“I seem to recall you votin’ ’is way several times,” Blade replied.

“Of course. There could never be any doubts cast my way. So I voted for him when the outcome was unaffected by my choice or when it was a small concession or even on those rare occasions when we agreed.” Stroking the cat, she glanced at Blade. “You doubt me and yet you never asked why I voted for you to live three years ago.”

A Council vote in which Mina, as the seventh councilor, had held Blade’s life entirely in her hands. Leo stirred. He’d wondered.

“Thought you wanted Vickers dead, which I did for you,” Blade replied, his eyes narrowing.

“Partly, but you had already dueled with the duke—and won. The prince consort wished you dead for it. And we were never friends, Blade. But I let you live.”

“Why?” Leo asked.

Taking a deep breath, Mina licked her lips. “Because I have never worked alone.”

You could have heard a pin drop in that moment. Leo’s fingers curled into her shoulder, mind racing. Who was she protecting? Not once had the duchess ever revealed an alliance. No friendships, no romantic entanglements, barely any strategic associations at court.

But her words came back to him, about voting for the prince consort on smaller matters, keeping her cards entirely close to her chest. If she’d had an alliance, then it was one that must never be guessed. Someone she could be seen with and never have doubt cast upon their precise relationship.

Someone no one would believe…

He sucked in a sharp breath, incredulous. Of course. The one person she could spend time with and never be suspected, because the prince consort had asked her to take his wife in hand. “The queen,” he whispered, knowing it for the truth and yet instantly rejecting it. “The queen is doing this.”

The human queen everyone saw as a puppet. The same bloody woman who’d simply sat there without a hint of protest when the prince consort condemned him.

Mina nodded very minimally.

“Strike me blind,” Blade breathed. “The bloody queen.”

“She knighted Blade so that he would be in a position to fight Vickers,” Leo said. “That’s why you voted for him to live.”

“Usually we plan our moves, but Blade storming into the Ivory Tower to rescue Honoria was too good an opportunity to pass up,” Mina admitted. “Alexandra obviously saw some purpose to keeping you alive, so I followed her lead, hoping it was for the best.”

Bloody hell. Leo’s mind was working, still throwing up moments that seemed, in hindsight, something that should have alerted him at the time. All these years the two women had been playing the court in tandem. He couldn’t quite describe the way he felt.

“So ’ow’d you plan on overthrowin’ ’im?”

“She’s the leader of the humanist party,” Leo said.

The duchess continued, repeating everything that she’d told him earlier. About channeling funds through Sir Gideon Scott, the head of the Humans First political party, of how she and the queen had sold most of the jewelry the prince consort had given her and mortgaged the House of Casavian’s unentailed properties to create a business company. Small investments at first. Shipping, insurance, bonds, the Exchange…even a coffee plantation in the colonies that reaped reward. Building on that with every step over the years until the funds had begun flowing in.

The extent of it was stunning. Too impossible to believe. But he did. He had to. There was no other explanation for this, and Mina’s knowledge of the humanists was too comprehensive for her to be making this up.

All these years, they’d been fighting on the same side. She wasn’t the enemy; she never had been. And though he had admired her for her wits and courage, that was nothing compared to how he felt now. He felt as if the floor had dropped out from under him again.

The analytical part of his brain that never stopped working threw another thought into his sphere. Outing his parentage was a move that would have gained her plans nothing. Indeed, removing him as Caine’s proxy would have been a setback for her plans. Leo had long voted for progress on the Council but Caine would not have.

She had never meant for his bastardry to become general knowledge. There had been no intent of betrayal.

For the first time in days, he felt like he could breathe again.

“Who else is involved?” Leo asked when she paused for breath.

“Only Sir Gideon, the queen, and me,” she replied, but her gaze dipped.

His hand reached out and caught hers, giving it a warning squeeze. “The truth?”

She clearly didn’t want to speak, but finally the strength seeped out of her shoulders. “And Malloryn.”

“Malloryn?” Of all people, he’d never suspected his former friend.

“He has a network of informers to rival Balfour’s Falcons. He was the first to discover something was going on, and when he confronted me with it, I managed to offer him something he wanted in return.”

He could imagine only too well what that something was. Rage stormed inside him as he realized why his former friend had suddenly started turning away from him when Leo had made it clear he intended to pursue the duchess. “You.”

“Malloryn’s many things, but to be swayed by a woman? No. He wants power and revenge. Most of all, he wanted the main alliance out of the way—the prince consort and his puppets: Morioch, Caine, and the late Duke of Bleight. I offered him a chance to destroy those four and a place on the new Council, should we succeed.” Mina looked him in the eye. “Though we were lovers for a time.”

She’d not been innocent, but the idea of his own bloody friend in her bed—

Blade laughed, a disbelieving sound. “Bloody ’ell. ’Onor’s not gonna believe this…”

There was a sudden commotion in the yard, and Blade’s head jerked up as if scenting danger. Leo found his feet, one hand staying the duchess where she sat. His other hand strayed to the pistol at his belt.

Shouts caught his ear. Leo strode to the window. There were torches in the courtyard, shapes striding in under the gate…tall men. And there, glancing up at the Warren from beneath a ragged gray cloak, was a pale, heart-shaped face with bronze eyes. His heart squeezed in his chest. “Lena.”

He didn’t realize how much he’d feared for her until that moment. Shooting the duchess one last glance, he hurried through the door to the landing. He hadn’t seen Will, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Where his wife went, Will followed. Unless—