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CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The Unravelling

Morrigan admired the banner for a moment … then she had an idea, and squished in three more words at the end:

The Deductions of Morrigan Crow and Detective Blackburn

There were confused murmurs around the room at this addition. Morrigan glanced at Cadence, who rolled her eyes but seemed pleased, so she left it there.

An elderly woman leaned over to her son, saying in a loud croak, ‘Dario Rinaldi? I thought that wedding planner chap did it.’

‘I’m glad you brought that up, Lady El-Hashem,’ said Morrigan. ‘Actually, the wedding planner chap was cleared by the police. It’s been public knowledge for months that he didn’t do it, and yet everyone in the Silver District seems perfectly happy to keep pretending he did do it.’ She turned to survey the faces around her, raising her voice. ‘Why? Because he’s not one of you? Because it’s safer to pretend it was someone from outside the Silver Gates, someone you never have to see again? Because the truth – that Dario’s murderer is with us right now, in this very room – feels much too dangerous?’

There was a satisfying gasp, just as Cadence had promised there would be when she wrote this line down for Morrigan to memorise, borrowed from Inspector Gravely and the Killer of Castle Kell.

‘But before we unravel the mystery of who killed Dario,’ she continued, as Cadence strolled casually over to join her in the centre of the room, ‘Detective Blackburn and I wish to tell you about another crime. One that happened today – or almost happened.’

‘Today isn’t just Morrigan’s birthday,’ Cadence jumped in, clasping her hands behind her back as she began to pace like her fictional heroes. Morrigan tried not to smile. She felt keyed up, frantically running through their plan in her head, but it settled her nerves to see that her fellow detective was as cool as a cucumber. ‘And it isn’t just Spring’s Eve, either. It’s also the last day of the Winter Trials. Ladies and gentlemen, we must congratulate the Rinaldi family on their extraordinary win today!’

With a flick of her wrist and a surge of Wunder, Morrigan shone a bright, beaming circle of light on Cosimo, Vincenzo, Olivia and Vesta.

‘Cosimo,’ Cadence said, swivelling to face the wary-looking Rinaldis. ‘What a result! You really had us on tenterhooks all season long, wondering if you’d ever find a rider for Alights on the Water Like a Seabird . But she was right under your nose the whole time!’

‘A wonderful surprise,’ Cosimo said in a tight voice, with a smile that resembled a grimace. ‘Who knew my baby sister was hiding such a talent?’

‘You knew,’ Cadence replied smoothly, and Cosimo’s expression faltered. ‘Obviously. Or at least you suspected. That’s why you never told the police that a mystery dragonrider had “borrowed” Dario’s dragon at the time of his murder. Because you knew only one other person could fly Alights on the Water that well, and you didn’t want her to get in trouble or draw unnecessary attention.’

‘And you certainly don’t think it’s wonderful ,’ Morrigan added, ‘or Vesta wouldn’t have had to train in secret with Dario all these years.’ She turned to the younger girl. ‘Isn’t that right, Vesta?’

Vesta opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to change her mind.

‘Dario had Mr Smithereens make that chair for you, didn’t he?’ Morrigan prodded gently. ‘You told me at the Feast of the Manyhands that they designed it together to do all sorts of extraordinary things … run and jump and fetch things for you. You forgot to mention, lock perfectly in place on a dragonriding saddle.’

Vesta shot a hesitant glance at her family, looking nervous but defiant. ‘They … don’t want me to ride dragons. They think it’s too dangerous.’

‘It IS too dangerous!’ Vincenzo said in a hoarse, angry voice. Morrigan wondered if the Rinaldis had been having this argument all afternoon. ‘And not a suitable pursuit for a well brought up young lady.’

‘I’m not a well brought up young lady, I’m a DRAGONRIDER!’ Vesta objected. ‘And I don’t care what you say, Papa, I’m not starting at Dev Ladies’ in the spring. I’m going to Hackerby Hall! It’s the only competitive dragonsport school in the Free State and THAT’S WHERE I’M GOING.’

Vincenzo expanded like an irate walrus. ‘You are NOT applying for that school.’

Vesta choked out a laugh. ‘I’ve already enrolled, Papa! Dario helped me. He was going to convince you and Mama to let me go, and – and he was going to—’ She crumpled into tears. ‘ We were going to surprise you all at the wedding, pretending it was Dario flying at midnight. He’d planned to show up at the end and announce that he was retiring from dragonriding next year to take up coaching, and he was passing his saddle to me! But then … he was g-gone ’ – she stifled a sob – ‘and my whole future was gone with him! I knew if I didn’t find a way to fly with Alights on the last day of the Winter Trials, I might never get the chance again.

