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The officer looks between us dubiously, but Maisie’s glare doesn’t waver, and at last he stands.
“I’ll be outside if you need anything,” he says, and this time, I notice that he takes the long route around the worst of the carnage before heading back out the door.
As soon as we’re alone once more, Maisie lets out a muffled screech. “Do you see?” she says, tears flooding her eyes all over again. “This is my life now, and the people won’t even let me have that. There are already rumors about what sort of queen I’ll be, or that I’m impulsive and can’t make decisions, and—have you read the Regal Record lately?”
“No,” I say, offering her a tissue. She snatches it from me and dabs the cut with a distinct lack of gentleness. “My phone and laptop were taken by MI5, remember?”
“Probably for the best,” she says with vague irritation, and though I want to know what she means, I don’t push. “Yesterday, at the meeting, I asked Grandmama about how we might approach the weekly session with the prime minister today. If it ought to be all five of us, or if it should just be me and Mummy.”
“I remember.” Thankfully, Nicholas was the only one who voted for the entire royal council to attend.
“Well, less than three hours later, there was an article up on the Regal Record about it,” she says with a sniff. “They went onand on about how I shouldn’t be allowed to meet the prime minister without Nicholas, not when I’m not even regent yet, and since he’s next in line after me, it’d only be prudent if…if…”
She wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist, and I offer her another tissue. “Can I tell you something?” I say uncertainly, and this immediately grabs her attention.
“You can tell me anything.”
That’s definitely not true, but I press on anyway. “I think there’s a mole in the castle,” I say. “One who’s been leaking information to the Regal Record.”
“Well, obviously,” she mutters. “It was Ben, wasn’t it? We figured that out ages ago.”
“Yes, but—he hasn’t been here,” I point out. “He’s in Belgium right now. But the Regal Record is still getting little scoops like that—information that no one outside of that meeting should have.”
Her hand stills. “You think someone else is going to them now?”
I nod. “They knew about your injuries after the crowd surge, Maisie. And about your breakup with Gia. There are other things, too—little things they shouldn’t know, but do, and it’s constant. Someone close to you is selling secrets to the Regal Record.”
Maisie looks up at me, the second tissue now pressed against her cut. “Who? And don’t you dare hold back,” she adds as I hesitate. “You wouldn’t tell me this if you didn’t have a theory.”
“I…” I rip open an alcohol swab and hand it to her. “I don’t know who. But it has to be someone close to you. Close to both of us. The breakup with Gia, for instance…who else knew about that except the five of us in the room?”
“I was upset,” says Maisie defensively. “And with the way Gia stormed out of here, anyone could’ve guessed.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But they knew it was because of the roses that Thaddeus sent you. Did you tell anyone else? Your mom, maybe? Or even Alexander?”
She grows quiet for a long moment. “No,” she says at last. “I didn’t tell anyone. Just you, Kit, Rosie, and Gia.”
“Then one of us is the mole,” I say. “Unless someone else found out, it’s the only possibility.”
“But—” Maisie stops. “It isn’t me. Obviously it isn’t me. And it can’t be Gia or Rosie, either.”
“Why not?” I say, and instantly I know I’ve waded into dangerous territory.
“Because,” she says sharply, “they’ve been my best friends since we were in nursery together. They’ve never betrayed me—not once—and there’s no reason in the world they might start now.”
“No reason that you know of,” I say, and her glare is so withering that I have to fight the urge to flinch.
“What about Kit?” she retorts. “He was there, too, and he’s the one who’s chummy with terrorists. Maybe he also tipped off the Regal Record and sent in that photo of you hugging the bomber. He’s the only one of us who knew about it, after all, and with everything else the papers are saying—” She cuts herself off and shakes her head. “He’s the most likely suspect.”
I open my mouth to tell her in no uncertain terms that it couldn’t be him—that he wouldn’t do something so awful, that there’s no way he would ever betray either of us—but it’s the same knee-jerk reaction she had to my suggestion of Gia and Rosie. And instead, even though it takes every ounce of willpower I have, I press my lips together and consider it.
She’s right. He has been there for all of it. He was the one tosuggest the trip to the shop. He was the one to introduce metoAoife. He also knew about Maisie’s injuries, and the breakup, and the roses—everything that Gia and Rosie knew and more.
On paper, it makes sense. It more than makes sense—he really should be our prime suspect. But as I think about the things he’s said, the things he’s done to protect me, the changes he’s been willing to make in his own life to keep me safe and unafraid…maybe I’m every bit as in denial as Maisie is, but it doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t.
“Did I ever tell you that I blamed him for leaking the story about my mom’s illness to the press?” I say. “Back in June, the morning the news broke. He was the only one I ever told.”
Maisie scowls. “What does that have to do with—”
