“The Deathseeker, Levi, was not the only casualty of the Blight runes. A sudden spate of blighted folk followed in the days and weeks after Tea and the others had fled. One of—one of my handmaids changed in front of my very eyes in the middle of the throne room, followed quickly by three more courtiers. We were clearly intended to be the targets. But Fox killed them on his own.” A small smile graced her lips. “He was incredible.”

“Inessa,” Lord Fox began, a touch of embarrassment about his person.

She waved him aside. “But Hestia, in a moment of madness, accused him of an assassination attempt and confined him to the dungeons. Word was quick to spread among the soldiers and Deathseekers, and they rallied to his cause. Only Dark asha can complete the Blight spell, and Fox, while a familiar, could not draw in the Dark. Her unjust punishment of him worked to our advantage. Enough people in the city protested—I told you all our charity work was more than show, Fox—and the association was forced to release him. Several weeks ago, there was another wave of blighted, only this time Fox saved Hestia as well.”

Only for the elder to die a horrible death in Daanoris. “But was the Dark asha’s name cleared?”

“In a sense, yes, but so were the elders’. They could not complete the spell on their own. They claimed withholding the forbidden runes was to prevent a wayward Dark asha from getting her hands on them. We could never prove the case for Mykkie’s heartsglass, but even Mykkie thought them innocent. Tea was out of Kion’s borders and too far away to cause mischief. It was an impasse of sorts.”

“But not the murder of her sister?”

The princess’s smile wobbled. “No. Not that. But…Fox was the only witness. Without him, the case against Tea was weak. In the end, that’s what finally convinced the elders that he wasn’t on her side. It was the only charge they could lodge against her that we couldn’t successfully argue against.”

“I had to confess everything to Mykkie, to ensure she had all the resources she needed to defend Tea.” Lord Fox was stony eyed, impassive. “I had to. But that meant informing the elders of what truly happened. In the end, it didn’t matter. One of my sisters is dead. Killed by our own sister. There is no side to take.” He flipped through the rest of the bone witch’s pages. “We’re taking too long,” he snapped at his own impatience. “If there is a clue here, then surely we should see it to the end…”

He stopped and spoke my worst nightmare. “These pages are unfinished. The last page—it breaks off in the middle of a sentence.”

“What?” It was my turn to stand, to rush and scan the pages myself.