Chapter 11 · Let the Witness Burn First

The maid wouldn't stop crying.

Wantang stood three feet from the witness platform, close enough to see the girl's hands twist in her apron. The Ash Court gallery was packed. Every seat filled with nobles who'd come to watch someone burn.

The maid was maybe nineteen. Pale. Shaking so hard her voice kept breaking.

"I saw her," the girl said again. "Lady Eveline. She poured something into the wine. I swear it."

The air around the platform shimmered. No smoke yet. The Court's truth-fire only burned lies, and the girl believed every word.

That was the problem.

Wantang had spent six years talking people off ledges, out of hostage situations, away from bad decisions they couldn't take back. She knew the difference between a liar and someone who'd been fed a story until it felt like memory.

Sephra Morn sat in the tribunal box, hands folded. Watching. Her face gave away nothing.

Rowan was two rows back, jaw tight. They'd made it out of the apothecary district last night by the thinnest margin—a rooftop jump, a bribed dock worker, and four hours hidden in a canal-side warehouse that smelled like rotting fish.