y

he messenger's thumb before he'd

etween Lady Ivy Lancaster and His Majesty Silas Blackwood is approve

led me here stood frozen

eyes narr

one bad in his mouth. The muscle in his jaw jumpe

y need

and stopped, his hand curli

His voice dropped low. "A man who can't open

to open his eye

xpected to hear it crack. He just st

s the date be set within the week. House Silvercrest's discretion

to say. I turned for Meredith's study, Raine

ed, and planted himself by

en on the desk in front of her, household allowances

e into this family." She turned the folder around so I could see it. "Before anything else

ith. The regency has approved the petition. T

the folder. She didn'

Blackwood to take one look at a comatose king and a Silve

rs that no longer mattered, then looked at me ins

days fr

before I said it. Three day

e doorframe. "You're that

ever even had to ask you to read what you were sign

a word to p

ess to fit. A hundred things to arrange. And you st

he week." I held her stare until she dropped it first. "If tha

ded her

to day. Every account, every shipment, every servant under this roof who doesn't stand behind the inner doors. But those doors aren't mine to open. That belong

ted half an i

rs learning to read. The woman waiting

forward to

r and stood, smoothing her skirt. "That's al

step beside me once we w

sisters do

sign anything that needs a royal hand while he can't. Marielle runs the trade cities, when she isn't l

incess

de more times than anyone can count. Came back to the main house herself the day he

raded over dinner tables for years. I

ency decided to fund or freeze. Her husband had died holding the line so Silas could get clear of it, years back, and

**

faster than I had t

, I stole twenty minutes b

nto his room, sitting on the edge of the bed

He didn't stand. "Today. The

od

while you're off becom

the Blackwood wolf stamped into one face, sent bundled with the

't do

er and decide it wasn't worth keeping. "If anyone in Blackwood colors ever stop

ver gotten me

alking into yet. Not the politics. Not who actually runs that house day to day. Not what they'l

und like I'm th

ft. That makes you the only leve

or that one. He closed his fist

be at sixteen. "The second you've got that place figured out,

back f

et go just as fast. "And don't let any of them push you ar

could see what th

ackwood land, Raine beside me, the ci

of guards. A courtesy

ng the column in matched uniform, the formation so exact it looked d

ad car and bowed, not to me, but

y. We'll see you throu

for a privat

before the coma. Nobody

. Thirty engines t

ery Blackwood seal I'd ever seen, but older markings ringed it here, ancestra

side me, eyes fixed

t it. "I don't think we understood what kind of family th

e to was built for a ki

ign of Genevieve. No sign of Marielle or Aurelia. No sign of the one wh

er of the floor instead, an empty chair se

Scroll open on the stand, both our names already

floor and reac

to

oze. She bowed.