I don't know why I ask, and when Mercedes goes rigid, I know it was a stupid thing to do. I expect her to be out for blood, and I’m probably due for another tongue lashing about my plans for my wife. But her ire seems to have fizzled out after her outburst about Judge.

"Judge has kept us separate at his house," she says. "But the Tribunal has asked me to be a witness at her trial."

There is something in her voice I can't make out. I don't think I've ever heard it before, but she seems unnerved by the thought.

"It's standard procedure," I tell her.

She jerks her chin in acknowledgment.

“I need you to write down every location you and Ivy visited together leading up to the event. Anywhere you’ve gone together since she’s been in the house. Every detail, no matter how small. I want them.”

“Okay,” she answers quietly.

Silence lingers between us for a few long moments before she clears her throat.

"Do you believe she is guilty?"

"Undoubtedly." I turn away, jaw hard, hoping she can't see the strain in my eyes. But that doesn't stop me from hearing her next question, whispered low.

"What are you going to do with her?"

"Nothing has changed," I reply coldly. "She will pay for her sins. In blood."

8

Ivy

I sit with my feet up on the cot, arms around my knees and my head resting against the cold stone. I don’t know how many days it’s been since I stood before The Tribunal and heard what I’d been accused of. Four or five? A week? Two? It’s impossible to tell with that small window as my only source of light and the trees too dense for sunlight to filter through properly.

They think I tried to kill him.

They think I smeared poison on my lips and kissed him in order to kill him.

And I’m still in a little bit of shock.

I asked how I could have done that without succumbing myself, but they dismissed that with talk of an antidote. I don’t even know the poison they named. I don’t know what it is. Where I would get it. How I would use it.

But they’d have none of it, then absurdly claimed it was a fact-finding mission. A preliminary and not a proper trial.

I guess I still have that to look forward to.

But I don’t think they were after facts. For someone to be poisoned, they need a poisoner, and I fit the bill. Multiple witnesses, including Mercedes, saw me kiss my husband. And besides, there was other irrefutable evidence even if witness accounts were wrong.

They lied, those “witnesses.” I never kissed him. Not that night.