The Thing with Feathers

by hushedhands

When Maxon and America altered the Laws of Inheritance to allow their daughter to take the throne, they changed Illéa forever. Now Princess Adrienne is coming of age, gifted with more choice and burdened with more consequence than any heir before. Addy is surrounded by love and optimism, but that won't be enough if she can't learn how to find those strengths within herself.(Sequel)

31. Chapter 30

After breaking up with Martin, the rest of Addy's summer was a strange and painful experiment in measuring the passage of time. Losing him as a part of her life was a sudden shock to her whole system, like a car crash at highway speed, but losing their relationship felt more like a slow-motion rip through her heart that had started the night she found out that he'd traded away the photo of their first kiss for a chance to impress her. She hated herself for not seeing the breakup coming. She hated herself for not being able to stop it. She hated herself for still loving him so much. She hated herself for ever falling in love in the first place. She hated herself for not listening when people told her not to fall in love with him. She hated herself for proving them right.

She kept busy during the daytime, either working with her father and Jamesy, helping her mother with some of her charity projects, or spending egregious amounts of time allowing herself to be distracted by Maisy, Lief, and Rosie. One particular day, Addy's godmother Queen Nicoletta had ordered a plane full of her favorite brand of gelato to be flown from Italy and delivered to Addy to help with the break up. This caused quite a lot of excitement amongst the rest of the Schreave kids, as there was enough to last their enormous family a month, at least. By and by, with the help of distractions like those, Addy stumbled her way through daytime.

Nighttime on the other hand…

It always started after family time, when the Palace became quiet. Of course Addy's heart hurt all day long, it wasn't that she forgot Martin for any length of time, but it just didn't seem like her whole body had quite gotten the message yet.

No one seemed to have told her hand, which still reached for the telephone every night to call him. Likewise, her tongue was behind the times as it filled with words to tell him all about her days and her yesterdays and her tomorrows. Her ears still fully expected to hear his voice each night before bed and they seemed to ring out in protest when they were greeted, instead, with silence.

As a matter of practicality Addy knew that her nightly phone calls with Martin were a habit, and a habit could be broken with enough patience, but she just couldn't bear the thought of breaking anything else. Not when she'd already broken so much.

She'd broken her first love; torn it all to pieces and then watched those pieces burst into flame and fade into dust.

She'd broken the heart of a good boy who'd loved her for who she really was and who had quite literally offered her the world.

And now, was she content to let things lie? No. Addy's path of destruction would not be complete until she'd broken this habit, this last vestige of her love with Martin, too.

It was only a matter of time.

---

Just when she was beginning to figure out what to do with herself at the Palace, the end of August arrived and Addy had to desperately find a new normal all over again, this time at school. She had no placement exams to prepare for this year, so she spent her first week on campus with no studying or stress to fill up her mind and help pass the days. It would have been a gift a few months ago, but now it was a curse. She had to run from the heartbreak all day and all night or it would catch her and eat her alive.

She went to the bakery on her very first morning back to enjoy a coffee and a muffin (and she did not look in the direction of the booth where she and Martin had enjoyed breakfast and each other's lips on the first day back from last winter break). When she'd had all she could stand, Addy walked through the park in the middle of campus (but she avoided the part where the photo booth had been set up at the fall festival nearly a full year ago). That's where she met up with Meri, relieved beyond words to be done trying to occupy her own time in the middle of this breakup.

Instead, for one glorious hour, Addy got to relay to Meri the sordid history of Aspen and America's love affair and watch as every possible shade of fascination and revulsion played across her best friend's face.

"Do you think they kissed?" The first words out of Meri's mouth aside from "What?!" "No!" "What?!" and "Ew!" sprinkled throughout the story at all the appropriate moments.

Meri and Addy now meandered through the park with their arms linked, each enjoying a vanilla ice cream cone from a temporary ice cream stand set up near Gregory Illéa's statue, a "welcome back to campus" treat for the students.

Addy took a long, thoughtful lick of her ice cream then said, "Yeah, Mer, I guess they must have kissed. Mom said they wanted to get married. Probably you would kiss someone like that."

"Ugh." Meri shuddered. "With tongues?" Addy winced and pressed her hands over her ears, careful to avoid getting vanilla in her hair, and Meri shook her head gravely at the horrifying question she'd just posed, "What were they thinking, Addy? Yikes."

"What I can't figure out is, how do you think they even met?" Addy wondered. "I know they were from the same town, but it's not like either of them had a ton of free time to spend making friends. I don't even think my mom had friends before the Selection, she just had Aunt Kenna and Aunt May."

Meri shook her head, "I don't really even know what Dad did before the army. I just know it was hard, and he barely got paid anything…"

"Probably manual labor of some kind." Addy said, thinking of her history lessons about the caste system. "But there's no way Gramma could have afforded to hire him for any jobs. Maybe they were both working at the same place?"

"That was probably it. They didn't have school or any place like that to meet. It must have been at work." Meri agreed. "Maybe your mom was singing and he was serving hors d'oeuvres at a beautiful fancy party! Or maybe it was at church, and they gazed longingly across the aisle at each other… Or maybe—"

"Hey." Addy giggled, interrupting Meri's romantic daydreams, "These are our parents, remember? You're not supposed to be rooting for their romance."

"I know! I was just guessing!"

"Do you think your dad loved my mom? Like, really loved her the way he loves your mom?"

"He must have at some point. Marriage is a big deal, and since our parents were from different castes, it was an even bigger deal."

"Yeah. Mom was saving money for their wedding." Addy stuck her tongue out at the word, trying to avoid imagining her mom kissing Uncle Aspen at a wedding.

"Anyway, Dad still loves Aunt Ames very much, just in a totally different way." mused Meri. "He named me after her, for goodness' sake. He and my mom both must have been wild about her."

"Then why did he break up with her? If he loved her so much, why break her heart like that?" Addy asked, trying to seem casual. Trying not to seem like she was thinking about Martin again.

Meri caught her red-handed, "Hey." she leaned over to give Addy's shoulder a nudge with her own shoulder, then she changed the subject, "Did you tell Jamesy or Maisy yet?"

"No. I'm saving it for a special occasion." Addy allowed herself a tiny, mischievous smile. "Maybe Christmas."

"Adrienne Schreave!" Meri laughed.

"I'm kidding… probably."

"What's really weird is that our moms and our dads are both best friends with each other. Would you be best friends with your husband's ex-girlfriend?"

Addy tilted her head to the side, pondering this as she licked her cone to avoid a drip of melted ice cream falling down onto her shirt. "Our moms were friends first, before either of them liked our dads. I think they just stayed friends."

"Okay, but our dads?"

"No idea on that one." Addy shrugged. "Maybe because your dad saved my dad's life?"

"Sure that might explain some of the respect or gratitude from your dad, but Addy, they're best friends. They're in work meetings together every day, and then they watch movies together in their spare time. They're basically in love."

"I know. They're gonna have to be buried together when they die." Addy agreed.

"And they have to die at the exact same time." Meri agreed.

"Our parents are so weird. I mean, we always knew they were weird, but they're weirder than we ever thought they could be."

Meri looked up from her ice cream with a bright smile on her face, "Hey, should we try to get your mom and my dad to fall in love again? If they got married, we could be sisters."

