Prim stared at her blue skirts, her head bent. The skin over her cheeks felt tight with dried tears, though that discomfort was preferable to the still-wet fluid running out of her nose that she couldn’t wipe away. It was preferable to the iron around her wrists, too.

Kallia said Egan ordered the assassination. That he was a murderer. That meant he killed Roan. He killed Neros and those guards. He stabbed Blukke. So Prim reached across the table to put her hand over his; her gift required touching.

She’d been too distraught to react as hands grabbed at her. Dante’s first, using his gift to shield them as Lanhami guards converged. But there were too many. They couldn’t get past them, not without causing several casualties. Dante had screamed at Kallia to do something, and she had. The princess called off the Lanhami guards, reminding them they must defer to the Orlanas while in their land, and explaining justice will be served. Then she’d ordered Wassalian guards to bind Prim’s hands behind her back and take her to her chambers for questioning.

She’d heard Kallia give Dante an order, but hadn’t heard the words. Whatever it was, he’d obeyed and left the great hall. He’d left her.

So she sat on one of the uncomfortable dining chairs that had been dragged to the center of Kallia’s entertaining suite with a handful of guards--all Wassalian, thankfully--staring at her.

She was faced away from the door, but she heard it open behind her. She heard the two footsteps enter. One approached faster than the other, then veered off toward the bathing chamber. Still she kept her head down until those quick, heavy steps returned and Dante crouched down in front of her, wiping a dampened piece of cloth over her cheeks and under her nose.

She raised her head then, to look into the face of the man she loved. Needing him. He knew, and palmed her neck. “It’s okay, Bear,” he whispered just for her to hear. Looking over his shoulder, Prim saw that he’d brought Helena.

The door opened again and a moment later, someone behind her unlocked the shackles on her wrists and removed them, the iron chain clinking. She immediately wrapped her arms around her stomach. Dante squeezed her neck and stood, backing away as several figures spilled in from either side of her: all three Orlanas, the now-three Lanhami royals, and Bristol. The group stood around the handmaiden, but they were not looking at her. They were looking at Kallia.

The princess gestured to the chaises, advising the other royals to sit. King Achrod did immediately, followed by Torra then her parents. Each looked over the blood stained one appraisingly before choosing another. Queen Mallis only sat next to her husband when Kallia gestured again.

Bristol, Dante, and Helena all stayed by Prim, who was not ready to try to move. Or think. Or feel.

Satisfied, Princess Kallia stood before them, behind the empty chaise, pressing her fingertips together in front of her chest. “Before his death, Prince Neros admitted to ordering my kidnapping in an attempt to delay a betrothal so he may be the Lanhami selected.” Princess Torra pressed a hand to her mouth; her parents shared a guilty look. “But another person ordered my assassination at the same time. Yesterday, I learned something that made me suspect it was Egan and confirmed it today.”

That pulled Prim out of her stupor. “How?” she said, barely more than a breath.

Kallia pulled her attention from the chaises to offer soft, sorrowful eyes to Prim. “Egan said he’d been with Torra the morning Neros died.”

“He was with me!” Torra interrupted.

Kallia bit her lip, now directing that sorrowful stare at the other princess. “Yes, but he also said when he got back, he found Neros already stabbed. Already unresponsive.” Kallia gripped the back of the empty, blood-stained chaise she stood behind. “That couldn’t be true because he told Prim that he tried to talk Neros out of the kidnapping plot. Egan wouldn’t have known that Prim knew Neros orchestrated it unless Neros had talked to him that day, telling him about the little interrogation we performed.”

The princess pulled those two notes from earlier out of her pocket. “Neros asked about the stamp on the assassination order. When we told him it was a star in a circle, he swore he would find who did it.” Kallia unfolded the notes--one from Egan and one from Torra--and held them out for all to see. Each was stamped with a star in a circle. Three points were colored in for Torra’s; four points were colored in for Egan’s. Prim gasped; all the younger Lanhami had the same seal with different points filled in based on their birth order. “He must have known right then it was Egan. He must have confronted him and Egan…” The princess trailed off. Everyone knew what happened then.

None of the Lanhami spoke, not even to refute Kallia’s claims.

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Kallia turned to her mother. “When Roan had my two contacts from the Cavs arrested, did you share that news?” she asked, nodding toward Dante.

Queen Mallis sat straight with her ankles crossed and a hand on her knee, the exact pose Prim had seen Kallia sit in thousands of times. She flicked her eyes to the Lanhami queen. “I was entertaining when Kern Hollon reported that.”

