Page 96

—The Regal Record, 18 January 2024

YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT BEN.

As Maisie hands me the tablet, her voice ricochets in my head like a bullet, and I examine the picture on the screen. Her supposed proof doesn’t look like much—just a piece of metal no bigger than a dime taped to the inside of a hollowed-out book. Hardly irrefutable evidence that Ben enlisted someone inside the palace to leak secrets. Or potentially try to kill us.

“What’s this?” I say, zooming in, but I still can’t identify it.

Instead of answering, my sister swipes to another photograph, this time of the same kind of device concealed in the folds of a red velvet curtain. A third image shows one inside a lampshade, and then one more nestled in a wooden crevice that might be part of an armoire.

“I don’t get it,” I say as she swipes through several more. “What am I looking at?”

Maisie huffs. “I don’t know how it’s possible that your skull keeps getting thicker with age, but clearly you’re a medical marvel.”

She stops at a photograph of an entire room—my sitting room. It looks like a crime scene, with numbered markers seemingly everywhere, and from this angle, I can see the open cabinet where security found the paint thinner. The thought of anyone searching my apartment makes my skin crawl, but even amidst the feeling of utter violation, something else clicks.

“Are these…?” I swipe back to look at the last picture. “Are these bugs?”

“If by ‘bugs,’ you mean covert transmitters and listening devices, then yes,” says Maisie curtly. “They found no fewer than twenty in your apartment.”

“Twen…?” The word dies halfway off my tongue, and suddenly I feel like I’m falling through the air at a tremendous speed, as every single one of my internal organs finds a new place to settle. “Maisie—”

“Someone’s been spying on you,” she says. “And I’m positive that Ben had something to do with it.”

“How?” I say in a choked voice, cycling through the pictures again. “How can you possibly connect this to Ben?”

“Because he used to do it to me,” she says, and at my startled look, she waves off my concern. “Nothing untoward, of course. We were children. We saw these devices used in some film, I think, and we begged our parents for a set to play with. We used to hide them in the nursery—try to eavesdrop on our nannies, and even sometimes each other. It was fun,” she added defensively. “We didn’t have secrets then, of course.”

My mouth is still dry, and it takes me a moment to speak. “And you think…you think he’s behind this, too? You can prove it?”

“Well—I mean, no, I can’t prove it,” she says. “Not unless there are fingerprints on any of them. But he was here last week, wasn’t he? He could’ve planted them then, or maybe he really does have someone in the palace working for him, and they did it ages ago. If he’s been listening in, it would explain the leaks, wouldn’t it?”

My mind is racing, and I shake my head, as if that’ll somehow force things into neat little boxes so I can begin to make sense of it all. “I never talked to anyone about your injuries, though. Or about Thaddeus’s roses, or any other secrets the Regal Record made public. I don’t think Tibby ever brought them up, either. I don’t even think she knows.”

Maisie considers me for a long moment. “You’re absolutely certain? There’s no way you could’ve…I don’t know, mentioned it to Kit, perhaps?”

“Maybe.” I frown. “But I really don’t think any of it came from…”

I pause as a horrifying thought swims to the forefront of my mind, as if it’s been there all this time, waiting for me to notice.

“Maisie,” I say slowly. “Are these just listening devices? Or are they speakers, too?”

Maisie takes the tablet and swipes to another picture. “Most are listening devices, but Stephens said that the ones that look like these are tiny speakers.”

Every inch of me freezes into place, and I stare at the image until it’s nothing but a blur of colors.

Speakers. I’ve had speakers in my apartment. Maybe for days, but possibly for weeks. Or longer.

My throat is tight, and I gasp for air, barely managing enough to speak. “Maisie—I’ve been hearing things—voices—”

“You’re what?” she says, startled.

“For weeks, ever since Sandringham. I thought they were real. Or—that they were in my head, I mean,” I say. “But I think—I think it was Ben. You’re sure this is something he’ddo?”

She nods, her eyebrows knit as she zooms in on the device again. “Positive. It’s exactly his style.”

I reach for one of the miniature bottles of water stored in the center console, my thoughts reeling. It was Ben. It was Ben this entire time, whispering my name, freaking me out, making me think I was having hallucinations—

“The day of the bombing, the voices told me I was going to die,” I say, struggling to get the words out. “Kit was there—Idon’t think he heard them, but I told him, and—I was a mess.”