Seron turned, and for just a fraction of a second so brief he might have imagined it something flickered across his face. Guilt. Or panic. Or both.
"Nothing," he said. Too fast.
"You've never been a good liar," Acacia said softly. "Not to me."
"I said it's nothing, Acacia."
"Then why won't you look at me when you say it?" The silence that followed was its own kind of confession, and everyone in the room knew it, even if no one said so aloud.
Word of the forged documents spread faster than Ruby had even hoped, servants whispering to servants, a courtier accidentally overhearing Mia's confrontation with Violet, a maid finding the ledger page half-crumpled in a wastebasket and, naturally, showing three of her closest friends before returning it.
By nightfall, four separate people believed four separate lies, and every one of them was certain someone they trusted had betrayed them.
