The bailiffs removed Remp, who glared at the jury out of piggy eyes that tried to bore holes in them. The jury studiously ignored him, and filed out to the deliberation room behind the courtroom. The audience whispered among themselves. Dudley continued to scan them while his mother wept into her handkerchief. He made no effort at all to comfort her.

It couldn’t have been more than a quarter candlemark before the bailiff assigned to the jury returned and led the jury back in. The man they had appointed to speak for them stood, while the rest sat.

“I am to assume you have reached a verdict,” the judge stated.

“We have, your Honor,” stated the man, whom Abi did not recognize but whose clothing proclaimed him to be at least as prosperous as Remp. He handed the bailiff a slip of paper, who in turn handed it to the judge. The judge read it.

“Bailiffs, you may inform the accused that he has been judged guilty on all charges. I hereby sentence him to ten years in gaol for every child in his contemptible enterprise, sentences to be served consecutively, for a total of one hundred eighty years.” The judge banged his gavel on the bench. “Remand him to custody immediately. Jury, you are dismissed. Clear the courtroom.”

The voice of Remp’s wife, giving vent to her feelings in a wordless wail, soared over the babble. The judge cast a single look of pity in her direction, then left.

The trial was over.

Abi had expected to feel elated, or at least satisfied, but . . . instead, she was only filled with a sense of discontent. She hung back while the room cleared, trying to analyze her feelings, but couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation. Eventually, she left the now empty room, sure of only one thing.

This wasn’t over yet. Not for her.

•   •   •

It proved pretty easy to follow her father’s directive that she wasn’t to do anything without witnesses; after all, she spent almost all of her hours when she was not at classes either studying with Brice, Emmit, and Rudi, or with Trey, Niko, and Kat. Or with all six, since getting together for math help had gotten to be a regular event. Regular enough that King Sedric decided to give the three actual appointments as royal tutors and pay them, much to their delight and amazement. If Dudley tried any schemes to accuse Abi of anything, she never heard anything about it, probably because of those precautions.

She and Kat and Perry did get down to the Fair again for a run at some of the entertainments, all three of them dressed as apprentices. They managed to squeeze in an acrobat show, a play, an animal show, and a dance troupe, all in the same afternoon. But despite Kat’s urging, neither she nor Perry were particularly interested in shopping. Maybe because except for when they were actually in the tents, enjoying the shows, the two of them kept looking out of the corners of their eyes for cutpurses and those who might be acting as distractions.