The walk back from the hanging bodies was only fifty feet to round the er of the manor. It felt close to ten times that as I walked, the wind pig up. It carried a chilling bite that bit down to the bone. My hooves nervously clopped along the cobbles of the road at an uneven pace. There were Wat both sides, several within sight of me, and I still had enough magic to rot any shapeshifter I spotted till I could escape.

  It didn’t stop me fr to hurry up my pace even as my leg throbbed in protest. I still o exami myself, see how bad the break had been. It had looked horrible on the floor of the manor, but it didn’t feel anywhere hat body.

  An unwahought crept in my head at that thought. The Diabolism I’d ran through my leg to be able to move may have burnt out nerves, ized flesh. The reason it might not hurt might be because I was walking on a dead leg.

  I did my best not to think about that.

  I was he er now, nodding to the Watch as I passed.

  Guests were gathered in the front, most of them lying down, a few upright. Their servants were in their owion. A third where wounded were being treated, a couple of doctors. One of them had probably splinted my leg. A loose perimeter of Watch around them all, keeping anyone from leaving. I moved in, waving to them.

  “From Captain Malstein,” I said. “I might leave with a few others if that’s alright?”

  I didn’t spot any familiar faces; the three me traded gnces.

  “Not outside the estate,” One of them replied, and I nodded before limping past.

  Gregory Montague was talking to his brother Henry, and I limped over there first. No sign of either Dawes ashin disguised as Voltar.

  “Malvia,” Gregory called out. “I don’t suppose you get me out of here?”

  “I ,” I said. “Don’t know if it’s the best pce to be fht now. They’re keeping everyone here?”

  “Until they’re certain whose a shapeger and who isn’t.”

  “We do have an idea for the test,” I said back tory. “Albeit one I don’t think is going to work for more than a few people.”

  “We are not stabbing people,” he said. “Just think of how that’ll look in the papers if it came out there was a series of stabbings at one of my family’s parties. The sdal!”

  “I don’t o stab someone for it to work,” I said. “Just o apply it to skin. But again, we don’t have too much of the paralytic. Have they found that assistant cook whed for the carriages, Dalian?”

  “Not ated for yet,” Gregory said. “They’re still searg the manor, and they’ve fou bodies so far, besides the dead in the ballroom. None of them are him.”

  “Well, he’s either made his escape or is trying to experience life with a slit throat,” I said.

  “Unpleasant but probably true,” Henry Montague said. “Dalian has never seemed disloyal iime I’ve known him, but I’ve been gone for a while. Gregory?”

  Gregory was lost in thought for a moment. “His wife died. He had children, but I saw less of them after she passed. Maybe they’ve been kidnapped?”

  “If they were, they’re probably dead now,” I muttered. I’d been looking over the three groups: guests, servants, and wouhere was a group missing. I o-

  “There she is! One of the Bck Fme members!”

  One of the young noblewomen who’d grabbed my tail poi me, the statement delivered at a shriek that rang through my ears.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked while every head within fifty feet turned my way.

  “She’s got the same tattoo as the others. She’s one of them!” One of the younger nobles insisted.

  “I fought them,” I snarled back. “And this is not the same tattoo. You go bato that ballroom, and you’ll find rough work with needles. This was cut precisely into skin and beyond it. Does anyone need me to carve my skin off with a knife so you see this pattern carved into my bones?”

  That didn’t make any of them back off, and I was far too aware of how much my splint limited me all of a sudden.

  “Hold on folks,” Henry Montague said. “I ’t speak to the young dy’s allegiances, but she did help fight off that attack. I wasn’t the only one who saw. Mrs. Xang?”

  There was some demon down in hell dedicated to making my path be forcibly intersected. At least it was only Aunt Diwei standing nearby who looked my way and, to my astonishment, bowed in my dire.

  “Lord Montague speaks the truth,” she said stiffly as she straightened back up. “This oed the taint in her blood to fight those who could not. A credit to her triumphing over the influence of her race.”

  It was tempting to tell my auly what I thought of her pliment, especially the phrasing, but I swallowed that. Do not make things worse Malvia.

  “Thank you for the pliment, Mrs. Xang,” I said, matg her bow.

  Aunt Diwei’s eyes narrowed just a tad. Shite. I’d dohe bow too well, hadn’t I? Of course actually being o her had made her question if that movement was too practiced. She’s been one of the oo drill it ier the age of eight after all.

  “I must fess my part,” Gregory Montague said. “You all know how I tend to get myself into sticky situations. Well, there was a genuine with one of the ter ohat someone might try to kill me, so I hired someone reended as my bodyguard. I’ll not lie. Some of it was for other reasons besides her abilities.”

