Even the mattress had been ripped apart, the feathered insides decorating the room like soft white snowflakes.
Wren sighed and began picking things up, setting the books back on the shelf, her few dresses back on their hangers. A maid was already running the bathwater in the washroom. Another dropped a tray of hot butternut squash soup and rosemary focaccia bread on her table with a curtsy.
“We can come back with a broom for the feathers,” the maid said.
“Tomorrow,” Wren said. “Thank you.” She wanted to be alone. She needed to be alone.
Wren ate greedily as the bathwater finished running, letting the mundaneness of the movements wash over her, keep her from processing, from truly thinking of all that had happened in the last few days.
And when the last bit of fluffy, salty bread had soaked up the last remnant of the nutty soup, she went to the bathing chamber and stripped off her clothes, dirty and bloody from the Block.
Wren sank into the piping hot water, scented with the fragrance of orange blossom, hissing as the wounds under her fingernails hit the heat. She sank under the water, submerging herself until her lungs cried out for air. And when she rose, she was crying in great shuddering gasps, her throat tight with knotted tension. As her tears mingled with the scented water, she let herself sob, let herself mourn. For the pain she had suffered, the exhaustion of holding it together when she’d wanted to do nothing but fall apart. For the fear and terror that had met her at the edge of the grave this morning, for the thought that she would die alone, mourned by no one, her passing marked by nothing. For the anger at a corrupt king who had doomed her without even knowing her name, who held women in cells and doomed families to backbreaking labor without a thought to their humanity.
But mostly, she cried with relief, and hope, and disbelief. Because she was here, alive, when by all accounts she should have been dead. And for the first time since childhood, she had something to live for. More than just another day of work, another day of going through the motions of life. She had people to live for. Unexpected allies who had forced their way into her life and saved her when she couldn’t save herself. Chandler and Pike. Lennon and Olivia. And Callidus, the most unexpected of all. A family—Sable and Hale, who had come through for her at the last minute. As complicated and messy as any blood relations, but a family nonetheless. And maybe—love. Her thoughts of Lucas were like vignettes of the best parts of life, fresh coffee and rolled-up shirtsleeves and his body pressed to hers. She had felt more alive in her hours with Lucas than in so many years before. This thing—this beginning—terrified her and exhilarated her in turns. If there was a chance, any chance at all, she wasn’t going to shy away. Not this time.
Wren slept through the afternoon and evening and didn’t wake until the morning rays kissed her cheeks. She lay curled in the half of her bed that hadn’t been ripped apart, reveling in the feeling of safety. No more running. No more ticking clock that counted the hours until her doom. No more murderer lurking in the shadows. She was a journeyman of the Confectioner’s Guild, and this was her home.
It was Wren’s stomach that forced her out of her lazy decadence, complaining bitterly for attention. She rose and dressed in a rose-gold frock overlaid in white-dotted tulle. It was the last of the dresses she and Olivia had bought her first day in the guild. She ran a brush through her hair and twisted half of it back from her face, pinning it at the crown of her head. When she emerged from the bathroom, a tray sat on her little table bearing a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with berries and clotted cream, a cup of steaming coffee, and two letters.
The first was from Sable, short and to the point. “Come see me when you wake,” it said, signed “S.”
The second was from Lucas. Her heart trilled in her chest. She had assumed he had been freed once her innocence had been proven, but it was good to see the proof.
Wren-
I recall promising that when this was all over, I would escort you to Salted Cream, the ice creamery worth killing over. As we both just escaped execution for murder, it seems the best time to undertake such a dangerous mission. I am a man of my word, after all. Meet me there at 2?
-Lucas
Wren couldn’t keep the grin from her face. Lucas and ice cream. She could hardly think of a sweeter combination.
Wren headed to the Maradis Hospital first. She stopped at a florist’s shop and bought a bouquet of sugar-soft peonies for Sable. She buried her nose in them as she walked, making the rest of the way to the hospital.
Wren found Sable sitting up in bed, her ebony hair hanging like a curtain as she wrote. Around the bed was a sea of flowers—bouquets of every size, shape, and color—cheerful tulips, soft breathy lilacs, exquisite roses.
“Wren!” Sable said, looking up.
“I brought you these.” Wren chuckled, looking down at her humble bouquet wrapped in brown paper. “Maybe you can use them to fertilize the rest of these behemoths.”
Sable waved a hand dismissively. “Pike chose now of all times to decide he can’t live without me. The man is embarrassing himself, truly. Give them here.” She grabbed the flowers and inhaled deeply. “Perfect,” she breathed, closing her eyes for a moment. “This place smells like sick people and death. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“When can you return to the Guildhall?” Wren asked, sitting at the foot of the bed.
“The doctor says a few more days. The poison almost killed me. If you and Hale hadn’t gotten the antidote…” She trailed off. “I blame myself, really. When I saw Greer’s name on that list, I was sure it was a mistake. I’ve known her for years, she was so kind to me when I joined the guild… I wanted to give her a chance to explain, to provide an airtight alibi. All I did was give her a chance to kill me.”
“You couldn’t have known—”
“But I should have known! I got cocky.”
“She hid her true nature well. For so long. She fooled everyone, didn’t she?”
“But not you,” Sable said, her eyes gleaming. “I’m proud of you. You figured it out without me, put the pieces together. And the bit with the salt water at the execution! Masterful!”
“It didn’t work,” Wren grumbled. “I would have been executed if you and Callidus and Hale hadn’t come.”
“Yes, well, the deck was stacked against you. That magister is in the king’s pocket, as sure as Killian or Willings are.”
“It’s not right,” Wren said darkly, her good mood turning.
“No, it’s not. But,” Sable said cheerfully, “Willings was arrested too. With all those witnesses, and Greer testifying against him, the king and the inquisitor will have to distance themselves from him, let him take the fall. I’ll bet he’ll meet the headsman’s axe before the month is out.”
Wren felt a grim satisfaction. It was fitting that he would suffer the fate he had tried to bring upon her.
“Greer’s been sentenced already.” Sable’s voice was softer.
“Poor Olivia.”
“Greer should have thought about that before she turned against us. The guild. She was a traitor to us all,” Sable said.
Wren nodded, looking about the room because she couldn’t bring herself to look at Sable without tears burning her eyes.
“Hale’s not here,” Sable said, changing the subject.
