“In here.” Angoulême flung open the doors to a large room, and ignoring my aching arms, I carried the box over to a table. “Open it, and let us see if the damage warranted such behavior.”

I did as he asked, flinching when he reached over my shoulder to pluck up one of the little figurines.

“It’s gold!” He turned and threw the glittering figure at the wall with such force that it smashed through the plaster. Something crashed in the neighboring room, and I heard an exclamation of disgust. Seconds later, the Dowager Duchesse entered, and my heart sank.

Angoulême rounded on Roland. “Do you have any idea how much that half-blood was worth?”

Shoving me out of the way, Roland went to the box and began pulling out the little figures. “Oh, they are gold!”

“Roland.”

My hands and feet felt like ice, but sweat dribbled down my back. I would rather have lain naked in a pit of vipers than spend another second in this room. But I could not leave without being dismissed, and none of the three were paying me any mind.

The boy shrugged. “Well, given the fight he put up, I suppose he must have been expensive.” What they were having for dinner probably would have interested him more than the man he’d just murdered in cold blood.

“How many times do I have to explain to you…” Angoulême broke off, his eyes flicking to me. “You are dismissed.”

I dropped into curtsies for all three of them, then backed out of the room, keeping my face low. Closing the door behind me, I started toward the front entrance, but then I stopped. If they were about to have a row, wasn’t it better that I listen in on it? They had unwittingly invited their enemy into their midst, and wouldn’t I be a fool not to take advantage of that?

You’d be a fool to stay, I all but heard Tristan whisper in my ear, but I ignored him. Spying a doorway to an antechamber, I quietly went inside. Pressing my ear to the wall, I listened.

“I enjoy doing it. There is no other reason,” Roland snapped, and I could imagine his arms crossed, lovely blood-smeared face petulant.

“You cannot keep killing out of hand, Your Highness. Your father might still reinstate Tristan as heir, and you would not care for that to happen, would you?”

The house trembled. “He will not! I will be king!”

“No one wants that more than I, Your Highness.” Angoulême’s voice was soothing. “But well you know that we must play this tedious game of politics if we are to succeed. Your brother is a sly creature, and he has turned the people’s minds against us.”

“You were supposed to have him killed.”

“And I will.” Glass clinked against glass, and I envisioned the Duke pouring himself a drink to calm his irritation. “As much as I despise your brother, he is a Montigny. Felling him is no easy thing, and his human seems to have nine lives’ worth of luck.”