Master Tulii. Dammit. Anything can go wrong, and something will. Durzo hadn’t been betrayed. There was no grand scheme. That name meant that one of the king’s spies had been watching the Drakes. Probably just routine spying on a formerly powerful man. The spy had seen Durzo enter and had recognized him. Probably the spy had been one of the guards the king had tried to awe him with in the statue garden. It didn’t matter.

“Oh, I wish Brant were here right now to see that look on your face, Durzo Blint. In fact, where is Brant?” the king asked a chamberlain.

“Sire, he’s in the castle now, on his way here to report. He went to the Gyre estate after investigating . . . matters at the Jadwin estate.”

Durzo’s throat tightened. Agon would have put the pieces together about Kylar. If he came in while Durzo was still here, Durzo would die.

The king shrugged. “His loss.” At the word, grief and fury rippled through the little king, and he seemed abruptly a different man. “You let them kill my boy, you shit, so I’m going to kill yours. His death will come from the last hand he’d expect, and it will be arriving—oh!—any moment now.”

“I heard you had a little tussle with Logan last night,” Count Drake said.

Kylar blinked through bleary eyes and went from dead tired to wide-awake in the space of a second. He’d only slept for a few hours, and he’d had the nightmare again. Every death he saw made him dream of Rat’s.

They were seated at the breakfast table and Kylar had a forkful of egg poised in front of his mouth. He stuffed it in to give himself a little time. “Mit wuv nuffin,” he said.

This was a disaster. If Count Drake knew about the fight, he might know about the prince’s death. Kylar had thought that he’d have time to pack his things and leave this morning before the Drakes got word. That he needed to leave was undeniable. He just thought he’d have a little more time.

“Serah was quite upset,” the count said. “She took Logan to her aunt’s house near the Jadwins’ to have his wounds tended. She just got back a few minutes ago.”

“Oh.” Kylar chewed more eggs mechanically. If Serah had left right after the fight, she and Count Drake didn’t know about the prince yet. Apparently Kylar’s perfect streak of bad luck was breaking. But now that he knew that matters of life and death weren’t threatening him, he realized that Serah coming home and telling Count Drake what had happened last night would have other implications.

“I gave Logan my permission to propose to her yesterday. You knew that, didn’t you?”