Dante hefted himself over the back of the chaise to sit next to Prim, the seat creaking under his powerful motion and large body. “What happened when I was gone yesterday?” he said slowly, searching Prim’s face.

Nothing had happened. “I already told you. I was looking through the papers, and then Sarasha suggested there was no murderer, and I was mad and sad and tired, so I took a nap.”

He shook his head, then turned to Helena. “She slept for hours. Through loud voices, and people trying to wake her, through me moving her to her bed. She didn’t even--” He stopped himself, glancing back at Prim.

Prim wasn’t sure what he’d stopped himself from saying in front of Helena, but the mentor didn’t seem to notice or care as she licked her lips and addressed the handmaiden. “What papers, Primrose?”

Prim explained she’d been looking through gift records. When her mentor asked if she saw anything odd on them, she answered no. Then Helena wanted to know who was present.

“Kallia, Bristol, the young Lanhami royals, and some guards.”

When Helena asked if any of them had acted suspiciously, Prim only snorted. They were all suspicious. One was scheming to sleep with Kallia, one was scheming to marry her, and one was scheming to get out of marrying her. Prim didn’t share that, though.

“You think someone in that room is a mindmolder?” she asked instead.

Helena flicked her eyes to Dante with a look that almost looked like approval. “I think it is a very real possibility.”

Which means someone in that room killed Roan. Prim stared at Dante, their knees touching as they sat on the chaise angled toward one another. The afternoon sun hit the side of his face highlighting the silver skin of his long scar from temple to jaw and the one across his cheek. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Not Kallia or Bristol, obviously. One of the Lanhami or a guard.” Kallia’s escorts and Tuck had been there for years. While it’s possible they could have been biding their time, it was unlikely. If it was a guard, it had to be Sarasha or a Lanhami guard. But it could just as easily be Egan or Torra. Or even Neros. “If Neros was a mindmolder, he could have tricked you into thinking he was telling the truth. The lightning could be a second gift, or it could have been a manipulation.”

Dante furrowed his brows, shaking his head. “I don’t feel drained.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Primrose,” Helena drawled, demanding Prim’s attention.

Prim waited a moment for her mentor to explain, but of course she didn’t. “Excuse me?”

Helena had that disappointed look on her face again. “Think. If you want to know who the mindmolder is, you’ll first need to know what the manipulation was.”

Prim recalled yesterday’s events again. “I looked through the papers. Then I threw them. Then Sarasha helped me pick them up.” Prim sucked in a breath, remembering that wasn’t all the fae did with the papers. “I didn’t recall seeing a record for her, so I asked her what her gift was. She told me but as she helped me pick them up, she was looking through them to try to find it. And she did. Or at least, she held out a paper that I saw said her name and gift.”

Prim could practically hear Dante’s jaw breaking from the force he was applying to it. She breathed a laugh despite how very fucking serious this was.

Dante addressed the mentor. “So if she was a mindmolder, she could have just picked up any paper and showed it to Prim and made her see what she wanted her to see?”

Helena nodded, her face grim.

“And she was there when I was looking for Roan. She could have manipulated me then, too,” Prim breathed, squeezing Dante’s knee and turning to look at him. “But why? Could she be the person who ordered the assassination?”

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Helena narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.

Dante, however, focused his attention to the thin windows, growling. “I suppose you’ll want me to question her before I kill her?”

Prim barked an incredulous laugh. “You can’t kill her. This is all conjecture.”

Dante shook his head. “I never trusted her.”

Prim rolled her eyes. “You don’t trust anyone.”

He brought his gaze back to her, looking at her with those piercingly beautiful ringed eyes. “That’s not true.”

No, it wasn’t. He trusted his family. He trusted Blukke. He trusted her. Hell, he probably trusted Kallia and Bristol just because Prim did, just as Kallia trusted him because of her.

But perhaps the paper was real. Sarasha had never done anything to exhibit any kind of disloyalty. And while Prim hadn’t willingly offered the information about Dante sharing her bed, the fae had kept it to herself.

Or had she?

“She could be Neros’s spy. They could be working together,” Prim gasped. “Neros knew about you. About…what you do at night and about your ability to recognize truths and lies.”

Helena tilted her head to the side in exasperation. “If you think you two are being subtle, you’re not.”

Prim ignored her. She didn’t really care if her mentor knew Dante was more than just her escort.

Dante took Helena’s words as permission to drop the act and grabbed Prim’s hand. “Of course they’d send guards ahead of the party to scope it out. That’s what I would do. She must have been one of them. Maybe she was the one working with Sol on Neros’s orders. Technically she never came back, so he wasn’t lying when he answered my question about it.”

Gods, she was right outside the door. She’s been at Prim’s side for days, including when Neros was being too aggressive and she’d stood up to him. Prim chewed on her lip, considering. Maybe she wasn’t standing up to him. Maybe she was trying to help him. “Do you think she told Neros to back off that day in the gardens when you pinched him so he’d realize he needed to adjust his strategy to get me to like him?”

Dante huffed a laugh. “I didn’t pinch him.”

“Right,” Prim said sarcastically.

A half smile tugged at his lips as he shook his head. “I suppose it could have been a friendly reminder of how he should be acting rather than the assertive confrontation it seemed.”

Fucking Sarasha. “Let’s get to Blukke before we do anything in case she is a mindmolder.”

“Of course,” Dante said, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand.

Prim turned her attention to Helena who had remained still as she watched the two extrapolate. “Anything you’d like to add, oh wise and powerful one?”

“What motive would she have for killing the kern?”

Prim released a breath, not at all up for playing Helena’s games when it came to something this important. “Just tell me.”

The mentor fluttered her eyelids. “I don’t know, Primrose. I’m posing the question because you came here looking for answers about his death. If you think that led you to a mindmolder--to this woman--then you ought to be thinking if that makes sense.”

Dante squeezed her hand, calling her attention back to him. “She knew my name. She acted like she’d heard of me before she met me. She must have known I was…” He glanced at Helena, who tried very hard not to roll her eyes. “When Roan had me arrested, she must have thought he was getting too close to the truth.”

Prim shook her head, hiding her smile. “What’s not where she heard of you.” At Dante’s questioning look, she elaborated. “She heard me…” Prim glanced at Helena. Oh, fuck it. The old bat owed her some secrets, anyway. “She heard me calling your name that morning.”

Dante’s mouth twitched in a secret smile. “Can’t it be both?”

Shit. It could be. But no. “Why wouldn’t she target you then?”

Dante shrugged. “Because the truth is just as damning to me as it would be to them?”

Yes it was. Prim didn’t want to test the validity of Kallia’s pardon if the king and queen decided to get involved.

Prim narrowed her eyes at Helena. “You keep quiet about what we discussed here. You owe me that much. You owe me a lot more, and I will collect one day.”

The mentor only released a long, bored breath with the tilt of her head and a show of her palms.

Prim sighed, squeezing Dante’s hands. “Okay, let’s get back to Kallia and the others for interrogation part two.”

As they stood and padded to the door, about to walk pleasantly through the castle with a potential mindmolder murderer, Helena rose from her desk chair. Dante and Prim both turned their attention to her.

“I’d like to offer my oh so wise and powerful council.”

Prim exchanged a look with Dante then sighed, jerking her head in a movement of acquiescence. She could use all the help she could get.