My room bore witness to my angry stomping. This day had been nothing but one disappointment after another. First Alyson, now Alexi. They did nothing but hinder my investigation and cloud my judgment. At one point, I was convinced Alyson was the culprit, but certain details didn't add up. With her father working for the Ocalira, why risk their ire by committing a series of murders? And why me?

"Oh, you're here," a lazy voice I didn't want to hear now bled into my senses. I turned to find Andy propped on his bed, a book to his face. What happened to the recital he had to rehearse? The days crept forward but never backward. "I took care of the rubbish for you."

I looked around. "I can see that," I replied, kicking a ball of crumpled paper off the rug's borders. The clutter on the table has now colonized my half. Crossing borders should be forbidden. "Can I ask why you're talking to me?"

The book's pages crinkled against his chest when he slid it down. "What do you know about the Mango Conspiracy?"

"Are you bloody shitting me, Andy?" I snapped. "Seriously, not in the mood. Go bother your professors or something."

A sigh ripped out of my lips as I dragged my boy onto the chair. I ran my hands into my hair, mussing the soft and thinning strands. This amount of stress wasn't doing me good. The bed to my right creaked, catching my attention once more. Andy had rolled to his side, resting his head on his knuckles.

"What, what, what?" I clicked my tongue and waved my hands in a poor attempt to erase his presence from my life. "If it's about that crackbrained mango thing—"

"It might be of some merit thinking about," Andy interjected. "Since you're thinking anyway."

I scoffed. "Fine, whatever," I said, massaging my temples. "You're not going to let it go, are you?"

Andy settled back to his bed, bobbing briefly on the mattress. The book went back up, and he flipped the page. "History can tell you a lot of things," he said. "It's up to us to listen."

"Okay, genius," I said. "What is this about the Mango Conspiracy?"

"Before the reign of Hylsa Lochrame, monarchs ruled Lochrainn." Andy turned another page against his chest, finger tapping the edges of the book. He wasn't reading at all, was he? "As expected, the monarchs, their vassals and officials, and the nobles worked together to raise taxes, impose trade and production regulations, and revise laws and privileges in asset ownership."

I leaned back, the chair's backrest creaking under my added weight. My arms crossed on my chest. Come on, get to the point. Andy, daft as always, continued jabbering. "The common folk had a lot to say about it, of course. Their livelihoods were affected, and in all technicalities, their profits and benefits have an enormous cut taken by the government. Do you know what will eventually happen?"

"Public outrage?" I threw a hand to the air with a shrug.

Andy hummed. "Public outrage," he echoed with a hint of confirmation in his tone. "A certain group of merchants in the west coast has had enough of their hard work exploited, so they devised a plan to force the Monarchy's hands and gain the common folk's trust. They started withholding the supply of mangoes."

I rested my elbow on my desk, inches from the rim of Andy's personal clutter. "Mangoes? What does that have to do with anything?"

"The noble society loved them," Andy said. "Imagine their surprise when the prices rose to unimaginable levels due to merchants hoarding, opening backdoor trade channels, and stopping multiple imports. Other workers joined in on the fun, squeezing and choking the Monarchy until they gave in that fateful night."

"Let me guess, the Night of Uprising?" I supplied, recalling that tidbit in the history lesson in my Basic Credence. I didn't remember it having any reference to mangoes, though. "The Monarchy fell because of mangoes?"

Andy shrugged, the sheets wrinkling under him. "They fell because their subjects had enough," he said. "The struggle of dominance reached a tipping point, since the common folk outnumber the nobles and the monarchy a hundred to one. The same people who peeled their mangoes for them led them to the gallows while hurling their favorite fruit at their heads. Historical records say the last king had a bruise on his cheek when he was buried."

"Ouch," I responded with half a heart.

"Do you see now?" Andy asked, turning to me with expectant eyes. "History has a habit of repeating itself, and we can see the beginning of an uprising—are you rolling your eyes at me?"

I might as well be. "I still don't see how it's important to me or my situation."

A haughty breath escaped Andy's lips, his chest heaving up and down in a quick succession. "Oh, to be in your mind. So quiet, and so...linear," he said more under his breath than to me.

My roommate just called me dumb, in the most roundabout way possible. I crossed my legs and jerked my chin at him. "Let me ask you this—do you already know who the killer is?" I prodded, my voice rising to a pitch I rather not hear if I was on the receiving end. Didn't mean I'd stop using it on Andy's infuriating nerve. "If you have the energy to yak about mangoes and falling monarchs, you have some to tell me a name. Just a name. I'll handle the rest."

"I don't know who the killer is," Andy answered matter-of-factly. "Just their motive."

I opened my mouth to say something, but a loud and imposing knock blasted from the door's outer side. "Do you have a guest?" I whirled to Andy after checking whether we were being invaded or not. No screams from the corridors, and the campus grounds activity outside our window remained tame. "It sure as hell isn't mine."

Andy had the gall to smirk. "We'll see about that," he said, glancing at the door. "Open it."

