Page 190 of Maksym

“Yes.”

“When?”

“After everything. After Sage died. After Council investigators came.”

Grace nodded. “At the time you returned the phone to Madelyn, you had no knowledge of tampering?”

“No.”

Grace did not linger.

That mattered too. She had no interest in making Sloan guilty of crimes she had not committed. Prosecutors who needed every witness to be every kind of villain usually had weak cases or weak discipline. Grace had neither.

She turned the page. The room seemed to tighten before she spoke.

“The wine,” Grace said.

Sloan’s composure cracked.

Not fully. Not yet. But her chin dipped, and her throat worked twice before she answered a question not yet asked.

Grace allowed the silence to do its work.

“Did you know the wine given to Madelyn at the festival had been altered?”

The prosecution counsel rose so quickly his chair struck the table behind him.

“Objection. Assumes facts not yet in evidence.”

Grace did not blink. “The witness has personal knowledge of the festival. I am asking whether she knew about the drink Madelyn had been given.”

The Magistrate looked to Sloan. “The witness will answer if she knows.”

Sloan’s fingers went bloodless on the stand.

“Yes,” she said.

The chamber stirred hard enough this time that the Magistrate struck his staff.

“Order.”

The sound cracked across the stone.

I did not move, but my shadows answered beneath my skin.

Yes.

What they already knew. Not supposition. Not inference. Knowledge.

Maddie’s hands had gone still in her lap. Nikolay’s head bowed for one breath, then lifted. The amber in his eyes burned colder than before.

Grace’s voice remained controlled. “What did you know?”

“I knew something had been added to make her relax.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know who put it in.”