Page 178 of Whisper of Nightmares

“By all means, review it,” Dagfinn says. “While you do, allow me to introduce you all to the remaining Walsham heir.”

She turns toward the benches.

“Our very own Maryam Alley.”

Percival’s face goes utterly blank.

For one heartbeat, no one moves.

Then the hall erupts. They burst into discord—gasps and questions and shouted accusations ricocheting from one side of the hall to the other. For every person who looks delighted to see one of their own rise from obscurity, another wears an expression of outrage.

“Maryam?”

“She’s a Walsham?”

“The girl survived?”

Euphemia watches it all with a strange fascination.

The crowd is changing sides before her eyes.

All it took was one name.

“This is preposterous!” Percival’s voice rumbles among them.

Dagfinn rises like a mountain casting a valley in darkness, the mere height of him snuffing out the roaring of the room in one fell swoop.

He only has eyes for Percival, who he approaches with daunting intent.

Euphemia watches him go, her pulse thrumming with something dangerously close to triumph.

This is it.

They have him.

“Yes, it is quite preposterous,” Dagfinn growls. “Some might even say outright vile for a man of your standing to forge a deed to another man’s land, all in a selfish attempt to blackmail my mother into marrying him.”

The crowd is responsive, as always. No proof necessary for the vultures who’ve come to the slaughter.

Percival’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “I’ve done no such thing. If you hold a different deed, then I was unaware it existed. The one I’ve presented is the one I had knowledge of.”

“Oh?” Dagfinn asks, voice thundering. “Are you claiming Thurstan is the liar here then?”

Timing it perfectly, Dagfinn spins toward the smarmy man whom Euphemia cannot take her eyes from.

She knows Thurstan. Has witnessed him at his most sobered and most disorderly. She has watched him rally a room behind a cause in a matter of moments.

But she has also seen how quick he turns heel when the room has soured.

He is no leader willing to go down with his cause.

He is a cockroach.

And cockroaches survive because they know how to endure and hide.

Thurstan will always do what is in Thurstan’s most immediate interest.

Dagfinn flashes Euphemia a victorious glance.