Matteo’s eyebrows dip and he looks like he wants to say something to her, but he stops himself and closes his mouth. Maybe he’s going easy on her because she’s in grief or maybe he’s just more mature than she is. But whatever the reason, I’m not paying attention to Aarya’s needling, I’m staring at Matteo.

“The punch…,” I say, my voice trailing off. “It was Blackwood, wasn’t it? Blackwood told you to punch me.” My thoughts race as I connect the dots. “So everyone would believe we were enemies, completely disguising the reason I was there.” The best poisons are psychological and emotional, Professor Hisakawa taught us. “And Conner redirected his energy to me.” I look at my dad. “Oh my god. You knew Conner would want to kill me more than he wanted to kill Matteo.” The question I don’t ask, though, is how did my dad know Conner wouldn’t succeed?

“Truthfully, it was more than the Lions’ attack on Matteo that we needed to prevent,” my dad says. “If Conner’s actions remained hidden, the Lions would have succeeded in systematically killing the best students from noncompliant Families, and the surviving young Strategia would have been forever tilted in the Lions’ favor. Either because they were fearful or because they were loyal, the remaining Strategia would have grown up pledged to Jag. Change the young, change the world. My father knew this, hence beginning his attack at the Academy. What you did in that school is every bit as important as what we accomplished out here.”

We’re all silent for a moment.

“When Rose realized what her father was planning at the Academy, we all decided it was time to take action,” my dad continues, but I cut him off.

“Rose? You were talking to Rose?” I say. Ines surmised he needed a contact in the Lion Family to pull off the Regent murder, but it never occurred to me it was Rose.

My dad nods. “We’ve been in contact for some years now.”

“Angus,” Ash says, shifting gears. “He mentioned the Ferryman to November. Did he know it was you?”

My dad nods. “Angus is an old friend,” he says. “He’s known me since I was a boy. And the tip you acquired about Hawk’s crew being vulnerable, while true, was also orchestrated by him.”

Ash raises an eyebrow, clearly impressed by my father.

“Logan was another story, however,” my dad says. “There was no avoiding him, but there was also no controlling him.”

“Exactly what I said!” Aarya says, and gives Ash a vindicated look.

“And Hawk’s crew,” Ash says. “They were in your employ the entire time?”