"His Grace's knowledge is rather the question," he says.
Princeton's smile stops working.
The warehouse is sealed before noon. Copies of the private accounts reach the Hall the next morning, and Brynna and Lissy sit side by side at the library table working through them whilethe auditor watches.What if there's nothing in there?What if he was careful for once in his life?
It's Lissy who finds the payment.
She goes very still, and when I ask her what she's found she turns the book toward me instead of answering. A payment from Princeton's private account to a spell-broker in Valeforth, made the morning after Saskia's wedding.
The notation readsidentification and discretion.
"He didn't buy anything," Lissy says quietly. "He paid a man to tell him what he already had. And to keep quiet about it afterward."
Brynna checks the account number. "It's his."
The auditor writes down the broker's name.
"Can you compel him to speak?" Lissy asks.
"I suspect I won't have to." He closes his gray ledger. "Discretion is often less appealing once shackles become involved."
By evening the broker has confirmed that a young nobleman brought him an unlabelled draught in a pale glass vial and paid to learn what it did.
So Princeton went through my coat without knowing what he'd find. He took a vial with nothing written on it, carried it to Valeforth, and paid a stranger to tell him what he was holding.
Why empty an orc lord's coat pocket at all?
Then I remember the gallery. The Duke beside that cold window, asking whether there might be something on Mirelle's side instead. Watching my face while he asked it.
The vial was in my breast pocket the whole time he did it.
He read me the way he reads a schedule, and then he sent his son to find out what I was carrying.
It isn't enough on its own. A payment proves Princeton handled the stolen potion. It doesn't prove where he put it. For that we still need his mouth.
Two days after the warehouse falls, the Duke requests a meeting between the families to resolve all outstanding matters. The request comes through counsel, in writing, and with enough courtesy to poison a horse.
Pa agrees.
The Duke thinks he's coming here to negotiate. He has no idea Lissy built the table he'll be sitting at.
27
TORGAN
They come to our Hall because Pa refuses to set foot in theirs.
The Duke. Princeton. Two lawyers dressed in city black. Ma receives them with courtesy so exact that my shoulders climb toward my ears. She could cut a throat more warmly.
At the long table sit Pa, Ma, Lissy, Brynna, Noemi and me. The Crown auditor waits near the fire with his gray ledger open on his knee, looking harmless.
He is not harmless.
My sisters are up in the gallery. Mirelle sits between Ysolde and Saskia with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She agreed to come because she was told Caden would speak. The fog has left her agreeable, and lately a little curious about the male who leaves badly carved birds at our gate every morning. Caden sits at the far end of the gallery bench with a careful space between them.
Is this cruel, making her sit through it?Ma says no. Noemi says she has a right to hear it. I still don't know.
The Duke settles into his chair and folds his hands. "Lord Garran. These raids upon my family's property have caused considerable disruption."