‘Dario always said that one day I’d be a better dragonrider than him, and he was RIGHT. I will be. And if you don’t let me ride Alights in the summer tournament, you’re – you’re STUPID. You’re MAD. You’re throwing away the whole Rinaldi legacy—’

‘Of course you’re going to ride Alights in the tournament,’ said Olivia Rinaldi in a quiet, weary voice.

Vesta stopped abruptly, staring at her mother in disbelief. ‘I – what?’

‘ What? ’ echoed Cosimo and Vincenzo.

Olivia looked at her husband and son as if she couldn’t quite comprehend their stupidity. ‘Dario was right! Vesta is going to be a better rider than him someday. He told us that when she was eight years old, but we were too protective … too scared to let ourselves see it … and look what’s happened! LOOK at your daughter – for three years , she’s been hiding this glorious part of herself! Hiding it from us , because she thought we would take it away from her, the thing she loves the most, the thing she was obviously born to do.

‘Vincenzo, I know you’re afraid of anything hurting our precious, one and only girl. And I know dragonsport is dangerous, but …’ Olivia held a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. ‘Dario is dead , and it wasn’t dragonriding that killed him. One of my children has already been taken from me. I will not banish any part of the children I have left. Vesta has her own life to live, and I am going to watch her live it. All of it .’

Her certainty seemed to deflate Vincenzo’s argument entirely, and he looked around in a daze, blinking and shaking his head. ‘I … but … I don’t understand what this has to do with finding Dario’s murderer,’ he said weakly, turning back to Morrigan and Cadence. ‘You said a crime was committed today? A crime was almost— ’

‘Vesta could have been killed today,’ said Cadence. Murmurs rippled through the room and Olivia pulled her daughter closer, clutching her tight. ‘Not because dragonriding is a dangerous sport, but because somebody has been trying to sabotage Alights on the Water at the Winter Trials all season long. It worked once – you all saw her first flight, with Didi Gundry. Everyone chalked up her terrible performance to grief over Dario’s death, but it wasn’t that at all.’

‘Somebody drugged Alights before her flight with one of these,’ Morrigan explained, holding up the little green bottle for everyone to see. ‘A powerful unnimal sedative. It made her fly dangerously and erratically, sinking her to the bottom of the leaderboard. But she’s been slowly climbing back up the ranks every Sunday, and her saboteur knew that if she had one good flight today, she could win the whole thing – which, of course, is exactly what happened, because Alights is a very clever dragon. Much too clever to fall for the same trick twice.’

She passed the bottle to Cadence like a baton in a relay race, knowing everybody in the room had their eyes on it.

‘ Alights knew her lure meat had been tampered with again,’ said Cadence. ‘She recognised the sedative’s strong smell of aniseed. She refused to take the lure, and until Vesta arrived – her trusted friend – she was refusing to fly at all.’

‘So, the plan to sabotage Alights didn’t work,’ Morrigan went on. ‘Which is lucky, because if it had, the saboteur could have seriously injured or even KILLED the rider in her saddle.’ She paused here, looking at the spellbound guests all around her, and her eyes narrowed as they landed on Aunt Margot. Morrigan wanted to see her face, to see her grasp the full impact of what she’d done – or tried to do. ‘That rider was supposed to be my best friend, Hawthorne Swift. But instead, it was an eleven-year-old girl, from a family who had already lost one child—’

A great cry of anguish erupted from behind Morrigan, and she turned to see Cosimo Rinaldi falling to his knees beside his sister, head buried in his hands, his whole body wracked with sudden sobs.

‘I’m sorry,’ he bawled. ‘Vesta, I’m so sorry … I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know it was you … I would NEVER have done it if I’d known …’

Morrigan’s mouth fell open. Her eyes met Cadence’s, and she saw her own shock reflected there. Cosimo? They’d been about to announce that Margot was the saboteur and segue smoothly into accusing her of poisoning her mother, and ultimately of murder, according to the plan.

Olivia and Vincenzo looked aghast at their son’s confession.

‘Mama, Papa, forgive me,’ Cosimo sobbed. ‘I’ve tried to keep it from you all these months … You were so buried under your grief. But someone has been blackmailing me … Blackmailing us ! They threatened to ruin Rinaldi House, Papa, I couldn’t just—’

‘Be quiet, Cosimo, don’t say any more,’ said Vincenzo, drawing back from his son.

But Cosimo couldn’t stop. ‘They sent me the sedatives anonymously, with a promise to expose our family if I didn’t fix the trials against Alights . They knew everything.’

‘Everything about what? What were they threatening to expose?’ Cadence demanded sharply, but she was drowned out by furious shouting from Olivia Rinaldi.

‘You stupid, reckless boy! You could have killed your sister! How could you—’

‘I didn’t know it would be Vesta flying Alights today, Mama, you must believe me,’ Cosimo pleaded through tears. ‘If I didn’t submit to their demands, all our plans would have been for nothing!’