  That got both disapproving looks and chuckles, which I did my best to ignore as attentio off us again, and I resumed our discussion.

  “A quick question for the both of you. The band your father hired, do you see any of them?”

  Both of them stilled, and I bit down on my tongue. Gregory I got to aent, but I was hoping an army officer would have the wherewithal to not look pole-axed for everyoo see.

  “Do not start running through the guests, trying to spot them,” I warned. “The st thing we need is tipping any gers off. The Watch has done ts?”

  “As best as they could,” Henry Montague said. “There was a t, but well, we don’t have a full list.”

  “Of the guests?” I frowned as I sidered the implications of that.

  “The guests. The outside help. The guards were tracked but that’s because he aying them for time not spent guarding the archives.”

  “t on Father to keep track of it when money is involved.”

  “t on Father to keep track of everything but us,” a new voice said as a stranger walked up to us.

  A young brue woman in an evening dress walked up behind us.

  “Elise, I see you’ve finally left your beau for the evening,” Gregory said.

  “Elise. You’re the one who got making out with someone in your brother’s si, correct?” I asked.

  Elise Montague’s smile faded just a little, irritation creeping into her eyes.

  “Yes,” she replied. “That was me. To father’s eternal disgust. I suppose I should thank whoever attacked the party tonight that I actually got a ce to leave the manor. If father had his way, I’d be stuck there till he found someone more suitable for me to marry.”

  “Oh please Elise,” Gregory said with a chuckle. “You weren’t going to marry him. If you were, you would have picked ay room instead of choosing to lock lips over William. You know how easy it is to rouse him before he got poisoned.”

  “As opposed to you who tried the same within full view of the entire party?” She spat bad I suddenly became very ied iexture of the cobbles underh my hooves.

  “Now, that was all Miss Harrows idea,” Gregory said, and I started sidering if I could pull off the one-legged kick then colpse again like I had with Voltar.

  “Maybe we should focus on the possible loose band of shapegers and not who bears responsibility for certain as tonight?” I asked looking up and pretending not to see a few different smirks. “Their carriage would be he same servant’s entrance as before?”

  “It shouldn’t be anywhere else,” Gregory said as I led us past the cordon of Watch, quickly arranging our passage through, relutly adding Henry and Elise to those I’d po take through. “Then again, tonight has been a night of things not being where they should be.”

  “That it has. Miss and Captain Montague, before we go any further, I don’t suppose either of you are a secret mage of some kind? Just in case we are about to stumble across a group of gers.”

  Both Henry and Elise looked at me in mild bemusement while Gregory rolled his eyes.

  “I may not have mentioned my religious affiliation to Miss Harrow when we first met,” Gregory fided iher two. “So she might be suspicious of all of us as a result.”

  Elise Montague rolled her eyes. “It just slipped your mind like so many things do, don’t they brother?”

  “In my defense, during our first meeting, I was on my back with her on top,” Gregory said lightly. “A saber pressed against ohroat tends to make one’s mind bnk on importaails. As well as other thoughts trying to crowd them out.”

  Wait. Had he just-?

  Elise frowned. “One moment. I thought that was the oher accused of poisoning William? Katheryn Fara?”

  All three of them were now looking at me, Gregory sheepishly and his two siblings seargly.

  “I just want to make clear,” I said as calmly as I could, some bite leaking through into my words. “I have outlined, multiple times, why me poisoning your brother is possibly the stupidest possible thing I could do. Your father, with as little offeended as possible, has refused to listen at every opportunity.”

  “That sounds pretty insulting even with as little offense as possible,” Elise noted.

  “And something being moronic is hardly a defense,” Henry added. “Some of my superiors more notorious designs were utter stupidity but they still made them.”

  “Not to mention some of your defenses have been maybe a tou the ‘it would be ineffit to kill him this way’ side,” Gregory finished.

  Was he joining in on this? “I have no iive, no way of having done so, on top of which, in a case where shapegers are clearly involved, is any evidence your father was given even slightly solid?”

  The three siblings traded a look between them I couldn’t decipher.

  “Oh definitely not,” Gregory told me. “In all hoy I think pretending you weren’t Fara is just silly.”

  “Father’s never been the best at getting things right with people he looks down on,” Elise added. “Which you qualify for in several different categories.”

  I looked at Henry Montague, who simply shrugged.

  “I got here yesterday. I’ll take these two’s word that you didn’t poison William. That is what you two think right?”

  “She would, but she doesn’t have a o,” Gregory said.

