Durkhanai saw that the letters were from two people: one outside, one inside.

The one from within gave him tips and tricks.

Durkhanai is overly emotional . . . she has never hated anyone in her entire life . . . she is young and foolish . . . she is naive and silly . . . Durkhanai enjoys being right . . . she is stubborn and childish . . . too easily trusting . . . her favorite line of poetry is . . .

And the advice went on, saying how she was a princess doted on by all but one who craved someone to challenge her. The pretty little princess who wasn’t taken seriously and thus craved responsibility. The Shehzadi whose greatest weakness was her family. How she was overly emotional and could be reckless and barbaric and frivolous and much too easily trusting—and on and on.

Somebody had given Asfandyar the blueprints to Durkhanai’s soul, and it had to be somebody close to her.

Close enough to know her almost as well as she knew herself.

But who could betray her thus?

Durkhanai felt stripped bare in front of a laughing crowd, but no matter how she reached for clothing, she could not cover herself again.

Somebody close to her, somebody who knew her and knew her well had been feeding Asfandyar information, telling him about her. She thought she recognized the handwriting but she couldn’t quite place it, but that was irrelevant, then.

All she could think about was how everything between her and Asfandyar had been planned. It had been mechanical, all of it.

But for what?

Then she saw.

The letters from the outside, giving him orders, telling him secrets. Describing where medicine would be, how the passageways worked, the ins and outs of the palace. How the people would react to certain things, but the Shehzadi would be too distracted to notice, too enamored to care.

And all of this to keep the Shehzadi busy as Asfandyar ran his own investigations—to prove Marghazar was behind the summit attack. The letters told Asfandyar where to look, and when it seemed they couldn’t find anything concrete, the letters told Asfandyar all he had to do was get the Badshah’s seal—the evidence could then be forged.

But who could have known such intimate details? Nobody had ever left Safed-Mahal.

Worse still, she had fallen directly into Asfandyar’s trap. She had led him to the Badshah’s office. She had shown him precisely where the seal was.

Durkhanai recalled that day—how they left together, so he couldn’t have stolen the seal right then. But then she remembered how he had pulled her waist when he thought someone was coming—he must have stolen the key at that time, while she was distracted, then gone back to steal the Badshah’s seal.

What a fool she had been.

Then her gaze caught on a few lines.

Marghazar will splinter with civil unrest, and faith in the Shehzadi will drop due to her association with you.