"Your number is wrong," Lissy tells her on the third afternoon.
Brynna looks up slowly. "My number is not wrong."
"This invoice is for twelve bolts. You recorded twenty-one."
Brynna takes the page. The silence goes on long enough that I put down my pen. Lissy waits, and Brynna scratches out the figure. "I was testing you," she says gruffly.
Lissy smiles. "Of course."
I look down at my own papers before either of them notices me smiling.
On the fourth day, we rebuild the days after Saskia's wedding. Noemi gives us the window. Mirelle was dosed after the wedding and before she gave Caden back his ring.
"Where did she eat?" Lissy asks.
"At home," Ma says. "She hardly went anywhere."
"Who visited?"
"Half the clan."
"Anybody from Valeforth?"
Ma starts to answer, then stops.
Caden lifts his head. "The welcome supper."
Everyone looks at him.
"The evening after the wedding," he says. "My father wanted a formal dinner before Mirelle, and I announced the betrothal." Ma's face changes while he's still speaking. "Princeton poured the drinks."
My stomach turns.
"What did Mirelle have?" Lissy asks.
"Elderflower cordial. I had wine."
"Did he touch both cups?"
"Yes."
"Did he pour them himself?"
Caden closes his eyes. "Yes."
"How long after that did she return the ring?"
"Two days."
The room goes quiet.How did none of us think of that supper?We have gone over that week a hundred times.
Because it looked like nothing. Mirelle came home from that dinner perfectly well and stayed perfectly well for two days, and a male poured a cup for his future sister-in-law and made a joke while he did it, and everyone at the table thanked him for the toast.
I would have thanked him, too. It was completely innocent. There shouldn’t have been anything amiss.
"We still can't prove he put the draught in it," I say.
"No," Lissy agrees, looking down at the timelines. "Butheknows whether he did." She sounds smug. I looked at her, curious.
