THE KASTELLAN HEIR.

THE CANARY SINGS.

The lie came home in forty-one hours.

It arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, in a white cardboard box, delivered to the front gate of the Kastellan estate by a courier in a gray uniform. The guard scanned it, X-rayed it, and, finding it harmless, carried it inside.

Ronan and Sienna opened it in the study.

Inside, nested in tissue paper, lay a sleek black phone case, the kind sold at expensive airport boutiques. A card was tucked beneath it. The handwriting was elegant and slanting.

For Miss Brentford, with my compliments. I'm told you'll need a proper one for the evening. ~ A.N.

Sienna's breath left her in a slow, shaky hiss.

"The phone case," she whispered.

"Alfred's lie," Ronan said. "The detail we told Alfred was that Vivienne would carry a phone case with a hidden microphone."

"But the case is just a case, Ronan. It's a gift. He wants her to think it's harmless."

"Or he wants her to use it. So he'll know where to look." Ronan turned the box over. "Alfred wouldn't sell us out. He couldn't. It's not in his blood."

"Then how did Aldric know?"

Sienna paced to the window and back. "That's six people who could have leaked the details. A dozen if you count the tower's IT staff. We haven't narrowed anything, we've only made a bigger haystack."

"We narrowed one thing," Ronan said.

"What?"

"Aldric wants us to suspect Alfred. He sent the case to the one man who'd never carry the lie to the wrong person. It's a signature, Sienna. A man like that likes to sign his work."

"Or he's just a lucky old bastard."

"Nobody is that lucky."

There was a soft knock at the study door.

"Yes?" Ronan said.

Alfred entered, silver tray in hand, immaculate as ever. "Tea, sir. And Mr. Warrick has arrived from the tower, with the documents you requested."

Ronan set the box aside. "Send him in."

Warrick strode through the doors with a cheerful, hurried air. He wore a new tie, mustard yellow, and carried a leather portfolio under his arm. There was a small gold brooch pinned to his lapel, a hawk.

Ronan looked at it.

Warrick had never worn a brooch in his life.

"Good afternoon, sir," Warrick said. He kissed Sienna's hand with a small bow, a habit of his. "Miss Sienna. How is the old man?"

"Improving," Sienna said. Her voice was very even.

"Splendid! Splendid. That's the first good news in a week." Warrick set his portfolio on the desk and began to unroll a set of diagrams. "I've brought the schematics for the capital mansion. Nevilles' private estate. Three floors, two wings, an underground wine cellar, and a security room in the east tower."

"Show me the party layout," Ronan said.

"Here." Warrick tapped a corner. "The ballroom, on the ground floor. And here, the smaller salon, where Aldric generally holds his private meetings. I suspect that's where he'll take Miss Vivienne, if he takes her anywhere."

"And the microphone," Sienna said, lightly. "Has the team finished with it?"

"Ah. Yes." Warrick straightened, and Ronan caught it, the barest flicker in his eyes. "It's ready. Embedded in her jewelry, I believe, per your instruction? A brooch, I thought."

The room seemed to grow very quiet.

"A brooch," Ronan repeated.

"That's right." Warrick smiled. "You told me yesterday."

"Did I?"

"Of course."

Ronan took a slow breath. He had told Warrick a brooch. He had told Alfred a phone case. He'd told Quill a pen. And he'd told Sienna the button. Warrick was repeating his own lie, of course. That proved nothing.

But the phone case had come from Aldric.

Which meant the leak had come from someone who knew about the phone case.

Alfred. Alfred had been told the phone case.

Ronan's blood turned to ice. His eyes slid, involuntarily, to the butler, who was pouring tea in a perfectly steady hand.

"Alfred," he said quietly.

"Sir?"

"Thank you. That will be all."

The butler bowed and left. The door clicked.

Sienna stared at Ronan. Her lips formed a single, silent word: Alfred?

Ronan didn't answer. He picked up the note, read it again, and frowned. Something was wrong. He turned the card over and looked at the back. Nothing.

Then he took out his phone and scrolled through the messages from the past two days. He'd written each lie to each suspect, separately. And he had tapped each one from the same device.

The device.

"Sienna," he said. "Who has access to my phone?"

"You. Me."

"And the tower. Warrick's IT department synchronizes my messages to the company server."

She stared at him.

"If Warrick's people copy everything I send..." she began.

"Then the leak isn't a single lie coming home," Ronan said. "It's all of them, at once. It could be anyone in that department. Or it could be Warrick himself, and the phone case was a decoy to make us suspect Alfred."

"Or the phone case is a real leak, and the brooch is a deliberate mistake, and Warrick..."

"Or Quill," Ronan said. "Quill knew about the vault. He knew about the message. He turned up at the perfect moment."

Warrick stood in the middle of the room, looking politely puzzled, like a man who had walked into a conversation in a foreign language.

"Have I said something wrong, sir?"

Ronan met his eyes.

For a long moment, he didn't speak. His grandfather's voice echoed in his head. When you cannot see the knife, do not tell the hand you have seen it.

"No," Ronan said, and smiled. "Nothing at all. Forgive me. I'm tired."

"Of course." Warrick began gathering his diagrams. "I'll send the final plan to your office in the morning."

"Do that."

The door closed behind him. Sienna waited until the footsteps had faded.

"You suspect him."

"I suspect all of them." Ronan sank into the chair. "So we'll do what I should have done from the start. We'll keep the real plan to ourselves. Only you, me, and Vivienne. And we'll hide the microphone somewhere no one has heard about."

"Where?"

He looked at the black case in its tissue nest.

"Somewhere nobody would think to look," he said. "Because it's the last thing a woman getting married in front of two hundred guests would remember to wear."

Sienna frowned. Then understanding crossed her face, slowly, and she laughed under her breath. "The veil pin."

"The pin from her wedding veil. She kept it. I saw it in her hair at the gate."

"Ronan, that's..." She shook her head, half appalled, half delighted. "That's perverse."

"It's poetic," he said. "We'll take the thing that was meant to bind her to Preston, and use it to bring down Aldric."

Sienna took the card from the box and turned it over. Her smile faded.

"There's one thing we haven't discussed," she said. "The board vote. It's tomorrow. If Aldric's tender offer passes, you won't have a company. Recording or no recording."

"I know."

"Do you have a plan?"

Ronan looked out the window at the darkening garden, at the tall gates with their carved hawk, at the lights of the city beyond.

"I've had one since the night he called me," he said. "You're going to hate it."