Addy laughed at the completely absurd idea, "We're already sisters in all the ways that count."

Meri rested her head on Addy's shoulder and said, "Well then I'm older, so I'm in charge. I guess I'm heir now."

Addy liked the idea of not having to make any more big decisions for a long while. Not when making big decisions hurt so badly and led to such miserable outcomes, "Okay, big sis. Where should we go after the park?"

Meri winced and then said in her most apologetic voice, "Actually, I kinda made plans with somebody else. I didn't know, I mean, obviously I'd be happy to cancel if there's something you really need!"

Addy was disappointed, Meri was the best distraction from her broken heart she'd found on campus, but she wanted her friend to have fun. "No, it's okay. I'll head back to my house and enjoy the quiet before England invades tomorrow."

Meri didn't look convinced, "I could send Kile over. He's not doing anything."

"No, I mean it. I'm fine."

Meri knew that was an outright lie, "I think I should call Kile…"

"No! Seriously, Meri… I don't want to be pathetic." Addy explained miserably.

Meri shook her head and kissed Addy's cheek, "You're not pathetic, Addy. It's not pathetic to need love and support when you're going through a hard time."

Addy knew she was right in theory, but it was so hard not to feel pathetic in reality.

"I'll call Kile." Meri said, and this time it was a declaration of fact.

Addy licked her ice cream like it was her wounded pride, but really she was glad she would have such a close friend to look out for her. Being alone was harder than she'd ever realized it could be. When Addy had arrived back on campus the evening before, the silence of that first night alone had made her stomach ache. Everywhere she looked, she saw a moment that she'd shared with Martin and a moment they would never share again. The kitchen. The sofa. Her bed. She laid awake that night and stared and stared at the ceiling. She'd gazed up at the ceramic stars her Aunt May and Aunt Kenna had painted for her until the glow of the paint grew too dim to see anymore.

The memories were excruciating enough, but her particular torture was that she wanted to remember them anyway. She wanted to hold on to every second, because now they were all she would ever have left of a time in her life when a beautiful, wonderful boy had loved her for exactly who she was and not what she would become once she put on the Crown.

So she laid there, staring up at the ceiling for hours with the memory of the night Martin had spent in her bed all around her. And it was like gripping a burning skillet with no mitt to protect her hand: it hurt like hell, but she refused to let it go. At some point she fell asleep, because at some point she opened her eyes and the sun was in the sky and she had a good reason to release herself from that prison for the day.

Addy returned to the present with a blink, realizing that every minute that passed was bringing her closer to yet another torturous night, and finished the bottom of her cone in one bite. "It's going to take a lot more sugar to make this okay. Tell Kile to bring milkshakes."

---

Kile and Addy played one of their favorite board games while eating the homemade lasagna that Grandma Magda sent via the guards especially for Addy's first week back. Both students were entering their final year of university, and Kile was preparing to field apprenticeship and internship offers for after graduation. Addy couldn't even think of where she'd be this time next year, getting ready for her Selection to begin. It was still so far away, she had a whole school year to enjoy before then.

Addy fell asleep that night next to Kile, both sitting on the extra bed that she usually used as a sofa. Kile's handheld radio was tuned to a radio theater performance of a murder-mystery, but the drama hadn't been enough to keep Addy awake. She slept like a baby, and Kile tucked her into the spare bed with a throw blanket and Elephanty before tucking himself into Addy's empty bed.

The next morning they went to the bakery for breakfast together and enjoyed frozen coffees and piping hot egg and cheese croissants before Kile headed off to do his textbook shopping. Addy walked back to her dorm alone with the caffeine and sugar hitting her system, thinking about grabbing her bag and hiking over to all of her class buildings to get her syllabi and see what kinds of things she'd be learning over the next few months. All of her plans changed when the end of the street came into view and she spied two black vehicles parked out front, each with red and white English flags flying on the hood.

Addy grinned and hurried upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, to find Lucas in their kitchen switching out his tea tins for a fresh supply from home.

"Welcome back!" Addy said, quick to hug her friend after so many months apart.

"Adrienne! How was the rest of your summer after my birthday?"

"Good." Addy inhaled deeply and noticed that he was wearing Andrew's cologne. Was that something he did when he was feeling homesick? "What about you? What did you get up to?"

Luke rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head, "Coronation planning."

"What? Why'd they make you do that? Jamesy isn't going to have to do anything for mine."

"Mum and the staff are up to their eyebrows in work putting it all together, I just wanted to pitch in a bit. I got more than I bargained for, though. But once I'd offered to help, I couldn't just walk away, could I?"

"I guess not."

"Andy and I escaped for a week to Ireland."

"What did you do there?"

"Can't remember at all, I remember the first pub and the last and absolutely nothing in between."

Addy laughed, "It couldn't have been too scandalous, I didn't read anything about it in the tabloids."

"You read the tabloids?" Luke cocked his eyebrow at her, amused.

"Haven't you heard? They're called The Addy Chronicles now and they just follow me around and report on my every move."

Luke winced and set aside his tins of tea. "I did hear, actually."

Addy's stomach did an unpleasant nosedive. The look on his face, the tone in his voice, somehow their innocent conversation about Luke's summer had found its way to the global news of Addy's breakup.

Addy shook her head, "You really don't have to."

"Are you sure? I just want to make sure—"

"It's fine."

Luke nodded, biting at his lip and studying his hands. "Fine. But if you ever do want to talk about it… I sort of know exactly what you're going through."

Addy blinked, parsing the meaning from his words. "Vanessa?"

"Gone." he said miserably.

"Gone?" Addy didn't understand. "Gone, gone? She didn't graduate, where could she have gone?"

"Paris." he said, as if announcing that she'd crossed the river Styx.

Addy took a second to absorb that word, to take in what it meant. "No. That doesn't make any sense, Luke. I thought the two of you were back together."

"We were, we absolutely were. And then we weren't. We flickered on and off all summer, and then… like an old lightbulb… we just burnt out."

"But I thought she wasn't going to try to go to Paris for a few more years, until she could learn French and Italian better. She said she wanted to go to Angeles after graduating. It was a really smart plan, and I thought maybe… maybe if you two were still together, you'd stay in Angeles for a little while, too. To be with her. And I could keep you around." Addy confessed, the extent of her scheming only now becoming apparent, even to herself. If Luke didn't have Vanessa to stay for, there was nothing keeping him in Illéa after graduation at all.

"Well, yes, she'd intended to stay while she worked her way up." Luke confirmed, not noticing Addy's little panic at the idea that he'd be leaving after graduation after all.

"So what happened, Luke?"

The way it took Luke a moment to find the exact words, the way he shuffled his feet and bought himself a second by rotating one of his mugs on the shelf… Addy recognized how much pain he was in. How much it was costing him just to get the words out of his mouth. She recognized it, because she did the same thing when she talked about Martin.

Her stomach clenched, "Never mind, Luke, you don't have to talk about it if—"

"Dream internship." he managed. Addy had sent him looking for the words, and he'd found them for her. "Nothing Vanessa could have ever seen coming. She'd applied last winter, just looking for practice interviewing and putting together her portfolio. She never imagined…The odds of being chosen… there are only five in her program out of many thousands of applicants, I presume. It'll fast-track her career plan by years. She'll meet all the right people, she might even be offered a job when it's over." he sounded so proud of her, so amazed by her, so in love with her. And so, so sad.

