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“Let’s go to the center,” she said, tugging Foley toward the opening in the tall shrubbery. “Maybe there’s something special set up in the gazebo.”

“And maybe there isn’t,” he said. He resisted a little, to show his disapproval, but he allowed her to pull him inside.

Corene moved swiftly through the well-trimmed greenery, remembering the pattern—one left and then a series of right turns. Foley followed close behind her, so silent she looked back twice to make sure he was still there. As soon as she made the final turn to the central clearing, she saw that there was indeed a lantern hung from the gazebo, and by its light she noticed two things: All the colorful summer flowers had disappeared, and someone was there before them.

Two someones, actually, and neither of them standing. One was stretched out before the little fountain, lying on the stone apron with ominous stillness; another was kneeling beside him, a hand on the first one’s chest. Both wore dark clothing and full face masks. The one on his knees turned to look at Corene as she started forward with a cry of distress.

“Is he hurt? What happened to him?” she exclaimed, dropping beside them.

“I don’t know. I just found him like this,” he replied.

At the sound of his voice, she glanced at him sharply, though she couldn’t tell anything by looking. It was the man she had encountered earlier, the one who was dressed all in black and had spoken of complacency and risk. Alarm sent a runner of fire down her spine and she turned her head to make sure Foley was there. Yes. Of course he was.

“Is he hurt?” she asked again, her voice warier.

The stranger nodded slowly. “I think he’s dead.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and touched her hand to the injured man’s lips. She could feel no air coming in or out.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

The masked man hesitated before saying, “I don’t know.”

She wondered if that was true. She could peel the mask off, but if he was a stranger to her, his face would tell her nothing. She pushed back to her heels and looked around for clues. If he had come all the way to the center of the maze, perhaps he’d had a reason. Perhaps he’d thought this would be a safe place to cache a weapon or a document or a bag of stolen jewels—

A slight breeze set the lantern to dancing, and its moving light illuminated a shape just a few feet away. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make it out in the shadows, and Foley stepped closer.

“Corene,” he said. “It’s Garameno’s wheeled chair.”

“Garameno!” she exclaimed, and scooted closer to the body. “Oh no, no, no—”

“You shouldn’t—” the stranger began, but he was too late. Corene had already teased up the bottom edge of the mask and now she rolled it over the dead man’s chin, his nose, his brow, his hair.

For a moment, as she gazed down at him, his features didn’t make sense. The slack jaw was too slim, the cheekbones too smooth. This wasn’t Garameno.

“Greggorio,” she whispered.

TWENTY-FOUR

C
orene stared down at Greggorio’s pale face, feeling as if the world had tilted and would never right itself again. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Foley was at her side, pulling her to her feet. “You don’t have to understand. Just go find a guard. Then the empress.”

The stranger also stood, brushing his hands along his trousers as if to scrub away the scent of death. “Not yet,” he said, his suave voice sounding suddenly urgent, a little desperate. “Let me work out what happened first.”

“Why should
you
figure it out? Who
are
you?” she demanded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Foley said, trying to drag her away even as she planted her feet. “We have to go get help.”

Suddenly the man grabbed her other arm in a grip that bruised, and for a moment Corene was stretched between them. “Stay,” he growled. “This is more complicated than you realize.”

Foley swung his free hand to punch the stranger hard in the chest. The man grunted and released Corene just as Foley flung her across his body, back toward the path of the maze. “Go!” he roared.

Corene stumbled a few feet forward from momentum before
spinning around. She’d finally recognized the voice. “Foley!” she cried. “
That’s
Garameno!”

Garameno had recovered his balance and was poised on the balls of his feet, looking as if he wanted to run or pounce. “Something’s wrong here,” he said, still in that urgent voice. “I don’t know why anyone would kill Greggorio.”

She stared at him. “You’re standing—you’re moving so freely—”

“Maybe he doesn’t need the chair,” Foley said.

“Maybe he killed Greggorio.”

“I didn’t!”

