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“How so?”
She cleared her throat, which felt far too dry. “Recently, the entire royal court of Faerie was murdered.”
Basil halted abruptly. “What?”
She signaled for him to keep moving, and he did.
“How…who…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “What the fuck happened?”
She grimaced. Oh, the tightrope she was walking… “From what I heard, a single attacker entered the throne room and slaughtered them all. The king, the queen, their noble fae…”
“Wait a second.” Basil stopped again, grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. “How recently?”
She hesitated. “The night you came to Faerie.”
He blinked, his mouth opening. “Holy shit. Do you think the fae who exchanged me was in there? If she was murdered that night, it would explain why my glamour and the spell on Hazel were lifted.”
Damn, he was fast. Such an agile mind…
“It’s possible,” she conceded. “However, Faerie is big, and she could well have lived—and died—somewhere else.”
“Sure. But I don’t believe in coincidences, and this smacks of being connected somehow.” He frowned, started walking again when she indicated they keep going. “Did they catch the murderer?”
“No.”
“Who’s in charge now in Faerie?”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “There are some generals who have stepped in to keep the peace while…” A heavy exhale. “I guess they have to find someone who’s next of kin to the royals but wasn’t in the throne room. Some distant relative, maybe? I don’t know.”
She peered at Basil out of the corner of her eye. If not for his mixed heritage, he would qualify to contend for the throne. Provided he lived… Which, considering her plans, he wouldn’t, so it was a moot point.
Shaking off that line of thinking, she continued, “But there is talk about someone completely new taking over. Some are saying it’s time for fresh blood. A new line of royals, not related to the old ones.”
Basil was silent for a moment. “That’s going to be messy.”
Again, he’d grasped it, his mind truly quick on the uptake.
She sighed. “Yeah. It’s quite possible there’ll be some sort of civil war if this escalates. The military might keep some of it in check, but if there’s discord among the generals regarding whose claim to support, Faerie will bleed.”
“Damn.” He shook his head. “The fae who slaughtered the court sure did some major damage. What’s their motive, if not to usurp the throne?”
Isa raised her brows. “Well…let’s put it this way—every single member of the royal court had blood on their hands, and—as the humans say—an entire graveyard in their closet.”
Basil snorted, then caught himself. “Skeletons.”
“What?”
“The idiom is ‘skeletons in the closet.’” His grin made her stomach flip.
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “The fae nobility has been corrupted by cruelty over time, and all of them had more than one skeleton in their closets. Enough to give plenty of people plenty of reasons to take bloody revenge.”
“Are you saying they all deserved to die?”
“No.” Her chest drew tight with the knowledge she was among those with blood on their hands. Or, at least she’d helped the royal fae bloody their hands. Still, the sins of her past paled in comparison to the rotting darkness that had pervaded the court.
“I didn’t wish for them to die,” she said, her gaze on the intricate wood carvings in the facade of a house up ahead. “But I don’t mourn them either.”
Basil exhaled through his nose. “Considering the threat of unrest here in Faerie, I’d say it’s even more urgent to get Rose out.”
