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“So you’re saying that if Sai loses his grip on power, the citizens of the Kostya Kingdom could raise up one of these incompetent noblemen as the next king?” Olympus asked.
I shrugged. “That’s one possibility.” I glanced to Magnus. “There’s another one that you’re not going to like.”
“What is that?” Magnus asked, radiating seriousness.
I sighed. “It’s something my aunt said two months ago. I noted it at the time, but I’ve had so much going on that I haven’t been able to think about it much or do any research to back it up. Aunt Aethel heard directly from my mother, who was present when Gomez ordered my father to sell me to the wolves, that Gomez had support from the Old Realm. Not only that, the men from the Old Realm who helped him gain power on the frontier were the same ones who were involved in getting rid of the old king and putting the new one in place.” I hesitated, then added as I stared at Magnus, “Your brother.”
That had Magnus sitting up so suddenly I was afraid he’d break his back. “Do you know who they were? Do you have names?”
I shook my head. “That’s all I know. Except—” I shifted to look at Olympus. “My aunt also said the same people were involved in trying to decide the outcome of the election for the leader of Good Port. Only they didn’t succeed in having the candidate they wanted put on whatever throne you now have in Good Port.”
Olympus and Lefric looked alarmed at that. More than I would have thought the information would alarm them. I knew it was shocking that a faction from the Old Realm had attempted to tamper with the election for leader of Good Port, but not that shocking.
“You don’t think….” Lefric began, but didn’t finish his sentence.
“There might be a connection,” Olympus said, looking so grave it unnerved me. “They failed the first time, but what if they try again?”
“If it was someone from the Old Realm, maybe they didn’t understand the way elections work in Good Port,” Lefric said. “The election was two years ago, right?”
“Right.” Olympus nodded.
“What if they learned their lesson and put a mole in the household of the winner of the election—or rather, the business—so that if someone called for another election, the Hakobyan family wouldn’t win by virtue of being the wealthiest?”
Olympus frowned. “Was it Ivor Lobe, then? Was he the one who killed Gregorius? Or maybe had him killed?”
Lefric pinched his face as if unsure. “What would be the point of killing the man who was working to bring down the Hakobyan family from the inside? If the point was to change the outcome of an election, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep Gregorius where he was?”
“But you discovered what he was up to,” Olympus said. “You figured it out. Therefore, Gregorius became a liability. If he was working for someone in the Old Realm, someone who was, and likely still is, plotting to put my father’s leadership in question and call for another election, he might have confessed something.”
“Which was why he had to die,” Lefric said, slumping back in his chair as though something suddenly made sense.
I had no idea what they were talking about. Not even a little bit. Jace and Gennadi looked confused as well, though Gennadi looked like he was thinking hard. Avenel lifted his head from my leg to look questioningly at me, and I shrugged.
Magnus seemed to know what they were talking about, however. Magnus always knew what everyone was talking about.
“As much as it intrigues me that you have discovered a motive for your secretary’s death,” he said, “and as pressing as I’m certain it is to uncover who might be attempting to undermine the leadership of Good Port, particularly if they have connections to the Old Realm, I have my doubts as to whether this will be a topic that comes up for discussion in this afternoon’s negotiations.”
I let out a breath, a little disappointed that I wasn’t about to be filled in on something that sounded like an exciting mystery. I also hoped that there was a way to bring up whatever the mystery was at the meeting of Sons tonight, in case we all needed something besides pupdom to talk about.
“Aside from the attitude of city-dwellers remaining unchanged and the possibility that Sai is not as secure as king as we would like, what else should I know?” Magnus asked, focusing the conversation again. “What have you learned about Jorgen and his reasons for wanting to be present at these meetings? Why was he outside of Yakutsk to begin with? Yakutsk is significantly farther east than I would have expected Jorgen to be.”
I swallowed hard, feeling deeply inadequate at the reminder of how I’d accidentally invited Jorgen to the meetings.
“I don’t know,” I said, glancing down to where Avenel had rested his head on my leg again. He was staring at Gennadi…who was now watching Avenel in turn. “He said he wanted to talk about reinstating faires, but I think that was just an excuse.”
Magnus’s brow flew up. So did Jace’s and Lefric’s.
“Reinstating faires?” Jace said, glancing to Magnus. “That might be a good idea.”
“It might,” Magnus said, though I couldn’t tell if he really thought so. He was as enigmatic as Jorgen. I wondered if giving an answer without giving an answer was something wolf leaders learned after years in the forest.
“Whether that was Jorgen’s true purpose or not,” I went on, “I never found out for certain. Jorgen is extraordinarily clever. I think I tried to ask him more about it, but he steered me away from the topic and then…I forgot.”
Magnus sent me a sympathetic look. “Jorgen is clever, don’t feel bad. I should be able to figure out what he was doing, though, because I’m cleverer.”
I smiled at the deliberately arrogant way Magnus delivered the statement and felt a little easier. I knew Magnus would make me feel better, about a lot of things.
“I will say one thing,” I said, a thought suddenly occurring to me. “Whatever Jorgen’s reasons for loitering near Yakutsk, whether it was reinstating faires or something else, I think he gave the idea up when he found out about the meeting.”
