The Orphan Queen (The Orphan Queen #1)(80)

“Thank you, Lady Julianna.” The prince had washed and changed clothes since this morning, but stress lines pulled at the edges of his eyes and mouth, and grief made dark hollows below his eyes and cheekbones. He looked exhausted as he glanced at a list: reminders of what he needed to say. “I am conducting this investigation myself, with the help of James and my father’s best men. We’ve been at this all day, so please forgive any gruffness to our questions. We want this solved as quickly as possible. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course I do.”

He nodded. “If you’d like anything to drink, a maid is waiting outside with a cart of wine, as well as some herbs for stress and anxiety. May we call for anything for you?”

I glanced at Melanie and we both shook our heads.

“Very well.” The prince turned the first page of his notes facedown on the table and focused on a sheet of paper with a list of questions on it. “Tell us where you were last night, from the second hour until dawn.”

“I was in bed, sleeping,” Melanie said. “So was Julianna. We came straight back after the ball.”

“Is that true?” Tobiah lifted an eyebrow at me, and I nodded. “Very well.” He made a note on his paper and moved to the next question. “Did you notice anything suspicious as you were leaving the ballroom? People you didn’t recognize? People behaving strangely?”

“We’re still new to Skyvale Palace society,” I said. “There are many faces I don’t recognize.” Not quite true. After spending weeks here, I’d learned many faces, as well as their names and stories and deepest fears, where I could. But everyone I’d seen last night seemed to belong. No, the best attacker would have been one who could have made himself appear to fit in. Unless he’d waited and come after, entering and leaving the palace in the same way Melanie and I did. Once we’d learned the guard routines, the palace was laughably easy to sneak into. Of course, the Indigo Order put a lot of faith in no one untoward being able to cross the wall.

“No one behaving suspiciously?” Tobiah asked again, and both Melanie and I shook our heads. “What time would you say you each fell asleep?”

“One, perhaps?” Melanie cocked her head. “Half an hour following? I was tired after the ball.”

“Same for me,” I said. I’d gone to bed at the same time; I just hadn’t stayed there. “My recent illness causes me to tire very quickly.”

“I see.” Tobiah asked several more questions, most in the same vein, and after ten or so minutes, the prince handed the papers to Fredrick, who slipped them into a folder marked Julianna Whitman.

“That’s all we have for now,” said the general. He stood and started for the door, but as the prince and his bodyguard began to follow, I leaned forward.

“What happened to His Majesty? We’ve heard so many rumors.”

Tobiah winced. “We’d rather not say for—”

“His throat was cut,” said James. “Sliced clean open in his sleep, using a serrated blade. The assassin is right-handed and strong. It’s hard to gauge his height, since His Majesty was obviously already lying down, but we know he must be someone with incredible stealth to have slipped past the four on-duty bodyguards.”

“James.” Tobiah’s scowl pulled around his mouth. “That’s enough around the ladies.”

Belatedly, I remembered to be horrified by the details; I forced my expression to shift into slowly blooming alarm. “Why would anyone do that?”

Tobiah stood and looked at me. All traces of the sullen, bored prince I’d come to loathe were gone. Now, he just looked empty. “People always want to kill kings. That is why they have bodyguards.”

A few minutes later, the men were gone, and Melanie and I sat at the table with our chins balanced on our fists.

“You lied about where you were last night.” She plucked a petal from one of the flower arrangements on the table. “Where were you really?”

“Getting air.”

“For five hours?” She flicked the petal across the table; it fluttered and fell to the floor.

So she’d heard me come in after all. “Well, I wasn’t fighting crime with Black Knife.” I said it like a joke. And it was true . . . this time. Admitting my relationship with Black Knife would be an even worse betrayal to Melanie. Saying no to Patrick was one thing. Spending a week as Black Knife’s partner was unforgivable.

And kissing him, maybe falling in love with him—

I changed the subject. “What do we do about Terrell?”

“Nothing. We’re not part of this. Let them handle their own problems.”

“And if Patrick is responsible?”

She licked her lips and glanced toward the balcony door. “He must have had a good reason. Like revenge. Like keeping the Indigo Kingdom distracted while we return to Aecor.”

None of those things was a good reason for murder. “Find out if he did it anyway. And tell him we aren’t done here, either. I need to tell the wraith mitigation committee what happened in the wraithland. It might help their efforts against it—and help us, ultimately.”

“It might not matter, once we return to Aecor and your identity is revealed. Why would they believe anything you said?”

With a sigh, I strode across the room and found the stack of drawings I’d been working on. My fingers itched for a pen. Working, even on something small, would ease the uncomfortable buzzing in the back of my thoughts.