Eleanore's mind raced back through everything, Theon's confession, the careful way he'd claimed ignorance of the black magic and the border attacks, insisting Thornberry's scheme was separate from whatever else was happening. She'd noted the discrepancy at the time and let it slide beneath the weight of everything else demanding her attention.
"You let us believe we'd won," she said, voice hollow with the realization. "The whole confrontation at the party. Thornberry's arrest. It was theater."
"Not entirely theater," Mavros said. "Thornberry's crimes were real, and his punishment was deserved. But convenient, too, for someone else's purposes, a tidy resolution that closed the case in everyone's mind precisely when the true architect needed you distracted and unguarded."
