Ren sighed. “I know. He stopped by last night.” Before Akeylah had come to visit, Ren had feigned sleep and listened to her mother and Danton’s whispered conversation. He’d sounded truly concerned, voice hoarse with worry. And yet.

Danton was still engaged to marry Lexana. Something he didn’t tell Ren about when, just a couple of days before announcing the betrothal, Danton spent the night in Ren’s chambers.

She’d finally decided to trust him again. Finally opened her heart once more. And this was how he repaid her. Sun above, had he already been promised to Lexana the night they…?

“Are you thinking of seeing him again?” Audrina studied Ren from the corner of an eye.

“Of course not.” Ren groaned. “You were right to warn me off him, Aud.”

“Someday you’ll learn I’m always right.” Audrina smirked. Then her smile fell. “I am sorry, though. I know how you felt about him.”

“How are you doing?” Ren asked, suddenly conscious that she hadn’t the faintest clue what was happening in her best friend’s life of late.

“Oh, you know. The usual. Catering to impossibly pampered ladies’ every whim.”

Ren grimaced in sympathy. “Who have you been assigned to?”

“Lexana,” Audrina replied with a groan, surprising Ren.

“I always thought Lexana was one of the good ones. Taste in fiancés aside.” In fact, she pitied Lexana. For the rest of her life, she’d be yoked to Danton, a man without honor or care for others.

But Aud scowled. “Sun above, no. Or if she used to be decent, time in the Keep has spoiled her. She has me up at odd hours escorting her through the servants’ corridors, dropping concealed letters into the mail trays. Even asked me to string up privacy curtains in some unused bedchamber. Sun only knows what she gets up to in there—she had me awake all night changing the locks on it two days ago. Before… well, ah.”

Before I almost died.

Ren recalled Audrina’s wan face that morning, before the attack. Aud had asked to take a nap in her bed, and Ren couldn’t say no. So she went to the public baths to give her friend some privacy and much-needed rest.

“I had no idea Lexana would prove such a handful, Aud. Can I do anything to help?” Even as she spoke, her mind raced. Sending hidden letters, building a secret hideout?

Aud flashed a grateful look. “Would you mind asking Madam Oruna for a transfer?”

Belatedly, Ren remembered the list Akeylah had pulled together, way back before they settled on Yasmin as the likely perpetrator. Her sister had made a list of every noble descended from the outer Reaches’ former royal lineages—people who’d stand to inherit if Andros died without a viable heir. Lady D’Rueno Lexana had been on that list.

Not only that, but Lexana was a cousin.