“Bullshit!” Briony says, shaking her head. “There’s no way she just fell down the stairs.”
“Maybe it was your dad then,” Dray says.
Briony narrows her eyes, steps forward and points at Dray’s face. “Was it you?” she asks.
Dray shrugs nonchalantly. “When would I have had the chance, Little Kitten?”
“Was it you, Beaufort?”
“You think I could just sneak into Slate undetected and unrecognized?”
She seems to consider this for a moment, then spins her gaze onto me.
“Was it you, then?” she asks me next.
“I haven’t been back to Slate since the day I left for the academy,” I tell her.
“Maybe you didn’t do it yourselves,” she muses. “Maybe you got someone else to do it.”
All of us stare innocently back at her.
I don’t know which of the Princes it was or if it was all three of them together, but I’m not going to bemoan the demise of an evil bitch like Briony’s stepmother. She got what she deserved, and if the Princes helped her to reach her demise a little sooner than fate intended, well, good for them.
“Thorne,” Briony tries next, knowing that he is usually the weakest link in our rare united front.
“I don’t know anything, Briony,” Thorne says, for once holding the party line.
“Hmm,” she says.
“Are you seriously unhappy she’s gone?” Fly asks.
Briony peers over her shoulder at him. “No, I’m not. The world is a better place without that woman.”
“Too fucking right,” Dray says. “One down, two more to go.”
I’m guessing he means Bardin and the Empress. I don’t think they’re going to be as easy to dispose of as some psychopathic woman from Slate Quarter.
Briony spins back round to us. “I’m not mad, but if you’re going to kill anybody else for me, then at least let’s discuss it first.”
“Cross our hearts,” Dray says, dragging his finger over his ribcage. “If that’s what you want.”
“Beaufort? Thorne? Fox?”
We all nod.
“Good,” she says, before spinning around and we’re walking off again.
“Where are we going now?” Dray asks. The old dog is trotting alongside him, and though the shifter seems to be pretending that – just like the dragon – he’s not a fan, I notice every so often he reaches down to pat him on the head.
“Into town,” Briony says. “I think that’s where we need to start.”
“Where exactly do you want to go, sweetheart?” I call after her.
“To the town square,” she says.
“Why there, Briony?”
“I want to talk to the people. I want to show them my magic. I want to see if there are any other lumomancers hiding among the people in Slate Quarter.”
