“You think you’re the only person I have working on this, Brant? My spies have already told me. Logan was behind it all. That bitch Trudana just cooperated. I’ve already sent men to arrest him.”

Agon reeled. It couldn’t be. In fact, he was sure it wasn’t. “Why would Logan do such a thing?” he asked. “Logan was one of your son’s best friends. He’s isn’t ambitious in the least. By the gods, he just got engaged to Serah Drake. A count’s daughter!”

“It didn’t have anything to do with power or ambition, Brant. It was jealousy. Logan felt that my son had totally humiliated him over some trivial matter. You know how boys get. It’s just like the Gyres to covet our every success. Besides, I have witnesses who heard Logan threaten him.”

It was all rattling together, the pieces spinning and falling into place. Kylar Stern, the false noble, the wetboy, was a close friend of Logan’s. In a fit of rage, Logan hired Kylar to kill the prince. It all fit—except that it was Logan. Agon knew him, and he didn’t believe it.

“Which wetboy did they hire, Brant?” the king asked.

“It was Kylar Stern,” Agon said.

The king snorted. “Huh. The gods must be with me for once.”

“Sire?”

“I just hired Hu Gibbet’s apprentice to go kill him, a girl wetboy, if you can believe it. Kylar is Blint’s apprentice. Or was. He’s probably dead by now.”

Kylar is Blint’s apprentice? The picture that had been slowly spinning together burst apart. The king had hired Blint! Blint’s apprentice wouldn’t have killed his employer’s son. Would he?

The name Hu Gibbet had been carved into the bodies at the Gyre estate. Of course, only a fool would carve his own name onto such a massacre. But from his hours at the estate, Agon was sure that all the murders had been the work of a single man. He could think of no one who could kill so many people except a wetboy, and the style certainly fit what he had heard of Hu Gibbet. He couldn’t imagine Durzo Blint mutilating bodies. Blint would consider it unprofessional.

Hu Gibbet would only sign his name if he thought the authorities would never have a chance to come after him. The king said the prince’s murder didn’t have anything to do with power, but this was Cenaria. Everything had to do with power.

If Durzo Blint’s apprentice really had killed the prince, why would he have left a witness? Blint’s apprentice would be as professional as Blint himself. A witness was a loose end that was easy to tie up.

It was all about power.

Agon scowled. “Has there been any word from our garrison at Screaming Winds?”

“No.”