But suddenly a huge bang echoed, and Constance was flung to the floor. Red light flashed behind her eyes; pain racked her body. At first, she was certain she’d find the head of an arrow sticking from her heart—but there was no wound. No blood. Except … she raised a hand to her face, feeling a warm trickle from her nose. It was as if an invisible door had been slammed in her face. She was dizzy. Confused. Her brain carried out an absurd dialogue with itself somewhere beneath the ringing in her ears. She had no doubt what had happened was magic—but how?

The gauntlet.

She started to think more clearly as she connected the pieces. She had told her men to search the Justice’s rooms for magical items, or even clockwork. They had found none—beyond a perfectly harmless grandfather clock. She too had searched the rooms, in her mask, for signs of magic as an extra precaution—and found nothing. But what if the clockwork had been disguised … say, in a ceremonial suit of armor? And what if it hadn’t yet been activated, and therefore wasn’t revealed by the spell-scape?

Stupid. Now everything is ruined.

“We have a mage among us,” the Justice bellowed at the congregation. “A snake at the very heart of Duke’s Forest. How could you allow this, you who claim to be faithful to the Ancestors?”

She turned her neck awkwardly from her position on the floor, her head spinning as she looked over her shoulder at the Justice, blood trickling down her chin. The spell had been disguised. To outsiders, it must have looked as if she’d simply tripped. In his hand, the one without the gauntlet, the Justice was holding the ducal crown.

Dr. Thorn had warned her about some trick, some magic belonging to the Justice himself … Her eyes caught on the metal gauntlet. Could she see a cog turning somewhere on its wrist?

The people closest to Constance had backed away, but now Winton rushed down the hall to his sister’s side. He knelt beside her, helping her sit up unsteadily. “Constance,” he murmured, his face already bruising from the Justice’s blow. “Constance, are you all right?” She struggled to focus on his eyes, dark like his mother’s—and his mother’s features echoed in his face. But he was not his mother. His eyes were swimming with angry tears.

“I’m all right, Winton,” she whispered, although she wasn’t.

She heard the Justice’s footsteps approaching down the aisle, the clack-clack-clack of his boots in the stunned silence. But Winton refused to turn around, retrieving a handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it to Constance’s nose. She held it in place, winced as her entire face throbbed. The white cloth quickly bloomed red.

He turned to the Justice. “How dare you,” he said. “My sister is the Duchess. You cannot treat her this way!”