"Oh, Luke."

"…She asked me if I wanted her to stay in Angeles, and I did, but I didn't tell her that. I told her that I wanted her to go."

"You lied to her! Oh, why did you do that, Lucas?" Addy breathed, unable to understand how he could do that to the girl he clearly loved so much.

"Because she belongs there, Addy. She's going to have an amazing career, if I don't get in her way. If she had stayed with me, she would have gotten bogged down in protocol and obligations, and she'd have had to walk away from all of her dreams. Princesses don't have time for full-time careers, you know what it's like."

Addy wanted to argue, she wanted to find a way for him. She'd failed to find a way for herself, she didn't want to fail Luke too. "My Uncle James, he works full-time. He figured it out."

"Addy, come on. He's a commoner married to the Queen's sister."

"What difference does that make? He's in the royal family, he has responsibilities sometimes."

"You know as well as I do." Luke looked so much more tired than the jet lag should have made him and Addy started to regret pushing him so hard to find a solution. He'd been living with this longer than she had, surely he'd thought through everything already. "Responsibilities are different if you've got a crown. It's one thing for your sister-in-law to marry to the King, it's different to be married to a Prince. You've got to know that."

Addy frowned, "I know, Luke. I'm sorry."

Luke nodded, knowing she wasn't apologizing. Knowing she was expressing sorrow. "Vanessa is so talented and she's so bright… if she'd stayed with me and married into the monarchy, she'd have faded away and I'd have had to watch it happen, up close and personal, little by little, every single day. You don't do that to someone you love. If it comes to that, you let them go."

Addy felt like she'd had the air knocked out of her as his words reminded her of Martin. Of how she'd been drowning him to death until she'd let him go. Now she was drowning alone.

Addy wrapped her arms around her friend, squeezing tightly. "God Luke, what are we going to do with ourselves?"

Luke sniffled against her hair, "As I see it, we either marry someone we hate as an excellent tool to torture them, or we die alone."

Addy forced a laugh, but she was struck by how horrible it would be if Luke really was to die alone. Sweet Lucas, starved for sunlight by his father and his brother's shadow. He deserved to be the sun at the center of someone's solar system, around whom everything else rotated.

"No, that's no good Lucas. We'll try again." Addy declared, and for the first time she knew it was a necessity. If she had to do it to set a good example for him, to show him the way, then she would. "After a while, we'll try again."

---

Addy was reorganizing the shelf above her desk in her bedroom with her door open, listening to Lucas' rummaging as he added his newest military history books to their shared bookshelf in the living room. It was nice to be back in their little home, with all its intimate sounds. The Palace was a bustling place, especially with so many Schreave children running around, but it was thoroughly insulated and carpeted and full of everything else that muffles and obscures the everyday sounds of people moving through their lives. Living with Lucas in this little student house was like a song, and one Addy hadn't heard all summer long. She was glad to be back.

Of course, this time next year, she wouldn't be back. She wouldn't be listening to Luke settle into their house as she rearranged things for a new school year, because she'd be finishing preparations for her Selection and training with her father to ascend to his throne. It didn't seem possible. It was still another lifetime away. The words her Aunt May had spoken to her at her last birthday party seemed to ring in her mind like an alarm bell, "You're not going to magically be perfectly ready for your Selection or marriage or children or any of it. Yourself in the future is just like yourself today, but with a few more university exams under her belt."

From downstairs there was a knock at the door, a syncopated sound disrupting the rhythm of the house. Addy tilted her head, listening closely to the new sounds and rhythms breaking up the song that she'd been living in all afternoon. A guard, an English one, spoke with the visitor and checked that whoever it was had appropriate security clearance. This meant it wasn't Kile or Meri, who were both familiar visitors to Illéan and English guards alike.

After a minute, there were footsteps on the stairs and Addy curiously ducked out of her room to see who was approaching.

Her braids were shorter, skirting her shoulders, and she was glaring through a pair of round, gold-framed glasses, but she was still wearing her combat boots and her gait was unmistakable. Lenore Lee was back on campus.

"We need to talk." she said, as soon as she laid eyes on Addy.

Addy guessed that was pretty close to, "I've missed you, let's talk about our summers" so she said, "Sure. Come on in."

Lenore eyed Luke suspiciously, even though he'd never said or done anything remotely suspicious to Lenore. Addy supposed that it was healthy to be suspicious of anybody that handsome with that accent.

"So," Lenore sat down on one of the little sofas in the book nook and beckoned Addy to sit on the other one right across from her, "I've been doing some research on the relationship between the Swendish and Illéan royal families—"

Addy laughed, "Wait, Lenore…"

"What?"

"How was your summer?"

"Productive." Lenore tilted an eyebrow at her, "I worked two jobs, helped take care of my parents' house, and still found time to research your family history."

Addy wouldn't let the pleasantries be rushed the way she might have when she first met Lenore a year before. "How is your family?"

"Good."

Addy waited, then grinned when Lenore didn't offer up any additional information, "So is mine. Rosie wants to invite you to her birthday party in a couple of weeks. Is that something you'd like to do?"

"Do I want to go to a princess' palace party?" Lenore rolled her eyes, but Addy could tell she was just saying that to make a point. She'd never refuse Rosie.

"No, I'm asking if you want to go to my baby sister's sixth birthday party. She still idolizes me and all of my friends, but I know from my experience with Maisy that there are only a few birthdays left until she starts trying to separate herself from the rest of the family and figure out her own unique identity, and then she won't idolize us anymore. Don't you want to be idolized for an afternoon and eat cake?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I could stand to be worshipped for a while." Lenore relented, letting slip the first hint of a grin.

"Good," Addy laughed, "and you know you can bring a guest… if there's somebody tall and cute and living in town this year, working at an apprenticeship not far from campus—"

"I'm not bringing a date to a kid's birthday party!" Lenore objected.

"I didn't say anything about a date." Addy grinned mischievously. "Although I guess a kid's birthday party is a little unconventional for a first date…"

Lenore huffed a laugh at Addy's tenacity and rewarded it by doling out just a hint of gossip, "I never said that it would be our first date."

Addy clapped her hands softly, "Yes! Xavier Avery and Lenore Lee, K-I-S-S-I-N—" Addy dodged a throw pillow lobbed at her head.

"I went through a lot of trouble to research your stupid family drama, you brat, the least you can do is listen to what I found out." Lenore complained.

"Sorry, go ahead."

Lenore tilted her head not-so-subtly toward Lucas, "What about old blue eyes?"

Addy snorted as Lucas decided how to take this description of himself. "Luke can stay if he wants."

Luke joined them in the nook and took a seat beside Addy on the stiff little sofa. "What's this then?"

Lenore opened her messenger bag and withdrew a copy of a magazine clipping; a headline about "Prince Maxon's 16th Birthday Celebration" and a photograph of all the royals in attendance.

Addy gulped and held it close to her eyes, moving from her unbearably young father to her beautiful grandmother Amberly, to her grandfather Clarkson in quick succession. "I've never seen this before."

