The shifter sighed dramatically at Dante’s request to explain what had transpired since the others left him along with Sarasha. “No, I don’t think I am up for it,” he said, lolling his head to the side. Bristol lazily hit his chest with the back of her hand in rebuke.
His nonchalant tone had Prim seeing red. “Four people are dead,” she seethed. “Six if you count Neros and Roan.” Though she wasn’t sure the murders were related, given the discovery that Sol and Roan’s deaths hadn’t been.
Blukke straightened, his face becoming serious. The shifter murmured an apology.
Dante squeezed Prim’s hand, picking up where she left off. “If you’re well enough to be joking around, you’re well enough to tell us who stabbed you and where the mindmolder got off to. Were they here for her or the princess?”
Prim tugged her hand away so she could cross her arms and look down at Blukke, analyzing his face, his tone, his words.
“I don’t know,” he said apologetically.
“What don’t you know?” Prim was so sick of all the bullshit and deadends.
Blukke frowned. “Any of it. I had Sarasha completely incapacitated--body and gift--and I was just sitting here trying to talk to her. See if I could get anything more out of her. I heard some noise in the hall and was going to check it out when the door opened. Someone called in to say it was clear out there and to stay put. So I sat back down and continued talking with her and a couple minutes later I got stabbed but there was no one there. I could feel the blade in me, but when I looked down, there was nothing. No knife. Even when I felt it being pulled back out. The pain severed my hold on Sarasha and she bolted.” The shifter glanced between Dante and Prim. “Are the guards outside dead? Are they the four you mentioned?”
Prim’s anger lessened a bit realizing Blukke hadn’t known about the dead guards when he was being silly. But she was still really fucking angry at the situation. She nodded. “Who called in? What did the voice sound like?”
Blukke offered his sympathy to Prim before answering. “I’m not really sure. It was muffled and sounded off, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I thought it was a man, but that might just be because I knew the four out there were men. I suppose it could have been a woman making her voice deep. The accent seemed Hogardian, but that would have been easy to fake, too.”
Prim chewed her lip, thinking. Dante and Blukke exchanged pointed looks that seemed to be some sort of secret language the two shared.
It had to have been someone with the gift of invisibility; not only could they make themselves invisible, but also anything they were touching. Nothing else made sense. But Prim was certain there had been no guard or servant on record for having such a gift, and she didn’t know where to start looking for a new suspect. Plus, that wouldn’t have explained Roan’s death--he would have smelled them.
Instead, she shifted her focus. “What were you talking about with Sarasha? Did you get any more information from her?”
Blukke peeled his eyes from Dante. “No. She was pretty upset about Neros. But she also kept blabbering about how she really liked Kallia and you and Bristol, and even me and Dante and Tuck. That she thought of us as friends and never wanted anything bad to happen to us.” The shifter laughed darkly. “That was about twenty seconds before my gift failed. Once free, she didn’t seem too concerned about being friends. She looked at my wound and hesitated for all of one second before she decided her freedom was more important than my life.”
“She decided her life was more important than your life,” Bristol corrected. At Blukke’s raised brow, she clarified. “She would have been put to death for what she did.”
Prim didn’t bother to contradict the other handmaiden. Kallia was about as merciful and forgiving as they came--the two men in front of them proof of that. And as much as Prim didn’t like the fae after everything had come to light, Sarasha really hadn’t done anything that bad. She delivered a letter and spied for her prince; Prim did the same for her princess. She’d only ever used her gift against Prim to remain undiscovered--never for anything malicious and never against Kallia. The exhaustion Prim felt after finding Roan must have been a natural reaction to stress; she hadn’t fallen into a deep sleep like the day with the paper. And Sarasha had certainly seemed sorry, though that was likely more about being sorry she got caught.
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And Sol’s murder? Prim didn’t give a fuck about Sarasha killing the man who had ruined or ended the lives of an untold number of kids, her love among them. He brought that on himself. He literally agreed to it when he willingly drank the mindmolder’s blood. Prim was glad he was dead.
