Chapter 7: The Witch’s Love Potion
A tower loomed against the blue sky. In this tower said to be where a witch once imprisoned a princess, a witch was locked away instead.
Light-pink hair fluttered in the breeze blowing in through the open window.
The Witch stared out at the sky through the tiny window at the top of the tower. They must have assumed she would never be able to get down on her own from such a height—there weren’t any bars on the window.
In her hand she rolled the apple they’d provided for her lunch. The slightly sour yet sweet smell offered mild solace to the Witch.
The forest dominated her view from the window, but unfortunately, she couldn’t see the lake. If she couldn’t go back again, then there was no need to concern herself with maintaining the property anymore, but she still worried about the field. She felt miserable for failing to fulfill her grandmother’s dying wishes.
This tower built in the corner of the royal family’s gardens seemed to have once been a witch’s hermitage.
There was nothing to stave off boredom in the room, but she had discovered a large soot stain where a witch’s cauldron had once sat on the floor.
CREAK!
The door opened behind Rose while she was looking up at the sky. This chamber only had one door.
“Are you behaving yourself?”
“Yes. I have nothing better to do.”
The imprisoned witch—Rose—kept her response brief. Her gaze never left the scenery outside the window.
Two men had entered the room—Marjan’s second prince Yašm and the Royal Knight Geones. Yašm locked the door from the inside and hooked the key to his belt.
“Why don’t you just come clean already?”
“I have already told you that isn’t something I made.”
Rose shot Yašm an annoyed look. She recognized the bottle he held.
He possessed the same item the public called “the Witch’s Love Potion.”
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ROSE had been at the hermitage when they arrested her.
At the time, she had been sitting on the floor whipping up a Potion to Remove Stubborn Stains from Pots when she heard the bell announce a visitor. She hadn’t seen Harij in a while, so she stopped in the middle of her work and rushed to get him with the boat, thinking he had come to visit after work again.
It wasn’t Harij waiting for her at the dock—but Yašm escorted by Geones, looking unsettlingly more civil than she had ever seen him before.
“Witch, I need to ask you something.”
“Please pay the equivalent price if you seek the witches’ knowledge.”
“Unfortunately for you, it isn’t the witches’ wisdom I seek. I want to inquire about something else.”
He spoke as if she didn’t have a choice in the matter. The foreboding aura caused Rose to stop her boat just before the dock. She answered his query from there, oars in hand.
“What might that be?”
“Do you recognize this potion?” Yašm asked, pulling the counterfeit Witch’s Love Potion from his pocket.
Rose stiffened for a fraction of a second after seeing the same bottle from three days ago—and instantly realized her undoing.
She didn’t come wearing the hood she used to hide her expressions and reactions, because she entirely expected her guest to be Harij.
Yašm didn’t miss the tautness in her cheeks, even if it was only there for a passing second.
“I am not the one who made that love potion.”
“I have to wonder about that. Why would you be so tense if it has nothing to do with you, hmm?”
He had her there. Rose cursed herself for her negligence.
Rose hadn’t seen Harij as close to anyone as he was with Yašm. And that was why, deep down, she had come to trust Yašm. She believed him an ally among the humans.
“Also…”
A strong wind whipped across the lake, causing waves to strike the boat. Rose tightened her grip on the oars to stabilize the swaying dinghy.
Yašm’s low voice curled toward her in the air like a whisper. “…When did I mention it was a love potion?” His gaze became razor-sharp, and his aura grew tremendously intimidating. “I was going to let it go if you didn’t recognize it, but…you have left me no choice. You are coming with me, Witch.”
Geones had already left his station behind Yašm and was running at Rose when the phrase “Capture her” reached her ears. He leaped agilely onto her boat, snatched the oars from her hands while she was still in a daze, and rammed his fist into her stomach. She lost consciousness from the strike.
By the time Rose regained consciousness, she was already imprisoned inside that tower. She had nothing better to do in that high tower from which escape was impossible.
“It shouldn’t be possible to legally detain a witch.”
A witch was different from a normal person, a witch was different from a country, and a witch was different from the law. Witches had been self-governing, independent beings since ancient times. They lived by a different set of rules from humanity. Humans couldn’t punish them by their laws even when the witch had hurt someone—such was the binding agreement they had since millennia past.
“That’s true. But as annoying as it is, chalking this up to my being infatuated with you won’t risk breaking our promise with the witches. I can just tell the world that I locked you up because I had fallen so deeply in love with you, I couldn’t bear to let you marry my own knight. That should do the trick just fine.”
Rose’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets after hearing his outrageous scenario. She had never heard a worse joke in her entire life.
“It seems you sold this foul tincture en masse to the nobility under the pretense that it’s a love potion. Witch, just admit it, what kind of poison is this? What’s your motive? Why would you indiscriminately harm people? You will never leave this place until you confess.”
“How many times must I tell you it wasn’t me for you to believe it?”
“Then why do you only target the nobility? Is it love that drove you to forget your pride as a witch?” Yašm snorted at the baffled look on Rose’s face. “Some of the people who fell ill were once Harij’s potential marriage candidates.”
Ha. I see. He might not view me as human, but he’s happy to pin me as a jealous woman. Rose wanted to laugh in his face. If she was ever drunk on jealousy, her methods wouldn’t involve such cheap knock-offs. She would whip up her best love potion yet, fill it with another man’s body fluids, and serve it to each and every single one of those girls.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Quit your lying.”
Rose was a witch. Witches didn’t lie. But this man had no way of knowing that. Witches loved to talk in vague riddles to obscure the fact that they only spoke the truth. To a human, witches came across as shady. Humans only ever trusted other humans.
Perhaps it was foolish to think I could coexist with humans. Apathy formed in her heart, a heart that had been stabbed one too many times.
“You seem to have already made up your mind to doubt anything a witch says.”
“I have always, always believed witches to be suspicious creatures.”
You locked me up based on your personal beliefs? Rose wanted to roar with laughter. Speaking objectively, wasn’t a man with the authority to easily imprison a person with a single word much more frightening than a witch who needed to go through tedious steps just to cast a simple spell? Humans were such contrary creatures, spouting how scared they were of witches when they didn’t fear the royal family.
“Six nobles have fallen ill with symptoms caused by this so-called Witch’s Love Potion thus far. Strictly speaking, I can’t legally keep you here, but there’s no way I’m letting you go free under these circumstances. And don’t expect Harij to save you.”