"See the man and the woman next to your grandfather? That's King Thorvald and Queen Ragna of Swendway."

Addy would never have recognized them if Lenore hadn't spelled it out for her, that's how little she knew about her Swendish cousins.

"Hm." Luke peered over Addy's shoulder as he sipped a mug of tea, "Standing right next to the hosting monarchs? That's a huge honor."

Addy thought about who usually stood next to her parents when they hosted international visitors: King Eoan and Queen Waverly, Queen Nicoletta, or the Emperor and Empress of New Asia.

"So my grandfather considered them one of his most important allies?"

"In a time of war, what's more important than family ties?" Luke pointed out.

"Exactly. This was the height of the New Asian war, your grandfather was probably leaning on Swendway for money, troops, and all kinds of support." Lenore said. "Now, look at this—" She pulled a magazine from her bag, this one a commemorative magazine featuring large and colorful spreads from her parents' wedding and coronation.

"Woah." Addy flipped eagerly through.

"Careful with that, it's older than you." Lenore warned.

"Look at Gavril!" Addy giggled, finding the younger version of her substitute grandfather in the magazine.

"Forget Gavril, look at your mother!" Lucas pointed to a photograph of America in her wedding gown, bouquet in her arms, looking radiant as she prepared to marry Maxon and take her place as his queen.

"You're both wrong." Lenore rolled her eyes and confiscated the magazine from them, flipping to the important page and pointing to it. "Look at the Swendish royals. There they are in the second row, the family section."

Addy felt a pang in her heart for the young version of her father depicted before her, "His parents had just died and he was an only child, they were the only family he had left in the world except for his Aunt Adele and his cousins." Addy spied her great-aunt and second cousins in the front row, just ahead of the Swendish royals. "He probably sat them there because he wanted to try to get close to them, the way Grandfather Clarkson had been." Addy mused.

"Well, fast-forward to your christening, and it's just like Prince Andrew said. They're gone." Lenore showed a photocopy of the front page of a newspaper featuring a photograph of baby Addy in her mom's arms next to her dad, with her godmother and her godfather on either side of them. Little Andy and Luke were in the corner, holding hands with their mom. The Swendish were notably absent.

"Wait, did you say Andrew? What's he got to do with this?" Luke asked, surprised.

Addy was surprised Andrew hadn't told Lucas about the conversation they'd had aboard the train to Scotland. It seemed that heir-to-heir confidentiality was an even stronger bond than she'd thought.

While Addy filled Luke in on what he'd missed the day after his birthday party, Lenore stood up and paced in the empty space between the kitchen table and the nook that they'd been sitting in. The moment it seemed like Addy was done catching Lucas up, Lenore jumped back in, "Something happened between your parents' wedding and your birth, an international incident that became a secret so important that neither your father nor Prince Andrew would even tell you about it. I've been combing through publications from the time, but I couldn't find much. The magazines I've been able to find through the library were mostly gossip rags obsessing over your parents royal happily-ever-after," she rolled her eyes so hard Addy thought they might never come down again. "And Illéa only had one proper reporter writing for one proper newspaper back then."

Addy's mind clicked with recognition. "Rolph Lemex. Is that the one you mean?"

"Yes."

"He's a good reporter. Dabby… I mean, Gavril, still gets a little uncomfortable around him because his mission isn't to protect the royal family."

"Do you know Mr. Lemex?" Lenore asked, highly interested. "He might know something that could help us."

"I know him a little. I've seen him at important events on Lady Elise's arm; she's my dad's chief New Asia adviser. Every once in a while he does an interview with one or both of my parents. I've never really sat down with him, but we get his paper at the Palace and I've read a lot of his investigative reporting."

Lenore considered this for a moment, "I wonder if he'd tell you what happened… His wife was a powerful Palace adviser, he must have known."

Addy tried to imagine Lady Elise betraying national secrets to her reporter husband. "There's no way, Len. Betraying government secrets is a serious crime, and even if it wasn't, Lady Elise would never betray my dad…"

Lenore nodded, sighing, and said, "Well, I can try to find copies of some of those early editions of his paper and see what I can dig up. Maybe he wrote about what was happening before it became a huge secret. It's better than nothing."

"It's a good lead." Addy agreed, grateful.

"You know, you two make a pretty good team." Lucas smiled between them. "Lenore, have you ever thought of working for Addy at the Palace someday?"

Addy choked on a laugh as Lenore scowled and threatened poor Lucas with bodily harm.

---

Addy and Lucas walked together to the campus bookstore a few days before classes began, which allowed Addy to live in a world where she wasn't exactly sure if people were staring at them because of the lingering negative effects of her notorious scandal, because of her infamous breakup, or because Luke was a handsome English Prince carrying books for the Party Princess of Illéa. Addy soothed her anxiety about being on a fully-crowded campus surrounded by students anxious to witness her next mistake by showering herself with cute new school supplies. It helped a little.

"It's nice not to be new anymore." Luke remarked as a particularly lost group of freshmen carrying armloads of thick textbooks rounded a corner and headed off in the exact wrong direction of the register.

"It makes me feel wise." Addy agreed. A straggling freshman hurried off to catch up to the misguided group. "Ah, to be so youthful and optimistic again."

Luke grinned, "Addy, you're the same age as them."

"No, I've passed a thousand semesters in these halls."

"Two." Luke reminded her.

"Plus the summer and winter sessions!"

Luke cocked his head as he considered, "2.75, then."

"I am wisened." Addy said, as if their negotiation had proven her point.

"Well come on, Crone of the Campus Bookstore, let's checkout so that you can get home and immediately start tabbing the chapters and adding their outlines to your notebooks."

"That's not what I was going to do." Addy grumbled at Luke's presumptuous smirk. "I was going to get coffee from the bakery… and then tab my chapters."

She ignored Luke's laughter at her own expense as a register opened up and the student-employee behind the till waved them forward.

Luke set their enormous stack of items down onto the counter: their textbooks, new notebooks, and Addy's generous gift to herself of new pens, pencils, highlighters, stickers, and tabs, and then he quickly began dividing up the goods. "This will be two transactions, please."

"No, it's one." Addy intervened, "Dad said he's paying for your books this semester."

Luke was taken aback at first, then he stammered, "Well, wait… Is that legal? Can he use taxpayer money to buy my books?"

"It's an investment because…" Addy had only been sort of paying attention when her dad had told her about it on the phone the night before, "I don't know, it's good for Illéa for a foreign prince to get an Illéan education. It makes you less likely to declare war on us one day or something."

Luke laughed, not just because their families were the closest allies in the world, but also because England was barely the size of one of Illéas thirty-five provinces. An English war on Illéa would be comically ineffective. "Alright then."

Addy watched as the student employee began bagging their items, first Luke's Political History of the World Wars book, then her Political Game Theory book, then that same book again.

"Wait, I accidentally took two of those." Addy attempted to stop the cashier.

"No, the other one's mine." Luke corrected her with a sly smile.

Addy rounded on him, delighted and surprised, "You're in my Game Theory class?"

Luke pretended to reluctantly correct her, "Technically, you're in my Game Theory class."

"No, it's definitely mine. I signed up for it last spring."

"I can show you my course schedule, Adrienne. It's undoubtedly my class."

