He held my eyes for a heartbeat longer. It felt like two men checking the edges of a bridge they were both going to have to use, making sure the foundations would hold weight.
“Good,” he said. “Then let us keep your principal breathing and my crime scenes clean. In that order.”
He extended his hand. I took it. We left the anteroom together and split at the corridor, him toward the service exit and the city that never stopped trying to kill people, me back into the palace where marble made everything sound important even when it wasn't.
On the way to my next sweep I passed the terrace doors. Rain sketched silver across the courtyard. Apollo trotted under the eaves with a rope in his mouth and the prince at his shoulder, listening to a maid tell a story with her hands. Sebastian laughed at something, head thrown back, completely unguarded.
I didn't stop. Didn't let the scene slow me.
Protocols were set. Lanes were agreed. The city would do what cities did. Men with forums would promise the dark they were coming. A detective would wait with patient anger. A king would count the hours until dinner and hope his son survived another day. A prince would make a village in a courtyard with a dog and a smile that didn't look practiced because it wasn't.
6
PUBLIC MASKS
SEBASTIAN
Iwoke up thinking about his hands.
Not in any way I wanted to examine too closely. Just the thought sliding in before I was conscious enough to stop it. The scars across his knuckles. The way he held himself so carefully, like his body was a weapon he'd learned not to use unless absolutely necessary.
Three days of watching him watch me. Three days of that controlled stillness following me through palace corridors. Three days of wanting him to look at me the way he looked at exits and sight lines.
Like I mattered. Like I was worth the attention.
I shoved the thought away and got dressed. Jeans. Old shirt. Clothes that belonged to the person I was before I put on the crown. The workshop was calling, and I had exactly two hours before my father's staff dragged me into a meeting about agricultural subsidies or whatever fresh hell awaited.
Two hours of freedom. Two hours of being Sebastian instead of Your Highness.
Two hours before Viktor found me.
He always did.
The workshop smelledlike pine and stolen time. Morning light filtered through the high windows, turning the sawdust golden, catching on the half-finished projects scattered across every surface. A rocking horse. A puzzle box. A mobile with wooden birds. Each one destined for a child who needed something beautiful in a world that had been cruel.
Apollo padded in behind me, nails clicking on the wooden floor. He circled twice and flopped down in his usual spot. Content. The only living thing in my life that didn't demand performance.
I moved to the workbench where my current project waited. A toy chest for the cancer ward. Carved animals dancing around the sides. A lion mid-roar. A bear on its hind legs. A rabbit with absurdly long ears that had taken me three hours to get right.
This was for Emma. Eight years old. Bald from chemo. Obsessed with rabbits.
I picked up the carving knife and lost myself in the details. The texture of fur. The curve of a paw. The way wood revealed its secrets if you were patient enough to listen.
The door opened.
I didn't look up. Knew who it was by the controlled quiet of his entry. By the way the air changed, got heavier.
“Morning, Viktor. Come to lecture me about breakfast protocols?”
Silence. Then his voice, tight with controlled irritation. “You missed your eight o'clock briefing.”
“Did I?” I kept carving. “Must've slipped my mind.”
“And your nine o'clock call with the Foreign Secretary.”
“He's tedious anyway.”
“And your ten o'clock meeting with the agricultural minister.”
