“The Black Coat almost escaped. He was wounded but he got away and got caught by Squire Thurston and the men the squire had gathered to come here to help you.”

“How could a wounded man get away from a group of armed men?” Liam asked, wondering why Varden looked so sick.

“He’d almost persuaded them to let him go when some of my men rode up. The Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion works well on humans, but it doesn’t work on the Fae. We’ve the same gift, you see.”

Donovan sank into the chair in front of the desk. “Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion? They can persuade someone to believe what they want them to believe?”

“They can. But since the gift comes from the Fae, we’re better at it—and we persuaded the Black Coat to tell us a few things.”

“Varden, you make no sense.” A sick feeling churned in Liam’s belly.

“He makes a great deal of sense,” Donovan said slowly, his eyes fixed on Varden. “He’s talking about magic, Liam. The Fae’s kind of magic. Which means the Inquisitors…”

“Are part Fae,” Varden said bitterly. He shook his head. “I never left a child in the human world, but I know plenty of men who enjoyed a girl until he’d filled her belly and then left her and never looked back. Among the Fae, a man sires a child, but it’s the woman’s Clan who raises it. But that’s not the way in the human world, and we understood that once—at least, understood it enough to provide gifts and bestow favors on the woman’s family so that having a child by a Fae Lord wasn’t something to be ashamed of. But things changed, and the Fae started abandoning the woman and child, making both outcasts among their own people. Outcast children, unwanted by either race, until someone recognized they had a power that could be shaped into a weapon.”

“Mother be merciful,” Donovan said. “And some of those children would have been born of witches.”

Varden nodded. “Fae Lords always found the women who lived in the Old Places appealing, even if we never understood who those women were.”

“You provided the vessels for the Master Inquisitor to fill with his own fever of destruction,” Liam said. “Your people can shoulder the blame for abandoning the children and the women who bore them, Varden, but you didn’t shape them into what they’ve become.”

“Which begs the question,” Donovan said. “If the Master Inquisitor was able to recognize a power he could shape to his will, what, exactly, is he?”

Silence.

Liam stared at Donovan.

Do no harm.

Varden swore under his breath and turned away.

“Witch’s Hammer,” Liam said quietly. “Does he hate what he once loved?”