"What a terrible mix-up." Addy giggled. "We're going to have to share custody of it, aren't we?"

"I suppose it's the only way to avoid an international incident." he agreed.

"This is going to be great, I can copy off of your homework for a whole semester." Addy teased.

"I'm afraid that's impossible, because I'm going to copy off of your homework for a whole semester."

They continued this goofy back-and-forth exchange all the way out of the store, only pausing once to thank the cashier as she handed them their receipt.

---

On the last night before classes started, Kile invited all of their friends to the Second (And Final) Annual Inaugural Fall Semester Diner Dinner. Unlike last year, Luke got to celebrate with the rest of them instead of having to take his diner dinner with Addy separately. Meri was there, too, and she brought a handsome, dark-haired boy with her. Addy didn't like or trust him, but part of her knew that this was only because Meri had had a boyfriend all summer and Addy had been so caught up in her own life, she hadn't even known about her best friend's first boyfriend.

At first the boy, Trevor, was nervous and quiet around the Prince and Princess, but by the time the burgers and fries made it to their table, Lucas and Kile had done a good job of disarming him and showing him what a fun, lovable group they really were. Addy was consoled by special diner secret sauce, but only somewhat.

She and Meri had grown up together dreaming of their first boyfriends and their first kisses. They'd watched movies together in the Palace movie theater, standing right by the enormous screen to get a good look at how kissing was done. Whatever their first romances would be, they were always an exciting thing waiting for them in the future. Now, Addy's first boyfriend was a crash in her rearview mirror and Meri hadn't even bothered to tell Addy that she was living their childhood dream.

After dinner Meri and Addy walked arm in arm back to Addy's dormitory as Kile and Luke had a serious conversation far behind them, and Luke's bodyguard hovered several strides back from the group. Trevor had gone home for the night to prepare for his early morning class, which gave Addy the perfect opportunity to guilt trip her best friend.

She stayed strategically silent and pointedly pouting until Meri gave in exclaimed, "I was going to tell you, I swear!"

"When, at your wedding?" Addy grumbled.

"No, Miss Grouchy. I was going to tell you on our first day back on campus; Trevor's the reason I had to leave you with Kile that night. But then, at the last second, seeing how sad you were about… you-know-who—"

"You can say his name."

"No, because if I do your eyes will do that sad, watery thing for a minute and you won't able to focus on what I'm saying. It's a cursed name."

"It's not a cursed name!" Addy defended her ex-boyfriend. "I love that name."

Meri rubbed her eyes with her free hand as Addy sailed past the point of not speaking his name. "Trevor's only been my officially official boyfriend for a few weeks."

"Well, that was plenty of time to tell me!"

"You had so much going on Addy, and with the break up and everything—"

"I'll never have too much going on to be there for you. Not even when I'm Queen." Addy swore. "I know I didn't tell you about what was happening with my first boyfriend, but I was very, very wrong for that and I've apologized a jillion times, and I want our friendship to be the kind where I can tell you anything that's happening in my stupid Selection or my stupid marriage, and you can tell me what's happening with your relationships, too."

"I want that, too."

"I'm happy for you Meri! I wouldn't let what happened to me change the way I feel for you!"

"Okay, okay," Meri relented, "I get it. I'm sorry. From now on I won't take your feelings into consideration in any way before I share all the sappy, happy details with you."

"Good." Addy really did feel better. They walked in silence for a moment, the sound of Luke's and Kile's voices drifting forward, but not quite the words they were saying.

"So how was your first kiss?" Addy finally demanded.

Meri did a happy trot next to Addy, relieved to finally be sharing these details with her best friend, "Okay, so we met in Angeles at the cutest restaurant and we ordered three desserts and no meals! Then, we wandered around the city and at every intersection we flipped a coin to decide which way to go. We ended up at this tiny little park I'd never been to before, with only a few trees and a few benches. When we sat down, he put his arm around me, and the next thing I knew… Lips!"

Addy laughed, releasing their looped arms in favor of wrapping an arm all the way around Meri as they continued meandering back to Addy and Luke's house.

---

"Welcome to Political Game Theory. My name is Professor Hardstock. Some of you are here to study economics and some are pursuing degrees in International Relations and Political Science. By a show of hands, who here in this lecture hall is attending Kings University to study economics?" Addy listened as the shuffle of hands flying up around the huge lecture hall echoed around her.

"That's close enough to half. Good. Economics majors, you're a team now. Politics students, you're the other team. It will be up to each team to diagnose what kind of game this class will be by the start of our next meeting."

All around, the lecture hall seemed to rustle as students muttered to their neighbors about this bizarre homework assignment.

"So what do I mean when I say what kind of game? What kinds of games do you think exist in the word?"

"Card games?" one of the students near the front of the class offered.

"Sure." the Professor nodded.

"Board games?" from a few rows behind where Addy and Luke sat together.

"No argument here. What else?"

"Sports." A young woman near the back of the lecture hall called out.

"Yes. Good. And what if I told you all that every single social interaction you ever have is a kind of game? That every business being run is a game? That the system of global politics that binds humanity together is a game?"

The enormous room hushed at the implication. That couldn't be right, Addy figured, because she wasn't playing a game when she read bedtime stories to her younger siblings at night. She wasn't trying to beat them at anything, ever.

"Someone in the back row, someone trying to hide from me... You, gentleman in the green sweater... What is the point of poker?"

"Uh… I guess… to get the most chips?"

"To take all your friends' money, right? The game is only over when someone has to write home to their mother in tears because you won all their money!" The professor agreed enthusiastically with a wry grin, and the students chuckled. "Someone else... Young lady in the red shirt.. yes, you. What is the purpose of a board game?"

"It depends…"

"No it doesn't." The professor pressed her. "When you sit down to play a board game, what do you want?"

"To win?"

The professor turned on his heel and wrote on the enormous board behind him, Finite Games.

"The game is over when one side wins and one side loses. One person has all the chips, and one person has folded or gone bust. Finite games are the kinds of games we play to win. Now let me ask someone else… Earlier I told you that global politics is a game. What is the point of global politics as a game?"

A young man Addy recognized from a couple of her previous classes, now sitting in the same row but all the way on the other side from her, spoke immediately as if called on, "To me, global politics is about finding ways to get what you want out of other countries as easily and quickly as possible."

"In that case, how do you win?"

This slowed him down a little, "I guess... when you have everything?"

The Professor feigned horror, "Good God! When one country has ruthlessly dominated the rest of the world? Keep an eye on this man, he's dangerous." The class laughed again. The professor took a moment to look over the large crowd of students, as if making a difficult decision, before his eyes came to rest on Addy. "Princess Adrienne? I have a feeling your perspective might be different than your classmate's. How would you say that one wins the game of global politics?"

Addy felt the weight of hundreds of sets of eyes land on her with a thud, but she knew this was mostly in her imagination. She never walked into a room without people noticing her, it was only a matter of whether or not she and everyone else could pretend this wasn't the case. "Illéa's international relations are about maintaining peace and finding ways to share the strengths of our nations amongst allies so that the citizens of every country can thrive."

"How does it end? How does one win?" the Professor pressed.

"Um… I... I don't think it ever ends. I think a win is just… when everyone has enough of what they need to be at peace."

