Page 93 of Marked

Orion flinched. He opened his mouth to say more, but Ace interrupted.

“Maybe it’s not the king,” Ace said.

“And maybe we should figure out the motive first,” I said. “That would help us narrow down a list of suspects.”

“The queen is also a pureblood galeon,” Orion said.

“We saw her in Wast—twice. She wants the person responsible for these killings as much as we do. I don’t think it’s her.” A shiver ran up my spine, and I snapped my fingers. “We saw the queen yesterday in the Main Square with Paul. He acted weird about it, but what if he’s figured out something? What if he knows something about her or the king that we don’t?”

“Are you suggesting your own brother is keeping the royals’ involvement with the arrows a secret from you?” Ace lifted both eyebrows. “His own twin?”

“What? Of course not. He doesn’t even know about the connection between the arrows magic and the bloodlines yet.”

“Where is your brother?” Orion asked. “I went by his place before coming here and he wasn’t home.”

“He had to run interference with the coroner, so we could escape the Death House,” I explained. “If he didn’t come home last night, he’ll be back soon enough. When he returns, I’ll confront him with what we discovered and see what he knows.”

Orion frowned. “The coroner? You were at the Death House last night?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We didn’t get anything other than the same magic killed both immortals. That’s how we figured out I’m being set up. We saw my arrow.”

Orion stared at me. He opened his mouth and then shut it again.

“What?” I asked.

He straightened in his seat and blinked rapidly as if waking himself up. It had been a long night and day. My bed and snuggling with my familiar called to me.

“Carla is dead,” Orion said.

“Who?” Ace asked.

“The coroner.”

“What?” I pushed back from the table. “Since when?”

“Since last night,” Orion said.

“How…how did you find out so fast?” I asked.

“Blake.”

That messenger travelled fast. He had to have been ahead of us on the trail, carrying the news with him. But how did he find out so quickly? Was the death public? Had the queen known before she found us in the tavern?

“Originally, I didn’t think it was worth noting,” Orion continued. “Plenty of people die in Wast and Carla’s not immortal, but she is…was…performing autopsies on them.”

“And that’s why you think she was killed?” I filled in the blank. But where was my brother? He wouldn’t have killed the coroner to cover for us. And he certainly wasn’t trying to suppress information about the immortals’ deaths—that was why we were there in the first place. He was the one who got us in.

He better be okay.

“Was anyone found with her?” I asked. Where was Paul? Was he hurt? Was he hiding? Had something happened when he was with the coroner? Had someone captured him while he was with the coroner and killed the coroner to cover their tracks?

My mind scrambled through the possibilities while my heart raced, and my skin prickled. Images of my brother’s face flashed before my eyes.

“She was alone,” Orion said. “They found her in the alley behind the lab. The guard said she returned from a late-night date to discover the lab had been broken into. She told the guards to stay behind and went to investigate, but she never returned.”

I let out a long breath. My brother wasn’t involved. He returned her to the Death House before her death.

“But we were long gone,” Ace said. “It wasn’t us, and it wasn’t Paul. So, who would kill her for investigating our break-in?”