“Corene,
go
! Get help,” Foley ordered.

“No, stay and
listen
to me,” Garameno pleaded. “It’s true, I don’t need the chair—but that’s not the point right now—”

She came a step closer, still staring. “You don’t need it at
all
? Then why—all these years,
pretending
—”

“I had my reasons. But tonight I left it back here so I could walk the fair without being recognized—”

“So you could find Greggorio and
kill
him!”

“
I didn’t kill him!
Maybe nobody did! There’s no blood—maybe he just fell—”

“There are bruises. Around his neck,” she whispered. She had seen them when she peeled back the mask.

As if he couldn’t help himself, Garameno started toward her, only to be shoved violently back by Foley. “I didn’t hurt him!” Garameno shouted over Foley’s shoulder. “I found his body when I came back for the chair! That’s the truth!”

He lunged forward again, and this time Foley knocked him to the ground with a blow that left Garameno gasping with pain. “Go,” Foley commanded with such intensity that Corene dumbly nodded. “I’ll keep watch over him.”

She turned around and blundered into the ill-lit maze. She was so stunned and confused that at the second or third turning she paused, trying to remember if she was supposed to take a left or a right. Panic threatened to overwhelm her and she fought it down.
Stay calm, stay calm.
She was still deep in the maze, so she should still be making lefts. All lefts until the very final turn—

While she followed the twists and tangles of the maze, her mind scrambled down equally intricate pathways. Garameno could walk! Why had he spent so many years pretending otherwise? It made no sense. It was clear his disability had practically knocked him out of the running for Filomara’s throne. Why would he disqualify himself that way? Unless he wanted people to perceive him as vulnerable and weak—while he plotted against all of the other contenders.

He could have killed Sarona and carried her body underground. He most certainly could have hired Dhonshon soldiers and sent them after Alette. And Corene had no trouble believing that he could have strangled Greggorio tonight and left him for dead.

But there the probabilities petered out, like a maze pathway leading to a dead end. It seemed impossible that he would have been the one advising Filomara to marry Subriella off to her murderous Berringese husband. Equally unlikely that he could have poisoned Aravani and her whole family—he would have been only fifteen at the time. But when his two uncles died a few years later, he would have been about twenty, an age when he was certainly old enough, and ambitious enough, to start coveting the crown.

Corene came to a stop to catch her breath and get her bearings. Maybe Aravani’s death had truly been due to illness, and maybe no one had advised Filomara to send Subriella off to Berringey. Maybe it wasn’t until Filomara’s daughters were dead that Garameno started eyeing the throne with so much longing. Maybe chance eliminated his first two rivals, and only then did Garameno decide to start improving his odds . . .

He was smart enough to plot a whole series of murders. That she believed without question. But ruthless enough? Cruel enough? She wouldn’t have thought so.
But I have been wrong about so many people in my life,
she thought.

One final turn and she was out of the maze, sucking in air as if she’d been underwater, blinking at the festive lights as if she’d been feeling her way through an underground passage.
I can see again,
she thought idiotically.

Her next unbidden thought:
What if Garameno was telling the truth?

What if he hadn’t murdered Greggorio?

Say he’d left his wheeled chair at the heart of the maze so he could walk freely through the party, unrecognized by anyone who knew him. She could understand why that would appeal to him, and the maze made a perfect hiding place. Once he had had his fill of the fair, he returned to the gazebo—to find his cousin dead.

But what would have brought Greggorio to that isolated place during the height of the celebration? The very fact that it was isolated, she decided. Greggorio had never recovered his usual good spirits after learning of Sarona’s death; he’d been even more subdued once Alette disappeared. He might not have been enjoying the party at all, though he’d dutifully made an appearance to please his aunt. But when the lights and the laughter became too much for him, he sought out a place of silence and solitude. She could still hear Liramelli’s voice in her head.
Greggorio and I used to come here all the time . . .