The professor nodded to her so slowly that it was practically a bow, then he turned to the chalkboard and wrote Infinite Games. "Infinite games do not end. That's why they're infinite. There's no way to win, but there's one surefire way to lose." the professor pointed from the second words he'd written back to the first, "Turn them into finite games by deciding to go for the kill. The point of an infinite game is to keep playing. The game is what matters. Relationships, business, politics... These are all, for the most part, infinite games. The goal of my class is to teach you how to think, how to strategize, about these two types of game. But the strategy for one will never work for the other. You play to win or you play to play, but before you make any move, you've got to know what kind of game has been laid before you."

The class hummed with the sound of interested murmurs and notebook page turns and pens clicking to begin taking notes. Next to her, Luke gave her an eager grin and Addy knew exactly what he was thinking: this could easily become one of the most interesting classes they took at school.

---

The wild ups and downs of Addy's emotions began leveling off when she found out, via Meri who'd read it in a tabloid, that Martin was taking the semester off of school to spend time with his family and focus on recovering from the absolute hell they'd all been put through by the press when he'd been dating Addy. Addy was selfishly relieved that there was no chance that she would run into him in a dining hall or at the library, but it didn't sit well with her that his academic career was taking a hit because he'd loved her. That part was all wrong.

Still, with absolutely no chance of turning a corner and coming face-to-face with him, Addy found her mind drifting to him a little less often. Her brain wasn't constantly bracing for a confrontation with him by imagining a thousand little dream-confrontations with him. By the third week of September, Addy had fallen into the comfort of a routine that involved lots of time with her friends and lots of time with her books, and she found other people she could talk to at night and share her days, her yesterdays, and her tomorrows. Her hand finally stopped itching to call him.

One of her new favorite activities was to cook dinner with Lucas and talk about their game theory class. It was becoming obvious why the class was so large, it was probably one of the most interesting courses offered in the entire university.

Luke and Addy were making an experimental casserole that they'd christened "Special Dish", which involved each of them slicing and throwing in their favorite vegetables, then filling the rest of the casserole dish with cheeses, then baking it until it seemed right. As they chopped, they discussed the game they'd played in their previous class.

The professor had started by asking everyone in the room to take out a dollar, and announced that they would be gambling that day. A zero-sum, finite game. He'd asked everyone in the room to think of a number between one and one hundred, and announced that the winning number would be 2/3's the average number guessed by the class. Luke and Addy had both lost their money, because they'd both guessed 22, assuming that the average of all students would be somewhere around 50, and 2/3s of that would be 33 but everyone would probably put 33, so they did one further calculation and got to 2/3s of 33, which was 22.

What they'd learned as the professor took their money to give it to the real winner is that the average human will think two moves ahead in whatever game they are playing. Addy, Luke, and the rest of the class had thought two steps ahead and they'd all put a number pretty close to 22. Only one person in the class had put 15, which was thinking a third move ahead and ended up being enough to win them nearly 300 dollars from the class. The professor wanted the class to begin to think about how to understand their opponent. Planning too many moves ahead in a game would result in a loss, but so would planning too few. The objective in a finite, zero-sum game should be to remain one move ahead of your opponent, and you can only do that if you know your opponent well.

"I miss my dollar." Luke lamented.

"Luke, you're a prince. You can get more dollars."

"I know, but that one was special. It had Uncle Maxon's face on it."

"Lucas." Addy scolded, refusing to play this infinite game in which he convinced her to reply that her father's face was on all of the dollars.

Luke laughed, allowing the game to end. "If I was playing you, how many steps ahead would I have to think?"

"If we were playing the money game again, we'd probably both end up at 0 because we'd be thinking so many steps ahead." Addy said, digging through the refrigerator for more kinds of cheese to throw into this night's version of Special Dish.

"Well, if I was playing Andrew I'd have to think one step behind because he's so dumb." Luke grinned.

"Good insult, Lucas, that'll teach him." Addy giggled. "I'll bet he's over in England right now, absolutely furious with no idea why."

"Ha." Luke laughed as if this teasing served his poor brother right for some unknown reason, then he set aside his chopping knife, poured the potatoes he'd been working on into the casserole dish, and rounded the kitchen counter in pursuit of the little handheld radio that Kile had left behind when he'd spent the night at the start of the semester. When Luke clicked the dial on, it was set to a news broadcast and the anchor was updating the public on current affairs.

Preparations were going well for the English prince's coronation, and France was preparing to host a celebration in honor of the anniversary of the end of one of the world wars. Seismologists had detected that an earthquake had stricken Swendway in the early hours of the morning, but no word from the country yet on casualties or request for foreign aid. In domestic news, reports had emerged from the Angeles campus of Kings University that Princess Adrienne and Prince Lucas of England have been spending far more time together lately, could he be the next boy to have his heart broken by the heir to the throne?

Addy and Luke both started ranting in the general direction of the radio at the exact same time, Addy with a menacing knife in her hand that she'd been using to chop onions:

"Spending more time together? What does that mean, we've been living together for over a year, how are supposed to somehow suddenly be spending more time together—"

"That's just campus gossip masquerading as news! You can't put that nonsense next to reports of an earthquake and pretend they're of equal importance! That's idiocy—"

They both stopped griping at the same time and started laughing instead.

"Switch to music." Addy said, dabbing her eyes with a cloth to avoid getting the onion juice on her hands in her eyes and causing the tears of laughter to become tears of pain.

"Agreed." Luke clicked through until they found the campus radio station and then he returned to add pepper and salt to their casserole.

They both agreed, in the end, that this was their best "Special Dish" yet. Addy hurried to scribble down the kinds of cheeses they'd used so that they could try to replicate their success another time while Luke packed away the leftovers and set the casserole dish in the sink to soak. It was commonly understood amongst the two of them that casserole dishes needed to soak at least overnight in order to be cleaned properly, not because it was true but because they were always sick of being in the kitchen by the time they were done eating. They went to their separate rooms, set about their separate bedtime routines, called their separate families, and then fell asleep into separate dream worlds.

When Lucas had nightmares, they were always about being too late for something; missing an important public event, a class, or even his own birthday party. It wasn't the lateness itself that had haunted him from childhood, it was the thought of being too late. Missing and losing and failing because he'd been too slow, too lost, or too easily distracted.

When Addy had nightmares, they were usually about falling. Off of cliffs, out of airplanes, from the highest rooftop of the Palace. The moment before she woke up, she would always have a cold, still moment of realization: I am about to die. Then she'd jolt herself awake, sit bolt upright in bed, and wonder if there would ever come a day when she wouldn't wake up, when it wasn't a dream and she really would hit the ground.

That night, Addy was spared a fall to her death out of the window of a mansion full of angry ghosts, and Lucas was spared missing Andrew's coronation due to misplacing his own shoes, by the unmistakable sound of boots stomping quickly up the stairs and loud knocking on both of their doors.

"Pardon me, Princess, I'm sorry to disturb you." One of the English guards. Where was Addy's guard, Lieutenant Colonel Huang?

"What's the matter?"

"You and Prince Lucas have been summoned to the Palace by King Maxon. He'd like you there immediately."

