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Right now, it felt like the man was a furnace. That heat let her take a breath as Saviero led her into the palace, where she knew even before she stepped over the threshold that something was terribly wrong.

She could feel her heart pick up speed and seem to hammer harder against her ribs.

Cesca had spent her entire life in this particular fishbowl, so she had long ago mastered the art of keeping her gaze trained to never quite alight on anyone. That way no one could catch her eye unless she wanted them to. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t perfectly aware when there were people around her. She could see all of them.

What appeared to be the whole of the palace staff, lined up and staring, all of them looking decidedly distraught in the face of their beloved King Vesuvius’s abdication—because they wouldn’t know, yet, about the rest of what Cesca still, desperately, wanted to believe was some prank.

And even if she wanted to convince herself that Saviero had suffered some kind of psychotic break, and had made himself over into a sudden, uncharacteristic prankster, what she could not imagine was that she’d somehow enlisted palace staff from the cabinet straight on down to the maids to join him in said prank.

All of whom bowed and curtseyed to her as she passed, all clearly trying to be brave in the face of Cesca’s ascension.

Her mother had always told her, in that smoothly cultured way of hers, that one day Cesca would realize that the manners she’d been taught and the protocol she’d been expected to follow since she was a young child would serve her well.

It seemed that day was today.

She heard the grand clock chime out six strikes. It was Christmas morning. And it was clear that everyone here believed what Saviero had told her. Vesuvius had truly abdicated his throne.

That was sobering enough.

They didn’t yet know he was dead.

And Cesca swallowed hard, but she kept her face composed. For the first time in her life, she was grateful that she knew how to do it. Because at some point she was going to have to face all the feelings that she was tamping down inside her, but she had no intention of doing that in public.

A princess learned very early on to keep her wounds to herself, or perish.

She had learned that the hard way after their father had died, and the papers had published pictures of her private grief for everyone to see, pick over, and comment upon. One picture in particular—of Cesca crumpled against a wall, having slid down it when the news that her beloved father was dead had reached her—had been snapped by own of the nurses. A nurse Cesca had trusted, who had sold that photograph and retired on the money it had brought her.

Cesca had learned a lot of lessons in the wake of her father’s passing. How to weather a press storm—even if, in that case, it had been more that she’d felt splayed open for carrion crows to feast upon her deepest emotions. How to create her own image, so the image could be what was debated, not her poor heart, not ever again.

Most crucially, she had learned not to trust anyone who could potentially profit from betraying her.

Saviero led her up and away from the public areas of the palace and into the private quarters. He stopped when he reached the main corridor and looked at her. All of that impossible blue, boring into her, but the good news was that she’d spent her entire life learning how not to react to Saviero. What was this if not one more opportunity to test herself?

Because the alternative was unthinkable.

Cesca gazed back at him, thinking opaque. Mysterious. Unreadable.

She knew she had it when his mouth tightened.

“Part of the cabinet left shortly after your brother and will be handling any operations on the ground in the United States,” he told her. Her mind briefly touched on operations on the ground, then shied away. “The rest remains here and the ministers wish to make your transition to your new duties as painless a process as possible and as quickly as possible.”

Because they wanted her situated and competent before they delivered the blow. Before the people learned that Vesuvius’s plane had crashed on a frozen lake far away.

Cesca stared back at him. She realized, belatedly, that she was still gripping his hand. She made herself let go of it, told herself she absolutely did not miss the comforting heat, and laced her fingers together in front of her.

The silence that stretched out between them felt like it had teeth.

“If I need to sit and pretend to listen to ministers, why are we standing in the Royal Family’s private quarters?” she asked when she thought the teeth digging into her might leave scars. “I’ll admit that I’m a little murky on things, but none of the cabinet live on the palace grounds, do they?” She raised a brow. “Save you, of course.”

As High Minister, Saviero did not live in the Royal Family’s wing, but in his own apartments in the palace complex so that he might be accessible to the King at all times. All the rest of the ministers lived outside the palace. Cesca only pretended not to know these things.

“I thought you might wish to change, Your Majesty,” Saviero said. And as usual, he managed to infuse that impassive voice of his with layers upon layers of censure.

Cesca gazed back at him as if she couldn’t hear that at all. “Why would I change?”

There was another long, fraught moment, though she thought the teeth were feasting on him, for a change.

“Very well,” Saviero said, and she thought she heard a little more stiffness in his tone then.