But Sarasha was gone, so the point was moot.
Prim dropped onto a chaise, rubbing her fingertips over her forehead. “Alright, we obviously have an invisible assailant. I’d say they killed Neros then came here for Kallia, not knowing she was out. I doubt it’s related to the original plot against Kallia considering Neros was the perpetrator there but the victim here. Couldn’t be related to Roan, either. Could just be some psycho who doesn’t like monarchies or doesn’t want a Wassalia-Lanham alliance.”
Bristol sat up straighter. “They could be here right now. Maybe they never left.”
Prim looked at Dante for confirmation.
“It’s hard to say with so many people in here. I’ll have to walk around and focus to make sure there’s not an extra scent.” He did, the three of them watching as he roamed and sniffed, the guards giving him questioning looks. He shook his head when he returned to the chaises. “I don’t smell an extra person here currently. If I knew the scent I was looking for, I could tell you if they had been here before. I can only smell the lingering scents of various people who I know have been in here recently.”
“Pardon me,” Blukke said to Prim, holding a finger in the air. “Why is it that this couldn’t be related to Roan? It seems to explain why he didn’t put up a fight--he didn’t know there was anyone there to fight.”
Prim tapped her nose. “Scenting gift like Dante, remember? He would have smelled him.”
Blukke tilted his head. “No, he wouldn’t’ve. I had his gifts incapacitated that night. I reminded him I had no family for him to threaten, and only agreed to play prisoner on the condition that I hold his powers again.”
“Play prisoner?” Bristol asked.
The shifter shrugged. “I assumed there was a reason he had us arrested. He didn’t try to torture us even before I took his gift. Surely he wasn’t dumb enough to actually turn on us--we had just as much shit on him.”
Prim didn’t tell Blukke the reason. That Roan wasn’t dumb, just hurt and jealous and not thinking clearly.
She stared open-mouthed at Blukke, twisting her ring. It hurt knowing there were so many little things that had to line up precisely to lead to Roan’s death. If just one of them had been different, her friend might still be alive. “He couldn’t smell them,” she breathed.
Blukke’s face softened and he shuffled on the chaise, eliciting a wince. “I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t intend for that to happen when I incapacitated him.”
Dante sat down next to Prim, wrapping an arm around her. “I didn’t know. I would have told you if I did.”
Prim only nodded, her heart hurting again. It wasn’t Blukke’s fault, nor was it Dante’s or hers. There was only one person to blame for Roan’s death. And it now seemed it was the same person responsible for Neros’s and the guards’ outside.
She sucked in a breath. Maybe it was also the same person who had added the assassination option to Neros’s order. “Roan was killed right after he had you two arrested for being involved with the plot against Kallia--announcing he was in charge of the investigation. Neros was killed right after he told us he was going to find out who did it.”
Prim paused to watch a fire-gifted guard light the fireplace and some wall sconces as the sunlight faded, the day nearly done. When the guard took his place on the other side of the room, peeking through the door to check the status of the hall clean-up, Prim continued.
“Maybe it was whoever added the assassination option, trying to make sure they didn’t get discovered? Maybe they came here after Neros to finish the job on Kallia themself.”
The two men shared a look, but Bristol scrunched her nose. “No. They would have made sure they killed Blukke. They’d be targeting all of us, too. We’re the ones investigating.”
That Bristol hadn’t even considered her idea before shooting it down had Prim rolling her eyes, though she supposed her friend had a point.
Dante squeezed her arm as he scooted away to turn to face her fully, those beautiful ringed eyes shining in the firelight. “It’s possible. Maybe they didn’t know we were investigating.”
Maybe, but Prim knew he was only saying it to be nice.
It didn’t matter. Right now, she didn’t care if it was all related or not. She didn’t care why they’d killed Roan or Neros. She didn’t care why they’d come to Kallia’s chambers or didn’t ensure Blukke’s wound was fatal. She only cared about one thing. She shook her head, banishing away every other thought.
“Whatever. Let’s just find this invisible fuck and make them pay.”