"…What?" Addy wiped her eyes and realized she'd been grasping Elephanty for dear life in her sleep, probably as her last hope to keep from falling. She was too sleepy to understand why her dad would do such a thing.

"Slip on some shoes and come downstairs, Princess. Hurry. Your uncle is here, he'll explain more than I can."

Addy obeyed, sliding on her house slippers, too sleepy to remember to drop Elephanty on the bed on her way out. Lucas looked as groggy and as befuddled as she was, arriving at the stairs at the same time she did and allowing her to go first.

On the first floor of her student house, Addy found her Uncle Ryland briefing Addy's unit of guards. As soon as he heard her coming, he stopped speaking and turned to her.

"Uncle Ry." Addy sleepily hugged him tightly. It was good to see family after a few weeks from home.

"Hey there, sleepy head." Ry mussed Addy's hair affectionately and it occurred to her that she probably looked like she had a red bird's nest on her head at this time of night.

"What's going on? Is everyone safe?"

"Your family is safe, and so is Prince Luke's." Ryland added with a nod to Lucas.

Addy said, "Then why is Dad making me come home? I'm not on any magazines, am I?"

Ryland winced and kissed the top of her head, "No, Bird. Nothing like that. You're not in trouble. I don't know what's going on exactly, I don't have that kind of security clearance. Whatever it is, I saw General Leger on his way in as I was leaving the Palace, and I'd put that at around 11PM. Not his usual shift."

"Something military? Something in New Asia?"

"I wish I knew, Bird, I'd tell you."

"Did Dad say if soldiers were dead?"

"He didn't."

Addy frowned. "Wait, but why Luke?"

Ryland shrugged his shoulders, "We should leave, Bird. The official story is that you've gone home to celebrate Rosie's birthday a little bit early."

Addy swallowed hard, "Rosie's birthday… I don't have her present yet…"

"That's okay."

"Lenore is supposed to ride with me—"

"We'll make sure she arrives before the party."

Addy looked helplessly between her guards and her Uncle Ryland. She couldn't leave campus in the middle of the night, she had classes the next morning.

From behind her, Lucas placed a hand on Addy's shoulder, "Don't worry about any of that. Your dad needs our help, we'll get the rest sorted later. Let's go to the car."

"Okay." Addy followed along behind Lucas as if they were once again very small children and he was leading the way to the rest of the Palace kid gang, who'd run far ahead of them in the gardens and were too far away for Addy to see. She'd have been lost without him.

Once they were both in the quiet, dark car and it had begun to roll down the street, Addy mumbled softly, "Do you think they're all dead?"

She'd been peering at Elephanty while saying this, as if asking her stuffed toy, but it was Luke who responded, "What?"

"Do you think all of the soldiers I sent to New Asia are dead? That's what this has to be about, right? The last time you and I had to go to a military meeting together, it was about New Asia… and I agreed to send Illéan men and women overseas. My people. The generals… they said they needed more soldiers, so I sent them… do you think they're all dead?"

Luke fiddled with the lapel of the robe he wore over his matching set of pajamas, looking like a very young and handsome grandfather by his choice of sleep attire. "Obviously, they wouldn't be dragging us from our beds in the middle of the night and making up an official story about why we've absconded to the Palace if things were going well. Something bad has clearly happened, but there's no way to know what or how bad it is. So it doesn't make sense to make wild guesses right now. We shouldn't let our worry carry us away."

Addy objectively knew he was right. She squeezed Elephanty tight and tried to convince herself not to worry about the soliders she may have doomed to die. Then, with a squeeze in her stomach, Addy remembered the casserole dish they'd left soaking in their sink from a much happier, simpler time mere hours before. They wouldn't be back for days, until after Rosie's birthday that weekend at least. For some reason, the thought of their happy little dish sitting abandoned in their sink did her in. Addy started sniffling, and tried to hide her tears in Elephanty's fur, but Luke had been watching her too closely.

Before she knew it, Luke had unbuckled his safety belt and slid across the plush leather seat so that he could wrap his arm around her. "Take deep breaths," he reminded her in a hushed, warm voice, "This is not forever. We'll have answers in a few hours, and then we can make a plan."

"What if I'm a murderer, Luke?"

He looked astonished at her, "If you find out that innocent people are in danger, and you send heroes who volunteer to save them, and some of those heroes are hurt or killed in the line of duty… Addy that's not your fault. We blame the attackers, those who sought to gain fortune or power by exploiting the weak."

"But I made the call—"

"And if you'd chosen not to send help? What would have become of your troops already abroad? What would have become of the innocent people you were trying to defend? What about the people who aren't victims yet, but would be in a month or a year or five years if you hadn't acted decisively?"

He was right. She knew he was right, all his words sounded good and the way he said them landed nicely in her ears. Why couldn't she feel better?

"Just focus on breathing," Lucas insisted, "and try to describe to me how Elephanty feels."

"Elephanty?"

"Tell me what he feels like, as if I'd never touched him."

Addy sniffled and traced her fingers along her stuffed friend's fur thoughtfully. "Well he's… squishy, like a soft pillow. Not a firm pillow."

"I see. That's good. What else?"

"His fur is short, like… like… almost like the fabric on one of the fancy old rugs in the Palace, but even shorter. You can leave vacuum lines in the rugs and you can leave finger lines along Elephanty."

"What else?"

"He's much softer than any old rug…"

"Is he soft like silk?" Luke said, offering the sleeve that wasn't wrapped around her for Addy to compare.

"No." Addy said, tracing a finger along his slippery, silk robe sleeve. "He's soft like the nicest, fluffiest, most amazing towels in the whole Palace. The kind mom uses."

"Oh-ho!" Lucas chuckled, "Your parents use different sets of towels?"

"Mom has some very special ones, the softest in the world. She says she won't let dad use them unless he has a sunburn because otherwise he won't appreciate them. She's always let us kids use them if we wanted, though."

"I need to feel these towels."

"I can sneak one to you while we're home." Addy said, conspiratorially.

"A good, old-fashioned Palace kid caper. I've missed those." Lucas smiled, but it faltered as the car returned to silence and Addy clearly began to descend into her anxiety again. "Now, I need you to describe something else to me, this is going to be a little bit of a challenge."

"Okay."

"The tree castle in your gardens where we all used to play… remind me what the view is like from up there. It's been so long, I've started to forget."

"Well, there's a path from the Palace to the gardens near the foot of the tree."

"Ah yes, I remember that."

"And just past that, my parents' favorite bench."

"The bench where they met?"

"Yes. And then rose bushes."

"For which they named Rosie."

"That's right." Addy smiled just a little, one of her favorite places in the Palace and her baby sister occupying the same little thought in her mind.

"What else?" he pushed.

Lucas wasn't sly. Addy realized what he was doing. He was forcing her to translate sensory experiences that she loved, like the way Elephanty felt to touch and the way the gardens looked, into words. He was forcing her to focus hard on them, compare them to other pleasant things, and that was stopping her anxiety from overtaking her in the backseat of the car. But even though she'd caught him red-handed, it still worked.

And when she was done, she had him describe the puppy pens at the palace where he'd grown up in England. Then he had her describe the stables at Illéa Palace where she's always loved to help care for the horses. They went back and forth for as long as it took, he described his favorite tea shop, she described how it felt to build a snowman, until finally she fell asleep listening to him go into particular detail describing Christmas morning with his family in England.