Queen Voliner looked nearly as pale as Egan had in the great hall. “I did share the news with my children. I was just saying maybe there wouldn’t be so many guards around. I felt as if I couldn’t walk a step without running into one.” She looked apologetically at Kallia. “Egan had asked how I knew and I told him the nice red-haired kern had told the queen. I didn’t think anything of it.”

Prim’s chest tightened and a phantom hand was immediately stroking the back of her neck.

Kallia shook her head. “All this because he didn’t want to marry me? He killed his own brother for that?”

The Lanhami queen shuddered, pressing her hands over her face as pitiful cries erupted. Her husband wrapped an arm around her, his face contorted with pain and regret.

But Torra didn’t cry. She looked vicious. “It wasn’t his fault. It was Grenise. She warped his mind.”

That made the foreign queen weep harder.

Prim exchanged a wary, confused look with Bristol and Dante. Helena stood off to the side, her arms crossed as she watched the scene unfold, her face neutral.

Kallia gracefully pivoted around the chaises to take a seat next to Torra, taking her hand. “Who’s Grenise?” she asked softly.

Torra’s dark red hair glistened as if it was made of actual flames--no, there were actual flames sparking off her strands. Kallia scooted away just a few inches, but kept the other princess’s hand.

“The love of his life, according to him. But he was young and dumb and she was a mindmolder, so who could say if it was real or not? He wanted to marry her. I would’ve never imagined he’d kill for it.”

Understanding washed over Prim. The gossip about Torra having a fae love was wrong because it’d been Egan with the fae love. Grenise was Sarasha. He’d killed those guards to free her. He’d spared Blukke’s life for Sarasha’s seemingly incoherent blubbering about caring for him--for all of them. She hadn’t asked him to spare Roan because she hadn’t realized he was so beloved--that’s exactly what the fae had said when she had finally said she was sorry about his death. But Sarasha didn’t seem the type to warp someone’s mind or encourage killing. Prim wondered if the fae still cared for Egan after he killed his own brother, or if she simply ran away once he freed her.

Bristol gasped the fae’s fake name, announcing everyone had caught on.

Kallia took a deep breath. “As tragic as all of this is, I’m sure you can now appreciate that Prim, as my protecting handmaiden, had every right to kill Prince Egan.”

All eyes turned to Prim, but she was still reeling from learning all this information. And she was drowning in regret.

“I tried to kill Dante when I first met him,” she said, reaching her hand out to take his. He stood a few feet away, so he reached to meet her, both of their arms outstretched to connect. She huffed an incredulous breath. “If I had succeeded…I hate to think about that.”

Everyone stared at her, waiting for her to get to the point. She brushed her thumb along the back of Dante’s hand. Then her head dropped as the tears came.

“And I killed…” Her words were swallowed by heaving breaths. It took several moments for her to collect herself and continue. She forced the words out, needing to confess. “I killed my parents.”

Prim had been thinking about that conversation with Helena everyday and she’d come to that conclusion. She knew she’d dispelled someone by accident. The orphanage wouldn’t have considered killing a child over a hypothetical situation; it had to have happened already.

The sobs wracked her body again as Dante’s hold on her hand tightened and he took the large step to stand next to her, placing his other arm across her shoulder, though he said nothing. Nobody said anything. What could they say?

But another figure crept closer to stand on her other side, and Prim sensed Helena reaching an arm out behind her as well. But her mentor didn’t wrap it around her like Dante had. She smacked the back of Prim’s head.

“Ow!” Prim called out, rubbing it.

“No, you didn’t, you foolish girl,” Helena said, exasperated.

Prim blinked, sucking in her sobs. “I didn’t?”

Helena shook her head, rolling her eyes. “Of course not. You dispelled the reprobate who killed them, though you didn’t mean to. Good thing, too, or you’d likely be dead yourself.”

Relief flooded through Prim. Everything in the present was shit, but at least she could put the past behind her. She hadn’t killed her parents. She’d avenged them, saving herself in the process. She could live with that.

Everyone else exchanged confused looks.

“Prim, sweetheart, were you going somewhere with that train of thought?” Kallia asked gingerly as if speaking to a child. Or someone who had lost their mind.

Prim took a deep breath. “Yes. Thinking about those things, when I put my hand on Prince Egan, I couldn’t do it.” She licked her lips, and turned to look at Dante, meeting his gaze, knowing he would understand. “That wasn’t my gift that made him disappear. It was his. He turned himself invisible and slipped away.”