Even back in the manor, I never had someone order me around with such a tone and never had I acted in a way that fulfilled what the instruction said with such volition. I was halfway to the door when I realized I had become Andy's bellboy since coming to this room. The thought drove me to yank the door open with such force the hinges screamed and the wind generated by the motion drove my hair off my forehead.

"What the bloody hell—" My eyes widened. "Uncle."

Indeed, a man I haven't seen alive for the past five years now stood in the corridor of my university dormitory. His blond hair had scampered away from his forehead, flattened onto his scalp with a generous swathe of pomade. Gray eyes, the same ones on my sockets, stared at me through narrowed eyes. The lines on his forehead and cheeks had tripled compared to the image I had of him in my head. The paintings didn't do him justice. Not anymore.

"That is no way to talk to a relative, Arlo," Uncle Lesley said, tucking his bowler hat underneath his arm. On his other hand, a rolled up newspaper waited to be noticed. Was there any reason for that? His leather shoes glistened, polished to the sole by servants or someone else. "Is that what this university teaches you?"

I strode out of my room and locked the door behind me. Andy didn't need his ego boosted with this encounter. He was right. Again. What else was new? "And if I ask you what the Ocalira does to have you disappear for years on end, without contact, what would you tell me?" I fired, venom dripping from my voice. Where all this anger came from, I had not an inkling. "You weren't even there when she died."

His shoulders tensed, his mind probably running on every scrap of memory and clues as to how I knew. He and Adeline Walstrand, before she was married off to my father, were together. Maybe they promised each other they would get married in the future or something gag-inducing, but Grandfather had a way of ruining people's lives. As the eldest, my father had the right to marry first, and apparently, he fancied her as well. Cue twenty years later, she died, my father hated me, the only child whose name and face took after her, and my uncle banged on my door on a truly random lecture day.

Instead of pushing through with the conversation, the newspaper slammed against my tie when Uncle shoved it to my arms. Frowning, I unfurled the crumpled mess of a print, and the headlines jumped at me. Murders at Hylsa Lyllan, a Potion-Maker? My gaze flicked back to Uncle. "Don't tell me you—"

"Nothing can be hidden from me. You, of all people, should know that," Uncle Lesley answered. He shifted in his rigid stance, but the stiffness never wavered. "I appreciate you growing the nerve to defy your father's wishes, but do not test him."

"What do you want me to say, then? 'Being a hero is stodgy. Let's be a villain instead!' Is that it?" I leaned against the wall, tilting my head to one side. "And are you your brother's errand boy, now, sending you to tell people his thoughts?"

My entire family weren't on speaking terms with me, and they entered an unwritten agreement to never speak about me either. The rest of the world had no idea someone named Arlo bore the Crowhaven name. Only Uncle Lesley went out of his busy way to spare me a word or two, and it wasn't a far leap that my father had picked up on that.

Uncle's face hardened like the drying gargoyles displayed outside the Pottery lecture halls. "No, I came on my terms to tell you the first half," he replied. "The second half...that, he sent me for."

He leveled his gaze at me. He didn't need to bend his head down that far now. "Clean up your act while my brother still has patience left for you," he continued. "If you don't, you will be kicked off the registry."

My back peeled off the wall with a start. "You can't—"

"You have until Darwood Gardens announces the public details of the investigation of the murders," Uncle Lesley plowed on. His gray eyes turned even more steel-like. "You don't want to be discarded like a dull blade bearing our name."

My jaw clenched. Uncle Lesley deemed that to be the termination of our discussion, pivoting on his heels. Not a tip of the head or another word. He slotted his hat over his sticky hair and walked off, his pricey soles blessing the rugs covering the dormitory halls. I watched him until he was but a sliver of black rimmed with gold on the horizon.

I faced the door, dreading the prospect of leaving a conversation with a psycho only to be greeted by another. My fist flew back before hurtling towards the splintering wood painted muted red. You don't want to be discarded like a dull blade bearing our name. Dull blade. Bearing our name.

My knuckles stopped millimeters from the door. Dull blade...

I went back inside, aiming straight towards the bedside cabinet at the end of the room. Andy said something, but the words flew by my head. My fingers yanked the topmost drawer where the sheathed knife clattered against its ocher walls. The Crowhaven crest glared back at me—two swords with vines twined around them. Only they weren't just any vine. They were grapevines, representing the family's place as the prime producer of the luxury drink.

If the rest of the world figured out the youngest son of the Crowhaven family was dabbling in underground markets and that his product was said to be instrumental in murder, my father would blow his top.

But it didn't warrant enough motive for him to start killing me. No. The blade wasn't a message from my father or any of his rivals trying to make it in the industry. Rather, the culprit was someone who knew a lot about me, my activities, background, and my family. Someone who might be closer than I realized. Someone...who I wouldn't know until they reveal themselves.

I needed to call Walter. Quickly.

I shut the drawer and whirled towards Andy. His eyebrows knitted when I gave him a conspiratorial smile. Time for the elite to fall at the hands of the common folk.