While Solaris listened—or pretended to listen—to two men argue over property lines, I went over to the guy whose job seemed to be introducing the people waiting in line to see their prince. He was elderly, rickety, and for a second there, I’d thought I was looking at Lars from the pub.
“Hey, hi,” I said once I’d tottered my way over to him because I was still forced to wear heels. “Can I interrupt for a second?”
“Of course, sir. How can I help?”
“I was wondering if you could coordinate clearing the room so His Highness could take a break.”
“Why yes, sir, absolutely.” He leaned around me a bit to peer at Solaris. “He is looking rather…”
“Frustrated.”
“…Murderous.”
A laugh jumped out of me. “Well, that may be aimed at me for dragging him back here, but I have an idea to help myself and the rest of you that I’d like to discuss with him.”
“Right away, sir.” He gave me a brief bow, called over some of the people who’d been lining the walls looking like they were waiting for orders, and all of them started shooing everyone from the room.
I made my way over to Solaris, who was sitting up and looking around with interest.
“What have you done?” he asked. “Are we leaving?”
“No, we’re not leaving,” I said on a chuckle. “You’re taking a break, and I have some questions.”
“Oh.” He slumped in his seat.
“First, remember when you said that you’d take putting running water in every village to someone to put on their agenda?”
He nodded. “The Utilities Minister, Lady Christina Astrid.”
“Okay, great. So what does she do?”
“Projects relating to water, gas, light… They fall under her purview.”
I had to take a moment to clarify because what? “Light?”
He gestured to the flickering wall sconce beside him. “Candle production.”
“Huh. Okay. So why wasn’t the guy who came here wanting to talk about his bees dying or the woman with the dried-up well sent to Lady Astrid instead of you?”
“The bees?”
“No bees, no beeswax. For candles?”
“Oh.” He cocked his head like he was considering that. “I sent him to Husbandry, but I sent the well woman to Utilities.”
“At the time I didn’t realize Husbandry was Lord Penlock and Utilities was Lady Astrid.”
“Yes, I used their names, not their ministries.” He frowned at me like he had no idea where I was going with this.
“That’s fine. I just didn’t know. But,” I said, “why couldn’t these people have gone there first? Why didyouhave to direct them?”
Solaris blinked at me. Yeah, poor thing, he’d never even considered that. “They…should have.”
I nodded, trying to be encouraging instead of bopping him on the head for not seeing the obvious.
“Maybe someone—or a lot of someones—could go out there and hear these people out to see how many actually need to go somewhere else for solutions. You know? If they don’t need a final decision that only you can make, then they don’t need to be here.”
“But if they don’t come to me, why amIhere?” he said with a flash of temper. “This is why I kept leaving! Whether I’m here or not, they can make their own decisions.”
