I raised my brows. “Do you think there was a witness?”
“I don't know, but with or without a spell, I'm going to find out who did this.”
“Falken, you need to assemble that audit team.”
“That can wait.”
I stepped around him, blocking his path. “No, it can't. Take care of your people first.”
“You are my responsibility as well.”
“I'm not yours.”
“I thought you trusted me?”
“I do.”
“Then trust that I'm not trying to own you. You are my lover, my employee, and a citizen of Sconheit. Therefore, you are my responsibility.”
“You need to see to the needs of the many before you take care of one.”
“What you're doing is helping them, and someone sabotaged your work. To help them, I have to help you first.”
Rolling my eyes, I gave in. “All right, what are you going to do?”
“Find the bastard.”
“Yes, I got that part, but how?”
The King took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I will interrogate the alchemists.”
“That's a good start, but anyone could have tampered with the ingredients. They wouldn't need to know what to swap, as long as it differed from what I had prepped, it would wreck the alchemy.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Let it go.”
“I will not.”
“They didn't hurt me, just my work. Let it go. Put a better lock on the door—” I trailed off.
The King didn't need an explanation. He ran to the door to inspect the lock. “Could you have left it open?” He looked up at me. “There are no marks in the metal to indicate it was forced.”
“It could have been picked. If they were adept, they wouldn't leave any marks.”
“So, the culprit knows how to pick locks. That implies a thief.” The King narrowed his eyes. “First, the search teams, and now this. There are a lot of thieves in my city.”
“Thieves are always the first to make use of a bad situation.”
“Yes, but this thief was making a bad situation worse. Why?”
“Either they want the rot to spread, or they don't like me.”
“Because you're making them look bad.” He lifted his eyebrows.
“All right, let's go talk to the fucking alchemists.”
Chapter Twenty-One
