But the sight of Marc’s stifled grief kept me silent. Anaïs’s death was as much my fault as my father’s. I might not have put the spear through her chest, but the impostor hadn’t been wrong when she said I’d done nothing to save her. She might still be alive if only I’d tried harder, if only I’d tried bringing a witch to Trollus, if only…

“I’m sorry.” The words were clipped.

“You had to make a choice,” he finally replied. “You chose. Now you have to live with the consequences” – he squared his shoulders – “and not squander what was paid for in blood.”

The consequences: not only Anaïs’s life, but those of dozens of others. The punishment my friends endured for helping me. The sacrifice of years of planning. The destruction of the half-bloods’ hope for freedom. All to save one life.

A life that was once again in jeopardy.

“And there is always vengeance.”

A charge of eagerness surged through me, ideas and plans swirling about in my head. “There is that.”

“Do you know who the impostor is?”

“No,” I said, picking up one of my eggs, carefully cracking it and peeling away the shell. “But I intend to find out.”

We spent the rest of that day in mourning, first delivering the news to Vincent, who took it badly, and then later, when the mining shifts changed, to Victoria, who took it worse.

In quiet voices, Marc and I debated who could be impersonating Anaïs. The list was short. For one, Anaïs had been one of the most powerful trolls living, and there were only a few women with enough raw power to fool those close to her. Two, the troll would need to have known Anaïs well enough to imitate her voice and mannerisms. And three, it had to be someone who could go absent for days at a time without it being noticed.

“Her grandmother?” Marc suggested. “Damia’s always been something of a recluse.”

I frowned, bending my mind around the idea of the Dowager Duchesse posing as her granddaughter. “If anyone could manage it, it would be her. But…” It didn’t feel right. Whoever it was, she was in collusion with my father, and those two hated each other. “I don’t see how she or Angoulême could profit from this sort of deception.” I shook my head once. “I don’t think it’s her.”

“Then who? Who could it possibly be?”

I tilted my head from side to side, listening to my neck crack. “I have no idea.” Not only that, I had no idea how she was doing it. Creating the illusion was easy enough, but keeping it in place day and night, never letting it slip. That was no mean feat. It wasn’t only a matter of walking around and looking like Anaïs, it was a matter of becoming her. A fragile act that could be destroyed with one direct question: are you really Anaïs? Because no troll could say yes.