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Against my will, that makes me laugh. “I told you.”
He doesn’t smile. His eyes search mine. “I’m not replacing you. But I don’t want to return to the status quo. I don’t want to hide behind the King’s Justice.”
“You never hide, Harristan.”
“Father did.” He pauses. “And I wonder if that’s part of why they were killed.” Another pause. “There are very few people in the palace whom I trust. I would never replace you.”
That sentence doesn’t sound complete, so I raise my eyebrows. “But . . . ?”
“But . . . ?I do not want you to think you must hide your true intent from me.” His voice sharpens. “I do not want to think that you would lie to me.”
I swallow and look away. I think of that moment in the Hold when Allisander declared that my brother was not my friend, that he left me in the Hold for an entire day. He wasn’t wrong about that moment—but the choices that put me there weren’t Harristan’s. The blame was mine. “Forgive me.”
He hesitates, then reaches out to ruffle my hair, the way he did in the Hold. “You’re forgiven.”
I roll my eyes and duck away. “So . . . ?you don’t want me to be Cruel Corrick anymore?”
He grimaces. “There is so much gossip and unrest. If even a fraction of it is true, I think you’ll have plenty of opportunities to be Cruel Corrick. But . . . ?we have focused on the crimes of those who have little, those who commit crimes of desperation. The true insurrection was here in the Royal Sector. With us.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“I was giving them to Quint before you burst in here.” He sighs and pours himself a glass of brandy, then smacks my hand away when I reach for the bottle. “I still have no idea why Roydan and Arella have been meeting secretly to review shipping logs. And we’ll have to do something about Leander Craft’s sector. I can’t have two sectors without a consul. Those explosives came out of Trader’s Landing, so we’ll need to discover how they were smuggled out. I suspect we may have more traitors in our midst than just Allisander.” He runs a hand through his hair. “We’ll need to appoint someone to oversee—”
A knock sounds at the door. “Your Majesty,” a guard calls. “Another meal has arrived.”
I smile at my brother. “Let’s get to work.”
