Page 132 of A War of Crowns

Sensing eyes on her, Olivia shot a look back toward the table, where she found Physician Bonage still watching her with palpable disapproval. She simply smiled back, though, like some demented cow as she chewed her pain-killing cud.

“There’s no glass,” Olivia observed aloud after she forced down the mouthful of herbs. When she earned for herself nothing more than a bewildered glance from Duke Percy in the wake of that proclamation, she thumped the end of her cane against the floor for emphasis and gestured about. “It doesn’t appear that the assassinbrokein. He simply entered.”

An impressive feat, given how high up the queen’s room was.

It was Duchess Edith who gently questioned the queen, “Did you accidentally leave your balcony doors unlatched last night, Your Majesty?”

Seraphina’s answer was immediate, her denial of, “No, I would never,” particularly heated.

Olivia hummed aloud—a thoughtful sound—and slanted Duke Percy a look. When the elderly nobleman didn’t immediately return her glance, she increased her humming into an obnoxious, “Hmm,” until she finally garnered some attention for herself.

Percy took the hint. “Ah, yes. Right. Sir Arkwright,” the Lord Chancellor commanded the captain on Olivia’s behalf, “I want every servant who was within Her Majesty’s room yesterdayrounded up for questioning. Send them to my chambers. No need to make a scene.”

“No one can know about this,” Seraphina insisted as she stroked her fingers against the winged serpent still resting in her lap. “No one.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Duke Percy agreed without question.

Sir Arkwright gave his answer by snapping a quick salute before hurrying off to do the Lord Chancellor’s bidding.

Olivia herself offered no reply to her friend’s demand, though, given she was still too busy studying the mess that had been made of the other woman’s bedchamber.

She had missed it on her first pass, but now she saw clearly there was something on the floor just beneath the edge of the queen’s bed. When a brief prod with the end of her cane fully revealed just what that something was, though, Olivia let loose with a hiss of alarm.

Duke Percy was at her shoulder quicker than she would have thought possible for the older man. “What?” he softly questioned.

But Olivia ignored him for the moment and swiftly hobbled back to the corpse. Dropping to her knees, she gritted her teeth against the Pain the abrupt movement sent stabbing through the left side of her body.

“What is it?” Duke Percy continued to demand. He even crouched at her side with a groan and a crackling of joints she would have sympathized with if she hadn't been busy frantically twitching aside articles of the assassin’s clothing.

While the world finally faded about the edges into a pleasant haze as the full effects of the bitter root and dream petal took hold of her mind, Olivia searched the corpse’s wrists, his forearms, his neck, and finally his chest, all in silence until she was suddenly wrenched around by her shoulder to face Duke Percy.

The man gave her a brief shake and demanded a third time, “Tell me what in theblazesit is you’re looking for, Olivia.”

The bald fear roiling in Duke Percy’s eyes was a fear Olivia knew all too well. It was the same fear currently gripping her own heart.

Under her breath, she uttered a low instruction of, “Send the physician away and call for Father Perero.Immediately.”

For a few tense moments, Olivia worried Duke Percy might not obey. Not with his jaw clenched and a muscle ticking there with all of the Lord Chancellor’s usual stubbornness.

After those tense moments passed, though, the duke called out a command of, “Physician Bonage, you may go,” followed by what was no doubt the man’s attempts at being casual when he added, “Edith, why don’t we send for Father Perero while we’re at it?”

Olivia could nearlyfeelthe question Duchess Edith wished to ask stirring in the space between them all. But blessedly, it was a question the queen’s godmother didn’t voice.

The moment those requested commands were divvied out, Duke Percy’s eyes hooked back upon her own. “Now, youwilltell me what is going on, or so help me, Olivia—”

With a grunt, Olivia shifted her weight more to her right knee and raised her cane to poke the end of it toward Seraphina’s bed. More specifically, toward the dagger partially covered by a scrapof bloody cloth tucked beneath. “Thatis a witchblade,” she whispered for the duke’s ears alone, earning a choked gasp from the man. “Butthis…”

She flopped the would-be assassin’s limp wrist at Percy, waving the dead man’s hand about. “…is neither a witchnora Witchsworn. Which presents several burning questions, though the most pressing is, of course”—Olivia’s stomach churned in a way completely at odds with the bright shimmer of the room, the dream petal having painted the bloody and tense scene in a rosy glow—“if Her Majesty was struck with the blade.”

All the color drained from Duke Percy’s face with each word them. But it was that last sentence which sent the older man’s head shaking. “No,” he whispered. His eyes squeezed shut and his head bowed. “No, no, no,no.” When his head jerked back up, he quietly insisted, “Youmustbe mistaken.”

How Olivia wished she were. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to be wrong, to be back in her bed, and for this all to be a bad dream.

But she wasn’t.

Expelling a shaky breath, Olivia fought to keep her voice level when she further advised, “Father Perero will need to Truth-Read Her Majesty for us to know exactly what happened here tonight.”

“A Truth-Reading?” Duke Percy sounded appalled. “But this makes no sense…”

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