The Vampire & Her Witch

Slowly, painfully, her fingers had grown steadier despite the weight of iron dragging at her wrists and the pain of hunger gnawing at her belly. She’d learned to work with aching slowness, checking and rechecking every stitch before moving on to the next. She’d learned to hold her breath when threading the needle, to brace her arms against the work bench to minimize shaking, to position herself so the chain connecting her wrists didn’t pull at the worst of her raw wounds.

Lately, she’d even done well enough that they’d left an oil heater in her room overnight, though it sickened her to realize how much desperate joy she’d felt hearing their praise at her fumbling efforts.

The warmth from that single night with the heater had been almost intoxicating, and she’d actually slept for nearly the entire night, the first sleep she’d had in days that wasn’t fitful and interrupted by intense shivering any time the winds outside the window picked up, tearing through the dungeon cell like the claws of a frost demon.

When they’d taken the heater away the next morning, she’d barely managed to hold herself back from falling to her knees and begging that they give her a chance to earn it back for the whole day.

For a time, she’d begun to wonder if Percivus had forgotten about her. It wasn’t until he returned to her cell, demanding answers to a slew of questions before revealing that the Summer Villa had fallen to demons, that she realized he’d simply been too busy to bother with her.

Her answers, sparse and evasive, only seemed to annoy him, and after a short hour of questioning, he’d left, telling her that she wasn’t the only person who could tell him what he needed to know, and that for her sake, she had better hope that Eleanor’s answers matched the ones she’d given. Not long after, one of his acolytes entered her cell, snatched away her blanket without a word of explanation, and then locked her away again.

”Eleanor,” she’d whispered, staring at the locked door in horror as she tried to imagine what was happening in the cell where they’d taken her closest companion.

For days, Jocelynn clung to the belief that Eleanor must have been receiving better treatment than she was. The Inquisition had worked closely with Confessors for centuries, and there was always a certain amount of mutual respect between the two. Percivus and his men wouldn’t inflict the kind of suffering on one of their own that they’d inflicted on her.

Besides, Bors Lothian was clearly pulling strings in the background. He might not be able to tug on all of Percivus’s strings, but the Marquis’s touch was so heavy-handed that it was impossible to miss. Since Bors clearly despised Jocelynn, she expected that half of the hardships she was currently facing flowed from him.

But Bors had no reason to loathe Eleanor, so her treatment must be better than all the petty slights that had been inflicted on her. Or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself. But then, why had the acolyte come to snatch away her blanket after they went to speak with Eleanor? What had she said to them that would make them come to punish her?

Yet not long after, when the Inquisitor returned to her cell with a steaming bowl, half-filled with a creamy, turkey stew, she’d learned how wrong she’d been.

It was the first real food she’d seen in nearly a week. The aroma alone, rich and savory, with hints of herbs and the unmistakable scent of actual meat, made her mouth water so intensely it was almost painful.

Her hands shook as she took the bowl from him, and not entirely from cold or weakness. The stew had cooled slightly since Percivus spooned it into the shallow, wooden bowl, but it was still warmer than anything else in the damp dungeon cell. For a moment, she just sat there on her rough wooden cot, inhaling the fragrance and the warmth of the steam rising from the bowl.

The moment of joy was shattered when she was struck by a horrifying thought, but the meat in the cream stew was real, tender turkey. It didn’t look remotely like the tough, gristly bits of tongue they’d forced on her that first morning, back when she’d still had the strength to vomit it back up in horror after Percivus revealed the source of the ’meat’ she’d traded away her rings and jewelry to obtain.

Quickly, before the stew could cool any more in the frigid dungeon cell, she started to eat with her fingers. Percivus might have had a spoon to offer her, but she was unwilling to pay whatever sick, twisted price he would doubtless extract from her for the simple dignity of a utensil. Instead, she carefully fished out pieces of turkey and vegetables from the thick, creamy broth so she could savor each one individually, despite the way her pin-pricked fingers throbbed with each movement.

Eating like this was slow, awkward, and lacked all the dignity and manners that had been trained into her from a young age, but Jocelynn didn’t care. The food was warm, gloriously warm, and for the first time in days, the hollow ache in her belly began to ease. She licked her fingers clean between each bite, not wanting to waste a single drop of the precious broth.

”Your cousin is truly impressive,” Percivus said, stroking his neatly trimmed beard as he towered over Jocelynn, watching her carefully spooning the stew into her mouth with fingers that still ached from countless pinpricks.

”She’s already half-dead from the Holy Lord of Light’s punishment for healing you, but she doesn’t blame you for her suffering at all,” he said, shaking his head as though he was greatly disappointed by the Confessor.

”She even gave up half her meal, the first one she’s had in days, just so you could have a bit more to eat,” he said, heaping false praise on Eleanor. ”At this rate, if she keeps offering up a share of her meals to keep you in comfort, she’ll be dead within a week,” he said, speaking with the confidence of a magistrate pronouncing a death sentence.

”She must truly love you to suffer so much just to protect your secrets, Jocelynn.”