Oh no."What kind of situation?"
"You need to come to your quarters.Now."
"I'm not in my quarters.I'm in the Blue Wing."
"Not the guest quarters.Your original rooms in the east wing."
I looked at Archie, whose expression had gone grim."We're on our way."
Roberto met us outside my destroyed suite with an expression that suggested whatever we were about to see was bad.
"How bad?"Archie asked.
"Worse than yesterday.They came back."
They'd come back.While we were investigating, while I was meeting Azzurra, while we'd been trying to figure out who was behind all this, they'd come back to the scene of their first crime and made it worse.
The sitting room was somehow more destroyed than before.The forensics team had cleaned up yesterday, documented everything, taken away the damaged furniture.Someone had returned and spray-painted the walls.
The same message from before, LEAVE WHILE YOU CAN, but bigger this time.Angrier.And on the opposite wall, a new addition: YOU DON'T BELONG HERE.
"When did this happen?"Archie demanded.
"Sometime in the last two hours," Roberto said."We had security on this wing, but they were pulled to deal with a disturbance in the garden."
"What kind of disturbance?"
"Someone called in a threat.Turned out to be false, but it tied up resources for forty minutes."
"Long enough for someone to do this."I stared at the spray-painted walls."It's coordinated.The distraction, the vandalism.Someone planned this."
"Someone who knew you weren't here," Archie added."Who knew you'd be somewhere else this morning."
I thought about that.Very few people knew where I'd been.Archie, Roberto, Captain Steiner.And whoever might have been watching us leave the palace.
"Security footage?"I asked.
"Being reviewed now," Roberto said."But whoever did this knew where the cameras were.They stayed in blind spots."
"Professional," Archie said, his voice hard.
"Or someone with intimate knowledge of palace security systems."
Which brought us back to our suspect list.Viktor, Petra, Professore Benedetti, Queen Isabelle, all people who would know the security layout, who would know how to create a distraction and slip in unseen.
"Your Highness," Captain Steiner appeared in the doorway."I've arranged for your belongings to be moved to different quarters.The west wing has a suite that's more secure."
"I'm staying in Prince Archibald's guest room," I said, before I could overthink it.
Everyone's eyebrows rose slightly.
"For security purposes," I added quickly."His apartments have better protection, and I'm already set up there."
"Of course, Your Highness."Captain Steiner's expression remained unreadable."I'll have the rest of your things transferred there."
After she left, Roberto pulled Archie aside for a low conversation about security.I stood in my vandalized sitting room, staring at the spray-painted accusations.
YOU DON'T BELONG HERE.