  “I wasn’t going to be that harsh,” Elise said with a mildly reproving look at her brother. “Miss Harrow seems a bit rough around the edges, but I don’t see any reason why she’d poison William. And you know how father is when someos an idea in his head.”

  Gregory hadn’t been wrong, but I kept my mouth closed for now. Instead I tinued onwards to the wagons and carriages along the side of the manor.

  Watch patrols moved among those now, many of them with doors flung open. Dead Infernals y scattered across the ground leading to the manor side entrance. I limped past, waiting for the Montagues to pass by and direct me to the band’s carriage.

  It was a rge wagon, more rustic than I expected for them, the wooden door set in it’s side locked tight. A few minutes with some tools fixed that, and I opehe door.

  Inside were scattered instruments, some clearly damaged from the ck of care they’d been tossed around with, and the clothing the band had worn earlier, empty and with their owners nowhere in sight.

  “Iing,” I said, looking among the scattered clothing of the disappeared band. “Only two, hells only ohat rove went after your brother. But easily a dozen could have been here as the band. Two of them maybe went to lock up Voltar and Dawes, the off as me and Gregory...and did what? If a, they’d have mentio by now, and we ask if anyone saw us in the manor while we were fighting on the roof. So that’s four ated for? Out of twelve?”

  “Was it even Hawkins who killed Cab?” Gregory asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not, but that’s beside the point. This should have been easy. I don’t know what your father has on that third floor, but it was suffit to engage one ger but not enough to stop Hawkins from esg.”

  “Do you know there were only two ohird floor?” Hawkins asked. “You and Gregory mentioned being on the ceiling, so how much of the third floor could you have seen?”

  I paused, sidering that. “Right. ’t leap to assumptions. I only saw what looked like two peering down the ey. But there could have been more ohird floor. But the waltz was ing to an end when the assault from the fake Bck Fme began? And the screams from the third floor started when that ended. A few mi most. Enough time for all twelve to e here and shuck their clothes, then make it to the third floor unobserved?”

  Everyone remained quiet for a bit, thinking it over.

  “sidering what Hawkins could turn into,” Gregory said. “Its irely impossible.”

  “irely, but very unlikely,” I said. “And this is ign how x your father was. Outside help was brought in. No guards along the outside perimeter. Pced in isoted rooms. If they’d been patrolling outside instead of spread out in packets along the rooms, less ce of this. Individually, many of these don’t seem too suspicious, but added together.”

  Three displeased faces looked at my own.

  “While I am generally for anything that inveniences him, you are not stabbing my father,” Gregory said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes, I get that.”

  “I don’t think you do,” Gregory tinued. “I’m not particurly fond of the old man, but you are not harming him.”

  The other two didn’t disagree, either verbally or with their expressions. Fi wasn’t what I aimed for anyway.

  “Perhaps this night was a re in force,” Henry Montague offered. “If they wao test the defenses, get the y of the nd.”

  “Maybe,” I ceded. “If they gave up on repg your brother. It doesn’t expin your father’s as, though.”

  “There’s been no personality shift,” Gregory said.

  “I don’t think he’s a ger,” I said. “If anything, a ger wouldn’t o be sloppy. Just leave a window open somewhere, and don’t post guards near it. Done. No. I’m not sure why yet, but we’ve discussed before when his behavior ged.”

  “You think he found something in the archives.”

  “I suspect so,” I said. “Something’s ged. Something that resulted in tonight being allowed to happen. This should have been far worse than it was. A dozen shape-gers on the loose? All of them were presumably as capable as Hawkins was. Yet, instead, they leave. Why?”

  Gregory was frowning, thinking. His two siblings seem less vinced.

  “Do you think the ao that is in the Archives?” Henry asked.

  “Not all of it. Some of it? Maybe. Because what I have besides that are leads I ’t be sure go any deeper than the surface or people to interrogate who might not tell the truth.”

  “The archives are massive,” Elise said. “Thousands of books. It would take lifetimes to read all of them, and if Father has removed any relevant volumes, they won’t be there at all.”

  “That depends, is there a record kept of the books removed or looked through?”

  All three traded a look again, and I leaned against one side of the wagon, taking some weight off my splinted leg as I sidered all of them.

  “Listen. Whatever else, we might get some answers. Ao this. Because it’s entirely likely your father deliberately put not just you but your brother William in harm's way tonight. So. Are you willing to help me find them, or will I o try this on my own?”

  The look between them lingered a little longer before Henry spoke up first.

  “There is a record, and we help. Maybe. What did you have in mind?”