Emmaline bit back a scream of frustration as she realized she had just collided with the boorish bastard from the ball. All she had needed to do was get to her rooms and she could have gathered up her gold and been out of town before anyone discovered Oderick's body. There would have been time for her to get away in the confusion, while people wondered if she had been abducted for ransom or murdered alongside her beau. Now that Kasimir had seen her suspicion would immediately fall on the foreigner even before she reached the gates of the Ulricberg. Briefly she considered killing Kasimir. The thought made her queasy. She was many things, but she wasn't the sort to murder someone just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She only had one card to play.

"Murder!" she screamed at a shattering volume that shook dust from the ceiling.

"Sieur Oderick has been mirdered!" she howled, "helep! Zanyone!"

Doors flew open as guests stumbled from their quarters. After a moment the shout was taken up by another throat, then another. Within moments, two heavy set men in the Count's livery were forcing there way through the increasingly crowded hallway. Eleanor threw herself into the arms of the nearest weeping hysterically. The second man shoved passed disappearing down the hallway and into Oderick's rooms. A minute later he returned clutching Kasimir's bloody sword. Emmaline didn't hear where the voice called from, but someone shouted Kasimir's name, the guard who had been holding her shoved her aside and drew his weapon as several armed men converged on the luckless nobleman.