"Nobody at this table said you were near the coats," she says. Her voice is quiet. It reaches the gallery anyway. "Nobody told you what my daughter drank. Nobody mentioned a welcome supper."
Princeton's face changes. Only a little.
Enough.
"I was present," he says. "One remembers a dinner. Anyone would remember…"
"You remembered that you poured the drink," Ma says.
"I said no such thing."
"You did," Caden says.
He comes down the gallery stairs. Princeton looks up at his brother, and for the first time since I have known him, he has nothing ready.
Caden reaches the floor in his plain coat with sawdust on one sleeve. There is always sawdust on one sleeve now, although the things he makes are still terrible.
"I was at the welcome supper," he says. "Princeton poured Mirelle's cordial and my wine. He toasted our happiness."
"Caden," the Duke says. "Sit down."
"No." Caden doesn't look at him. "I thanked him that night, because I've spent fifteen years turning everything my brother does into something kinder than it is." His voice thins out, and he keeps going anyway. "Mirelle ended our engagement two days later. And now this room has heard him put himself at the wedding coats and at her cup."
One of the lawyers gets to his feet. "That proves no administration." He says it to the Duke, not to us.
The auditor opens his little gray ledger. "Not alone," he agrees pleasantly.
Princeton's head turns.
"The archive contains a payment from Lord Princeton's private account to a spell-broker in Valeforth, made the morningafter the wedding." The auditor peers over his spectacles. "The notation readsidentification and discretion."
Princeton goes white.
"The broker confirms that a young nobleman brought him an unlabelled draught in a pale glass vial and paid to learn what it did. His commitment to discretion weakened considerably once the Crown informed him we had his name."
A witness. A payment. Princeton's own mouth tying the two of them together.
Then the room breaks apart. The lawyers stand. Pa's fist comes down on the table. The Duke turns on his eldest son and every trace of sleepiness goes out of his face.
I barely hear any of it, because Mirelle has come down two steps.
Gods, don't let her do this to herself.
She looks at Princeton with one hand pressed flat against her chest. The potion still holds. No anger comes rushing back because the villain has been named, and no love returns because Caden is standing beneath her.
But she remembers.
"You poured my cup," she says.
Her voice is polite and flat and wrong, and the Hall quiets for her anyway.
"You made a joke about the cordial. I laughed." She frowns, concentrating. "I know I should be angry." Her fingers press harder. "I can't reach it."
Caden moves half a step and stops himself.
"It feels like there's something on the other side of a door," Mirelle says. "And I keep…" She stops, and her hand comes down. Then she looks at him. "You kept sending me birds."
"Every day."
