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“Have we questioned them?”

“A few.”

“And?”

The guard shrugged. “They’re still locked up. I didn’t do the questioning, my prince.”

“Lock up the rebels,” I instructed those following me.Determined to take matters into my own hands, I approached a cell containing three adult male actors, one faerie, one brownie, and one dwarf. I didn’t remember them on stage. Maybe they’d been in one of the chaotic group scenes.

“You were in the playThe White Bear’s Rebellion?”

“We were, my prince.” The brownie bowed his head and his mop of long dark hair flopped forward, covering his face. He wore a thin house coat and shivered as violently as Avalina. The rest looked much the same, in night clothes or house coats. It seemed that none of them had been allowed to dress for the dungeons when soldiers pulled them from their homes.

“Have you been with the Royal Company long?”

The brownie nodded. “Five turns for me.” He pointed to the faerie wearing loose pants and a robe only fit for lounging in one’s house. “Sven joined at about the same time.”

“I’ve been there for a season,” the dwarf replied, his voice deep and raspy.

“You’re ingrained in that culture.”

The brownie’s hairy cheeks blossomed red, likely anticipating where I was going.

“Were you aware of the rebels plan to attack the nightof the production?” I asked outright. “Had there been rumors among the company? Were they helping the rebels?”

“I didn’t know,” the faerie, Sven, piped up for the first time. “And I’ve got a family and four mouths to feed. Had I heard, I would have quit.”

“Not told the authorities?”

“That too,” Sven said, though I didn’t quite believe that part.Now, he would have told someone, but back then? Questionable.

The brownie and the dwarf also claimed that they hadn’t known about the rebellion. As Liar’s Salvation wasn’t cheap and was extremely hard to come by, I felt certain that they told the truth.

I moved down the line of cells, asking others. The vast majority hadn’t been informed about the attack. Only a few admitted they had helped the rebels. They didn’t appear to regret their choice.

I didn’t ask them all, but enough to know that most of the imprisoned didn’t deserve to be in our dungeons. An issue that had to be remedied.

As I passed by Avalina Truso’s cell, she leaned closer. “Aren’t you going to ask if I knew?”

“It seems clear to me that you did.” I paused. “But for the sake of fairness, did you help the rebels?”

A slow, controlled smile spread across her face.

“I did, my prince. I was the mastermind behind the attack, the production, the final scene that told the truth of the White Bear’s Rebellion. And I shouldn’t have stopped there.”

“What more could you have portrayed?” I retorted; my throat tight at her smug expression.

She let out a laugh. “So much, my prince. You’re too young to know all that happened, but scandal abounds in the Court of Winter. It always has.” She arched an eyebrow. “And your family has been at the rotten heart of the most salacious scandals for so very long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I believe you should ask Queen Inga that question.” She looked down at her nails, some of them broken and ragged. “I have to say, to play your mother is a dream role. Such a complicated female.”

I stared at her, unsure of what to say until I decided to say nothing. I turned away from the actress and left the dungeons in search of the king.

I found my father in his personal library, a goblet of wine in his hand. Mother was there too, the pair seemingly deep in conversation, a rarity. In public, the royal pair presented a united front. In private, they were rarely together—not unless they were scheming.

“Mother. Father.” I approached the pair but stayed standing.