Maralinde glances at me, and it’s the first time I have seen her looking truly angry, her brown eyes dark and her features pale. “Someone stole—”

“This morning,” Lady Emmanika says with such cutting, cold precision that everyone falls silent, “something was taken from my rooms. A brooch that has been in my family for generations.”

A brooch. My gaze flicks from the servants to the onlookers, searching out a face, and there, standing to the side, is Valka, with my brother beside her. He appears faintly entertained, she amused. Was it a brooch she was holding this morning?

Surely not.

“I understand that only the servants have been through this hallway during our absence. So I ask each of you, who has it? Return it to me, and you’ll escape with a flogging. If you do not, I shall have everyone searched, and all your belongings, and whoever is found guilty shall be executed. That is the law, and I shall have no compunction in seeing to it.”

The servants shake their heads. “Please, my lady,” the eldest says. “I don’t know how it’s happened. Perhaps we can help look for it? None of us would have taken anything.”

“There is nowhere to look,” Emmanika snaps. “It was taken from my jewelry box, which I set aside this morning in preparation for our departure. The box was left open, no less, and the brooch is nowhere around it. The work of a foolish, thoughtless thief.”

Or an arrogant, uncaring one, who wished to cause trouble. When I look toward Valka again, she is whispering something to my brother, their heads bowed together. What did she intend? Just to cause a disruption? If she has the brooch, no amount of searching will turn it up. But surely she won’t keep it? She likes creating a scene, and she should be well-pleased with this one. No doubt she’ll slip the brooch back into its place later today, and Emmanika will have to admit it was found—a humiliating admission for her to make after all of this, but she has enough dignity and self-respect to know it must be done.

Valka steps forward and gives a small curtsy. “I think I might be able to help, my lady.”

“Indeed, child?”

“I was passing through earlier and saw a girl coming out of your room.” She lifts a finger and points to the youngest of the servants, a girl no older than I am, with limp brown hair pulled back in a braid. I’ve seen her before, darting between tables at dinner, trying to avoid attention even as she sets out the meal. “Perhaps you should have her searched.”

No. I shake my head, even as the girl immediately pleads her innocence, and Emmanika orders the guard holding the girl to search her. No, no, no.