Page 128 of A Dance of Lies

“It’s going to be all right, sweet,” Laurent says.

“I hope you’re right.”

Laurent snuffs the lantern. I pivot to follow but pause at the sheaf of moonlight falling across the desk. Or rather, the ring glinting at me like a winking eye.

His signet ring.

“Anton isn’t wearing his ring,” I note, unable to look away.

Crowns always wear them. Illian never let his leave his hand.

“He prefers not to wear it when he’s in his studio.”

But I can’t focus on Laurent’s words, because my mind is elsewhere, hung on the edge of a memory.

The banquet.

I replay the night in my head. I had always felt like I’d forgotten something. Missed something. So I allow the memories to resurface, one by one.

Gustav’s legs buckling beneath him.

Anton rushing over. Shouting for water. A physician.

A servant ambling forward, a glass in hand.

Except he spills it. And so he bends, wiping his rag . . .

The rag. What am I forgetting? I shake my head, trying to clear the murk from my mind. The poison had begun working by that time. But if I could just—

Eyes, sliding intently toward mine.

A smirk on knowing lips.

The servant. I had recognized him from Illian’s court. And Anton—he had been wearing his ring that night. I remember seeing it, remember the cold of it against my hand.

The servant had a small box. Not a ring box, but . . .

I approach the desk, considering the ring, and that’s when I see it. A small block of red, unmelted wax.

It wasn’t a box in the servant’s hands. It waswax.

“The banquet,” I breathe. “The poison, it wasn’t just to harm Gustav. I think—I think it was a distraction while someone duplicated Anton’s seal.”

Laurent relights the lantern and paces over.

“Illian,” I say, the pieces snapping together. “He was composing letters using a seal that wasn’t his.” I remember it clearly, the first time I found the tunnels. I hadn’t thought much of it, but now . . . “I think he is writing in Anton’s hand.”

Apprehension accompanies me on my journey back through the tunnels. Once more, I try to align the pieces of Illian’s crooked puzzle, fit the discordant notes into some kind of rhythm I can follow, but I can’t make sense of who he would be writing to in Anton’s hand or what good it would do here when any misconstruction could easily be exposed by Anton himself?

Laurent promised to warn Anton, but even so, I feel as if each passing second is a stride toward King Rurik’s death and a dangerous, inevitable war. I can’t understand why Anton is waiting, why he needs so much time. I should have asked him when I had the chance.

But instead, I had kissed him.

I groan and bat a flurry of dust from my face, then yank open the cellar door, registering too late the light bleeding from the other side. The moment I step through, a rough grip seizes my arm.

Then I’m dragged directly into a column of light.

Chapter Thirty-Two