‘You thought it was HAWTHORNE! You could have killed MY FRIEND!’ Morrigan roared, just as Cadence shouted, ‘WHAT PLANS? WHO WAS BLACKMAILING YOU?’ But both their voices were lost amid Cosimo’s sobs and Olivia’s rage.

Unlike Cadence, Morrigan thought it was obvious who the blackmailer was. She didn’t know why Aunt Margot wanted to blackmail the Rinaldis, but it was too much of a coincidence that she was poisoning Lady Darling with the very same brand of unnimal sedative that had been used to sabotage Alights on the Water .

She watched her aunt, expecting to see some clue or confirmation in her face – guilt, or triumph, or the fear of discovery, or something . But Margot must have been the world’s greatest actress, because she looked as shocked and dismayed as everyone else in the Receiving Room.

Morrigan bit down hard on her lip. It had to be Margot, didn’t it? She suddenly remembered the note Cadence had slipped into her hand through the curtain and unfurled it to read the mysterious message again, wondering what it could possibly mean. How could Dario know about Lady Horrible , and why would that—

Morrigan felt a strange, dizzying heat wash over her. In her haste to hide the note from Aunt Margot earlier, she’d missed the second half of the message it contained.

LADY HORRIBLE

HILLARY D’BOER

Cadence had started connecting the top line to the bottom, letter by letter. She’d only got three letters in – L to L, A to A, D to D – but Morrigan got the gist.

Hillary D’Boer was an anagram of Lady Horrible. It was Aunt Margot’s pen name.

She looked over at Cadence in disbelief. This didn’t make sense. How could her aunt be the author of the Silverborn Saga ? She could have believed it of Lady Darling. But not Aunt Margot, who’d called the books vile , and wicked, and filth , and burned Morrigan’s copy of Madeleine Malcontent with such savage loathing. Nobody was that good at pretending. Were they?

But Cadence saw the note in her hand and nodded. Her friend’s face was so sombre, so full of reluctant certainty, that Morrigan instantly knew she was right. She felt ill.

Lady Margot had taken the nickname her sister gave her in a moment of anger and used it as a pen name … and she’d hidden behind that pen name to betray Meredith.

‘No wonder you burned it,’ said Morrigan, tears pricking her eyes as she glared at her aunt. ‘You didn’t want me to see the vile, wicked things YOU wrote about my mother .’

Finally, finally, she saw a crack in Aunt Margot’s facade for the first time. A flash of guilt. It was all the confirmation Morrigan needed. She shook her head in disgust.

‘Whatever do you mean, darling?’ Modestine was looking fretfully from her niece to her sister. ‘Margot would never say bad things about Merry! Margot, what is she talking about?’

‘Don’t they know?’ Morrigan demanded, nodding at Modestine, Miriam and Tobias beside her aunt. ‘Have you been lying to everyone all this time?’

She had her answer immediately, in the infinitesimal flick of Margot’s eyes towards her husband. And suddenly it clicked.

‘Clark & Sons,’ Morrigan whispered. Now she remembered why the name had rung a tiny bell. She could see Dario’s mischievous grin in her mind, hear his teasing voice. Don’t you agree, Tobias? You don’t miss being a Clark lad, surely?

Of course Tobias knew about the Silverborn Saga . He was Hillary D’Boer’s publisher.

‘Is that how you met? Was that the family business Tobias supposedly gave up to become a Darling?’ Morrigan glared at her uncle. ‘I knew you weren’t a lumberjack.’

Aunt Margot held out a placating hand. ‘Morrigan, darling, please come with me … I can explain everything, but we must talk in private—’

‘Talk in private with a murderer ? No thanks.’

‘ Murderer? Morrigan, no , what are you—’

‘Margot Darling murdered Dario Rinaldi,’ Morrigan announced loudly, and the room fell silent. The Rinaldis ceased their arguing and turned to stare at her.

She shot a guilty glance at Cadence, who looked exasperated. This wasn’t the plan. They were supposed to take their audience through all the clues one by one, just like Inspector Gravely would do. To slowly reveal all they knew, lulling their suspect into a false sense of security, before putting her on the backfoot with some leading questions, and then finally letting her incriminate herself in front of all the gathered witnesses.

‘Morrigan! How could you think such a thing?’ Margot cried, grasping her sisters’ hands for support and looking as if she might genuinely faint. ‘I promise you – I swear— ’

Morrigan heard a whispered ‘ ouch! ’ and from the corner of her eye, saw a tiny spark of light. Jack winced as a small fire appeared in his hand, burning down almost instantly to reveal a small piece of blackpaper. It fluttered on his upturned palm, uncurling into its original pristine state from the disappearing flames.

Jack frowned at the note, then held it up to show Morrigan a short, urgent message written in big capital letters.

PLAN B