Thomas.
Finn’s stomach dropped to his feet. Thomas, one of Darragh’s most trusted advisers. Thomas, who’d been quietly opposed to Finn’s appointment from the beginning. Thomas, who’d offered to “help” Finn prepare for that disastrous dinner with Count Villiers.
The figure disappeared down the hallway. Finn waited until the footsteps faded completely before slipping out of his office and into the records room.
Everything looked normal at first. Files in their proper places, documents neatly stacked. But Finn knew the layout of the room like the back of his hand. He’d spent hours in that same room organizing summit materials, and he noticed immediately that things had been disturbed.
The drawer containing the delegation arrival schedules sat slightly open. Finn pulled it fully out and checked the contents.
The master timeline was missing.
He searched through adjacent drawers, checked misfiled documents, and looked in all the places something might accidentally end up.
Nothing.
Someone - Thomas - had taken it.
Finn stood in the quiet records room and felt everything crystallize into horrible clarity.
The wine redirected to the wrong entrance. Invitations sent with wrong dates. Furniture specifications altered. His most important file mysteriously relocated to a storage closet he’d never visited. And now Thomas, at midnight, was removing documents from the secure records room.
Not mistakes. Not stress. Not Finn’s incompetence. Sabotage.
Deliberate, calculated sabotage designed to make him fail. To prove he was unsuitable. To demonstrate that Darragh had made a catastrophic error in judgment by marrying a fifth son with no court training instead of someone appropriate.
And it was working. Finn sank into the chair at the records room desk, stared at the open drawer where the timeline should have been. In six days, delegations would start arriving.
In eight days, Queen Valdis would descend on the castle with her elaborate requirements and an apparently critical eye. Jericho had a dozen terrifying stories about her.
In ten days, the summit would begin, and Safe Harbor’s entire economic future would depend on presenting a sophisticated, competent face to the world. A face that Finn had been systematically prevented from preparing.
I should tell Darragh.
But what proof did he have? He’d seen Thomas leaving the records room late at night. Big deal. Thomas could claim he was doing additional preparation, or double-checking details. The timeline would probably reappear somewhere embarrassing, making Finn look careless again. And even if they believed him about the sabotage, it didn’t change the fundamental problem: Finn still wasn’t qualified for this position. Thomas’s interference had just revealed that truth faster.
Unless…
Finn stood slowly, an idea forming. If Thomas wanted to prove Finn incompetent, Finn would have to prove otherwise. He would have to execute the summit so flawlessly that no amount of sabotage could undermine it.
He’d been trying to become someone else, someone polished and diplomatic. Maybe that had been the wrong approach all along. Maybe it was time to stop performing and start building.
Because that’s what Finn actually knew how to do - not navigate elaborate court protocols or remember everyone’s proper forms of address, but solve practical problems. Organize complex projects. Build something functional from chaotic pieces.
The summit wasn’t really any different from renovating Winrone’s village hall or coordinating the harvest. It was adifferent scale, and higher stakes, but the fundamental challenge remained the same. Just a lot of moving pieces that needed to work together smoothly.
And if Thomas wanted to keep sabotaging him, fine. Finn would build systems so robust that sabotage couldn’t break them.
He returned to his office with new purpose. The timeline was missing? He’d recreate it from source documents and distribute copies to every department. Files going missing? He’d create backups and store them in multiple locations. Instructions being altered? He’d personally deliver every critical communication and confirm receipt.
Thomas wanted to prove Finn didn’t belong in this world.
Finn would prove that his world - the practical, honest, build-it-yourself world - had value, too.
Fueled with anger, Finn worked until dawn, creating redundancies, backup plans, and verification systems. When Gordon arrived at six, Finn had a new organizational framework ready to implement.
“Your Grace, have you slept?”
“No time.” Finn handed him a stack of documents. “We’re changing how we handle summit logistics. I need you to distribute these new procedures to all department heads. Everything gets confirmed in writing. Everything gets backed up. Nothing moves forward without verification.”
