Page 135 of Kingmakers, Year Two

One of those people was Cat.

She had all the reason in the world to want Rocco dead. Like me, she must have harbored a suspicion that Rocco was still dangerous to Zoe. That he wouldn’t give up so easily.

I’d broken Zoe’s marriage contract, but I never thought for a second that Rocco had ceased to be a threat. He was an unsolved problem that continued to hang over my head. I knew I’d have to deal with him eventually.

Now he’s gone. Wiped off the face of the earth.

And I’m glad, so fucking glad.

But I can’t help wondering who I have to thank for that.

Cat was in the infirmary with Dr. Cross. Hedeon walked her over there, and Dean Yenin followed her back. So technically, she was never alone. Her alibi is almost as solid as mine.

Still, I wonder . . .

I look at her sitting there, small and shy and about as physically imposing as a newborn lamb.

Even though Cat has come a long way this year, the idea that she could murder Rocco Prince is laughable. I feel ridiculous even considering it.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who did it.

He’s fuckin’ dead. And he’s not coming back.

27

CAT

The week after Rocco’s death is a fog of constant paranoia, where I’m certain that any moment I’ll feel hands closing around my arms and I’ll be jerked out of my seat, dragged off to the Prison Tower by the Chancellor’s minions.

Even when I’m lying sleepless in my narrow bed down in the sunless cave of the Undercroft, I expect to hear the door broken down at any moment.

But it never happens.

No one comes to arrest me.

No one even speaks to me.

Miles is interrogated by the Chancellor. That, too, sets my guts churning all over again, terrified that they’ll chain him up and I’llhave to admit that it was me, not him, who murdered Rocco Prince.

But after a week of incessant gossip and rumor, where students and teachers alike seem to talk of nothing else, the storm fades away as quickly as it blew in. The Princes send a lieutenant to retrieve the body. And everyone else seems to forget that Rocco ever existed.

Dax and Jasper attend class as usual, faces impassive, as if they didn’t just lose two of their supposed best friends.

There’s no consequence or punishment for anyone.

“They don’t want to admit that they can’t find the murderer,” Chay says, over lunch. “They just want the whole thing to disappear.”

“Maybe Rocco really did kill himself,” Ares says.

“I doubt it,” Zoe shakes her head.

“It’s only blowing over because the Princes don’t care,” Miles says. “He’s their Heir—but they didn’t love him. How could they?”

“Still . . .” Zoe says. “Their only child . . .”

“They might have made a bigger fuss a year ago,” Miles says. “Dieter Prince is distracted.”

“He’s a sociopath like Rocco,” Zoe says, coldly. “He doesn’t feel anything.”

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