At the heart of the maze, he found his cousin’s chair. Corene tried to imagine the sequence of events that had happened next. Maybe he paused a moment to wonder why the chair was there when Garameno was nowhere in sight—or maybe, being Greggorio, he didn’t even wonder. He just saw a place to sit, and he sat. Maybe practiced wheeling himself around the fountain once or twice. Heard a noise in the bushes—looked up just in time to see a masked stranger creeping up in the patchy lantern light. He probably grinned—being Greggorio.
Hey, look, this is kind of fun,
he might have started to say, moving his hands to the big wheels.

But before he could get the words out, the assassin strangled him.

The attacker must have believed it was Garameno in the chair,
Corene decided. She had only recently realized that the two cousins were about the same build, the same height, and if you couldn’t see their faces—

But that meant someone had tried to kill
Garameno
tonight.

Who would have wanted to do that?

She began hurrying through the crowd, her feet gaining momentum as her thoughts picked up speed. Garameno was at risk for the same reason any of the cousins were at risk—because he was a candidate for the throne. Corene wouldn’t have said he was the likeliest of the three, and yet in many ways he was Filomara’s favorite, the one she relied on for advice and counsel. Just the other day, Filomara had invited Garameno to join her private conversation with Nelson Ardelay after dinner—a
mark of favor that had been witnessed by almost everyone who had any interest in the politics of the succession.

For instance, the prefect had been at dinner that night. And Harlo had always staunchly backed Greggorio for heir—and he’d always wanted his daughter to marry Greggorio. Harlo would have a strong motive for making sure Garameno was scratched from the list.

The fairgrounds grew brighter with lamplight as Corene drew closer to the main activities. They grew denser with people, too. She tried not to be rude as she pushed through the crowds, scanning silhouettes briefly to see if she could recognize faces through their layers of disguise. The thought almost made her laugh out loud.
All people conceal themselves,
she thought cynically.
And I never recognize anyone’s true heart.

If Harlo had murdered Greggorio thinking he had killed Garameno, he would be wild with desperation when the truth came out. He might betray himself by his level of shock and horror and guilt. On the other hand, in recent days Harlo had seemed mighty interested in Steff as a suitor for his daughter’s hand. Maybe he’d gotten rid of the wrong nephew, but he wouldn’t care too much as long as Liramelli could wed Steff and still take the throne.

It was too confusing. Corene had been bred to such scheming; her mother commonly thought several steps ahead in whatever game she was playing, trying to devise her best strategy. But Corene didn’t have the energy for such machinations. She didn’t have the iron will to ignore the short-term consequences in favor of the long-term gains. She wasn’t ruthless enough to forget about the people who might be hurt so she could get what she wanted.

It was a surprise to her, really. She’d always thought she would be.

She moved through a circle of light and careened into a short woman, knocking her backward. “I’m so sorry,” Corene apologized. “Are you all right?”

The woman giggled and grabbed the arm of a friend. “I’ve been tripping all night,” she said gaily. “Do you want some wine?”

“No—thank you—I’ve got to find someone,” Corene answered and hurried on. Back through patches of light and darkness, back through
drunk and happy crowds.
Back to turmoil,
she thought,
when all I want is order.

There was no choice—she had to enter the palace and see if the servants could locate Filomara or Lorian. She was already nervous about how long she had left Foley alone with Garameno. Foley was a soldier, and armed, and clearly able to defend himself—but she had
no
idea what Garameno was capable of. And she was willing to bet he was armed, too. On the thought, she started to run.

Then the crowd parted and, like a gift from a conjurer’s hand, Lorian appeared. As before, he was striding through the throngs with great purpose, flanked by footmen. The mastermind of the festival, the beating heart of the royal palace. If anyone would know what to do, it would be Lorian.

He saw her running in his direction and courteously turned her way. “Princess Corene,” he greeted her, though she was still wearing her mask and hood. Probably he had made a point of discovering what every high-ranking guest was wearing. “Do you need assistance?”

“Lorian,” she panted. “You’ve got to find the empress. Greggorio’s—Greggorio’s dead.”