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“Okay,” she said, rolling her neck. “Where were we?”

“How they poisoned you,” I supplied, my voice as venomous as that very poison.

Daphne looked pointedly at Piper. She stayed silent.

Daphne picked up one of the knives. “I have no problem using this knife to make you talk.”

Piper blanched and wisely opened her mouth. “I’d sneak in through the back passages once every few days and drop powder into your cream. That way it only got to you.”

My jaw hardened. “How’d you know she’s the only one who takes cream in her coffee?”

Piper’s eyes bounced on me once, then dropped to her lap. She muttered something under her breath.

“Louder, Piper,” Daphne snapped.

“Nikolas.”

Daphne’s hand covered my own, squeezing hard, before Piper was even finished saying my brother’s name.

“How?” I gritted out.

Piper’s shoulders twitched forward. “I found him out one night. Drunk enough that he was being rather forthcoming with lesser-known secrets. The passageways and your coffee habits,” Piper explained. “He caught on toward the end, but I, um, told him I’d blame the whole thing on him if he tried to say something. I don’t think he even remembered it happened the next morning.”

My breath turned shaky with rage. Now Nikolas’s sputtered apology to Daphne made a lot more sense. And our fear that he was drunkenly giving away secrets had just been confirmed.

“Any other secrets he graced you with?” I asked.

“He told me about your coffee. That farm you get it from.”

I cursed under my breath. “Anything else?”

Piper shook her head, her face still drained of color. “No. That was enough for now.”

Daphne’s hand tightened over mine in a comforting squeeze.

“Who asked you to poison me? Unless this was just a personal vendetta?” Daphne asked.

Piper opened her mouth, and a sound broke off in the back of her throat. She started again. “I know who it is, but I can’t say anything. I don’t know how, that’s part of what I can’t share, but he’s preventing me from talking. Some other way so that I didn’t have to get that tattoo.”

Daphne’s breath hitched at one particular part of that explanation. “He?”

Piper struggled through another broken sound, huffing like it was taking great effort. “I can’t say.”

“We could try to narrow it down,” I offered to Daphne, speaking just between us.

Daphne made a low sound of agreement. “Do you know him?”

Piper nodded.

“How?”

Piper opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Daphne grumbled a bit in frustration but tried again. “Do you know him personally?”

Piper nodded stiffly.

“Is he also well known in society?”