“Stop that!” I hissed at myself. “You are stronger than you think!”
It took a few minutes for my body to agree with me, but then I was able to step into the dressing room and pull on some clothes. I even managed to comb my hair back into a ponytail. As I left the dressing room, my stare happened on a jeweled dagger that Niko had given me for my eighteenth birthday. I snatched it up and fastened it to my belt.
Then I rushed through the hallways of the castle, the same route I'd taken the night before, and soon arrived at the library. A crowd was gathered in the corridor outside, many of them tried to stop me to ask me what was happening, but I waved them off, giving a blanket response of, “I don't know yet,” as I went. The soldiers guarding the door let me past but didn't direct me. They didn't have to.
The castle's medical staff was clogging one of the main corridors, focused around an aisle in the archives. The motion-activated lights had been flipped on so that the entire place was lit up, going back hundreds of feet before it met the far wall.
“Excuse me.” I slipped past the medical staff, including the Master Physician, and rounded a corner into one of the aisles that I had sped past the night before.
Then I stopped short.
Konstantin was crouched beside Master Andrei's body, his shoes covered in blue booties. Considering the amount of blood on the floor, he might have done better with galoshes. Andrei was on his back, rounded eyes staring at the ceiling and mouth hanging open. His throat was slit deeply, but there was also a broad bloodstain on his shirt. Silenced, then stabbed, just like the others.
“Dear Lachia,” I whispered.
Konstantin swung his head my way and tensed as if he were about to stand up, but Nikolay stood between us and beat him to me, leaving a group of his elite soldiers to take my arm and turn me away from the body.
“Misha, you shouldn't see this,” Niko said gently. “Why are you here?”
“The Garin sent for me. I'm helping him investigate; I need to be here.”
“Surely, not for this.” He stroked my cheek as one might touch a child. “We'll tell you what we find.”
“You don't understand. Niko, I was here last night.”
“What?!” Konstantin shot to his feet.
Niko shot a quelling look at my lover before focusing on me. “You were in the library last night?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“1 AM.”
“That's precise,” Niko said.
“Why did you come here?” Konstantin loomed over Nikolay's shoulder, his eyes alight with intensity.
“I received a note from Master Andrei last night. It said to meet him here at 1 AM, that he had a secret to share.”
“So you came herealone?” Kon growled. “He could have been luring you here to kill you!”
Nikolay lifted a brow at Konstantin over his shoulder, then looked back at me. “The Garin has a point. It wasn't wise of you to meet someone in the middle of the night alone, Misha.”
“I wasn't thinking.”
Niko's knights moved closer. They were the members of his personal guard who he had chosen to investigate the murders—those he considered the most shrewd. I assumed they were the same men who were still investigating secretly.
“What did Master Andrei say to you, Lord Mikhail,” Sir Ivan asked.
“I never saw him. I was waiting for him in the archives when the lights began to come on as if someone was approaching me. I assumed it was Master Andrei but when I went to look for him, no one was there. I called out to him, and I thought I heard a gasp.”
“A gasp?” Konstantin asked. “Not a gurgle?”
“I . . .” I frowned in thought. “No, it was a gasp. As if he'd been startled.”
Konstantin grunted. “Go on.”
