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“You have nowhere else to find that?” He looked doubtful. “Come now, you’re far too clever for this kind of thinking.”

“There is no time, Gideon.” The trill of the note held for the remainder of the measure.

“Gathering the council takes time, Avery,” Gideon countered. “So even if I agreed with you, this would not be something I could give you instantaneously.”

“The way they are dying is the same.” It was the last resort. “I don’t know what it is, a relic of some kind perhaps, a creature with a death gaze, but I do know you have to look at it, and when you do, it drives you to self-destruction.”

Gideon’s expression was unreadable—not that it was blank, but that it was one Avery couldn’t quite place if she’d ever seen it before. She might have called it dread if she thought the elf was capable of such an emotion. When he spoke, he was quiet. “Did you see it?”

Avery shook her head. “No. However, John Hingley used a mirror to bring about his own demise. Both victims first attacked their eyes and then continued their onslaught when destroying their own sight did not erase the images from their minds. I found fresh scratches on glass at both crime scenes, which is some of the only evidence our murderer left, but each suggests a location where the victim was looking before they perished.” She peered at Gideon suspiciously. “Do you know what it is?”

The man’s silver eyes focused behind her on the door, verifying that it was firmly shut before he spoke. “The day you felled the Erlking, a few shards of glass were found among the blood. Small. Slivers, really. It was widely assumed they were pieces of the blade you refused to identify.”

“Would it have changed anything if I had?”

Gideon shook his head. “You murdered the king. For that your fate was sealed. Had he been less than a mad tyrant, a graver one may have awaited you.” There was something on his mind. It was troubling whenever he looked at her like that—a little too intently, yet with a focus that existed far beyond her. He was looking through her as if the object of his concern manifested behind her. “Out of precaution, Fáfnir cleaned the glass shards up for evidence at the scene. He’d barely looked into them before dropping to his knees, weeping and attempting to bring himself to harm.”

Avery’s stomach lurched. So her father’s death and these murders were also in some way connected. “But clearly you stopped him. You were able to put him to his true mind.”

“He was sedated for his own good, and healers were summoned. We are still not sure if it was their work or merely time that helped him. But if that is what you’re dealing with—if it is something that can have that much power over a dragon… I do not envy the Mundane who sees their own reflection in it.”

“Fáfnir is convinced nothing has been stolen from the vault.”

Gideon shook his head. “Fáfnir doesn’t remember the shards. I suspect due to his temporary madness. I destroyed them in the end, but they were mere splinters, Avery. I knew they were part of something bigger, even before the vault gave me the name.”

“What name?”

“I understand you are not able to speak against the person who gave you that sword,” Gideon spoke quietly. “So please understand when I ask you this, it is not to convince you to break it.”

Avery’s muscles tensed. She had no reason to protect Iona, yet the thought of Gideon discovering her involvement in the plot against their father sent a chill through her.

“Did my mother give you that sword?”

Relief at not hearing Iona’s name should have eased the growing tension within her, but instead it grew so intense Avery was certain her heart had stopped. Her shock spoke for her, and Gideon’s expression became all the more grim.

“If you do not deny it, I will conclude my assumption is correct.”

“She did not.” Avery spoke quickly. “That is not a prompting of the geas. Queen Ulla does not have me under such contract—if she did, you know I would not be able to speak of it so directly.”

“You would not,” Gideon conceded.

Was he comforted or disappointed by this news? She could not let this drop. Not now. Avery knew where she had got the sword, but she herself had wondered where Iona had got her hands on such an item. “Why do you believe it was her?”

“Because there is not a day since your imprisonment I have not thought about our father, and every time I have wondered about that sword, I asked myself, who stood to benefit the most from his death?”

No. Avery had admittedly been influenced by revenge, but she had made that decision on her own. “Coincidence for her, I assure you.”

Gideon rested his chin on his folded hands. “A coincidence that eliminated her husband, imprisoned his bastard, and rendered her the Winter Court’s sole ruler in Faerie.”

It was damning. It was no secret to anyone who spent time in their castle that there was no love lost between Queen Ulla and King Anselm. “Is that the only evidence you have against her?”

“It is supposition at best, I know.” Gideon frowned. “But finding those shards and knowing what they do…” His eyes moved over Avery. “You do not remember him before the madness. You were a child.”

“You think something caused his madness.”

“I do not know what to think.”

“A mystery to solve at another time.”