“I asked our kitchen staff to ask around the palace staff—you know, they know more about what’s going on in the courts than anyone high up.”
“For sure.”
“She was the one who found your dad.”
I looked up at him sharply. “What?” In my shock I had lost my manners.
“The king had called for her to pick up a note.”
The letter my father was writing, he’d called for a page to deliver it. Of course, it never reached its recipient, whoever it was.Temo was right. It’s time to tell her the truth.
Lucas continued. “And she found him dead.”
“Do you think that... if the king was killed... whoever killed him killed her, too?”
He nodded. “I’m pretty sure they killed my father, too, you know,” he admitted. “That’s why I was looking into all this in the first place.”
I did an actual double take. “Your father? I thought he was ill.”
“That’s what everyone thought. That his illness caused his death. But...”
“But?”
“It happened a year ago, while I was away at Sigbin. When I came back to Sirena, he was dead. I just barely made it to the funeral.” He cleared his throat. “But I wanted to know how he died, and I discovered that he wasn’t in his room at all. He was found dead in the palace, near the king’s chambers.”
Near the king’s chambers.Lucas’s father worked for the Court of Sirena,andhe was murdered there? Lucas added: “I did a lot of digging through documents recording theverybrief investigation, which ended with the conclusion that he’d suffered a sudden illness. But I discovered one intriguing detail.”
I already knew what he was going to say before he said it: “There was a large black beetle in his mouth.”
23
I didn’t knowwhat to say, but hearing that Lucas’s father was cursed as mine surely was made me feel even closer to him. Someone was responsible for the losses we’d suffered. Someone had done this to us, to our families, to our futures. He was an orphan because of this killer, and I was practically one—my mother lay in a hospital in another world.
“I have to show you something,” I told him. I ran to retrieve my father’s note from the enchanted safe in my dressing rooms.
“Here,” I said, showing him.
Temo was right. It’s time to tell her the truth—
He read it and looked up. “My father was right about something?”
“Wait! Your father was Temo? I thought his name was Timoteo.” Then I realized—Temo was his nickname. Filipinos never used their full names around family and friends. My father, Vivencio, was Jun. Lucas’s father, Timoteo, was called Temo for short. I wondered if Lucas had a nickname, too.Temo was right. It’s time to tell her the truth—
“Your father was head of security at the Court of Sirena,” I said, thinking deeply. There was something here—something we weren’t seeing but was just outside of our purview. “What if...” I said, my thoughts forming slowly, as if appearing out of the waves like a sirena. “What if he found the mambabarang? What if he knew the king was in danger?”
Lucas furrowed his brows. “Maybe?”
“Because your father was killed first. Months before mine. Your father must have known something.”
“And who was this addressed to?”
“I can find out. I’ll ask the pages—they always keep a record of where notes are supposed to go.”
“Have you looked through your father’s desk?” he asked. “Maybe there’s more.”
“I didn’t have time. The last time I was there, I was, uh, interrupted,” I said with a wry smile.
“Then we’ll go back together,” Lucas said.