---

Adrienne slept until just before dawn, when the black sky had only just shifted to a dark blue, and their car rolled through the Palace gates and finally came to a stop.

Bridget had Addy dressed for work in no time, moving like a blur around the room while Addy sipped on a coffee and tried not to look scared. Bridget dropped Addy off at the door of security room A at the exact same time Lucas arrived.

Luke, who'd been helped by one of the butlers usually assigned to Jamesy, wore a suit that tugged at Addy's memory incessantly as she struggled to place it so early in the morning.

"Wait…" her mind groggily clicked, "My dad wore that suit in his Selection."

"The lapels are a little out of date, but he leant me a modern tie. I hope it's not too noticeable." he shuffled nervously in what Addy now saw was a pair of Jamesy's dress shoes. "The arms are a bit loose, too. Addy, I think your father must have had enormous biceps in his day."

Addy laughed at the thought, "My dad? You must be confused." Though now that she thought about it, her dad had always been strong and lean. Growing up, that's just how she assumed all dads were.

"I feel as if I should go lift a few weights before we walk in so the sleeves are less puffy around my inferior muscles."

"There's nothing wrong with your muscles, Luke, you're entirely presentable." Addy winked at him as a guard opened the door to the security room for them and they entered to find an incredible entourage waiting.

Maxon and America stood in the corner by a coffee tray, speaking in hushed tones. General Leger was fretting over a map on the table next to Maxon's top adviser, Evander, and several members of the security advisory board. Addy also recognized her father's retired former top adviser, Mr. Stavros.

The room grew still at once as all eyes turned to the new arrivals, and America was the first to break the silence. "Birdy." She hurried over to wrap Addy in a hug. "I'm so sorry we had to wake you."

"Is everything okay?"

"What a question." America replied softly into Addy's ear.

Addy nodded and pulled back, looking her mother in the eyes, asking the better question, "What's wrong?"

"It's a long story, Bird. One that I'm afraid will take up most of our night." Maxon looked beyond tired, and borderline ill in this terrible, fluorescent security room lighting. He took his turn hugging Addy as America turned to Luke.

"Lucas, you look absolutely dashing."

"Thank you for the loan, your Majesty."

"I know it's a bit short on you, but I'm glad it was close enough."

Addy glanced down and spied Luke's argyle socks poking out about an inch more than was fashionable, then hurried to look back up between Maxon and Lucas. Sure enough, sometime in the last few years when Addy hadn't been paying attention, Lucas had grown taller than her father. It was silly, but it unsettled her just a little bit because Addy was still getting used to the idea that they weren't little kids anymore.

"Gentlemen." Maxon turned to the soldiers and advisers gathered around the table, and one by one they took their places next to chairs, waiting to be seated. The meeting was about to begin.

"Prince Lucas, Princess Adrienne… I'm sorry to have dragged you from your beds." Maxon began. He and America rounded the table to take two empty seats across from the empty seats nearest Addy and Luke. Once her parents were seated, Addy and Luke sat opposite them, and the rest of the room sank down as one, following perfect protocol even under such strain and stress. "I know you both have so many questions. Be patient with me and I shall try to answer them all. You see, there's been an incident of interest to both of our nations. Lucas, your father and brother will be phoning in soon with an update, but they asked that you be present to help facilitate our coordinated response."

"I see." Luke said, although from where Addy was sitting there was absolutely nothing to see yet.

"Is it New Asia?" Addy couldn't contain the question any longer, though she was dreading the answer.

"No." Maxon replied immediately to set her mind at ease, "Things in New Asia are progressing as expected. It's not a simple operation, but nothing has gone wrong on that front."

Addy could have wilted with relief, but she was serving in her capacity as Princess of Illéa and so she kept her shoulders straight. And of course, if it wasn't New Asia, then this was a threat she was not mentally braced for. This was something she hadn't seen coming. A kind of still, cold dread settled like a weight on her shoulders as she waited stoically for more information.

"This is about Swendway." Maxon peered at her, watching for her reaction.

Addy let the words land with a thud on the table before her. She could feel Lucas looking at her, astonished, knowing how long she'd been working to piece together the curious circumstances surrounding Illéa's relationship with Swendway.

Addy lowered her eyes to her folded hands, remembering that night the previous year when her father had lamented that the Swendway problem, whatever that meant, might be her inheritance from him. "The situation changed?" Addy asked simply, calling back to that conversation.

"Drastically." he nodded. "And the response needs to be coordinated across our reigns, as well as across Eoan and Andrew's. This is going to require a multi-generational response from all of us, I'm so sorry to say."

Addy swallowed hard, knowing how painful this must be for her dad. He, like Addy, was a born fixer. He wanted to make everything better for everyone, especially his children. But as the high hem on Luke's suit pants clearly illustrated, they weren't children anymore. "Then tell me everything. I've waited long enough."

Maxon nodded slowly, but it was America who spoke next, "Addy, what do you know about the rebel attack that killed your grandparents?"

"I know that it was a massacre, and that dozens including the King and Queen were killed by rebels. I know that all video footage of the event was destroyed to honor the dead. I know that Dad was shot and that General Leger saved Dad's life."

America nodded, "I want you to think about what that means for a minute. I know it's easy to recite the history and lose sight of the meaning."

Addy remembered the night her mother had brought her back from campus in the middle of her tabloid scandal. How her father had scolded her, desperately trying to convey and justify his fear for her life. "Addy, the King and Queen were gunned down in the Great Room." America said softly. "The Prince, the only heir to the throne, was shot and would have died if it wasn't for one very brave, very determined guard. The rebel who pulled the trigger on your father had been aiming for me." she said steadily. "And it was far from the last time that he would try to kill us."

Addy squirmed in her seat, imagining blood and gunshots and chaos in the Great Room where they held every birthday and Christmas ball. "He was from Swendway?" she asked feebly.

"He was from the South," Maxon was grim, jaw clenched as he confessed, "A victim of some truly heinous laws put into place over many decades by my father and grandfather. That man was a villain of our own devising."

"Then what does he have to do with Swendway?" Addy pressed.

"When your father and I announced that we were amending the inheritance laws to allow our firstborn, regardless of gender, to be your father's heir, the King of Swendway took grave offense. And, to be entirely fair, we were warned." America said, meeting eyes with Mr. Stavros.

Stavros shook his head, "No one could have foreseen such a turn of events, your Majesty."

"Swendway has something against girls?" Addy asked, confused. She'd never heard that about their culture, but perhaps she'd missed something.

"They're our royal relatives." Maxon said, watching Addy's face closely for understanding. "Where do you think the crown would have gone if I'd been assassinated with my parents?"

Addy shook her head, "No where. The rebels would have dissolved the monarchy."

"Maybe. Or maybe, with a military as vast and well-funded as ours, my father's loyal generals would have wiped the rebellion off of the face of the earth." Maxon shrugged, entirely too casual for such a nightmarish scenario. "I'll tell you what King Thorvald thought. He thought he and his family would unite Swendway and Illéa under one crown."

Addy shook her head, stunned, "But we always joke that cousin August—"

"Cousin August's claim to the throne is highly contestable." America said. "He's the descendant of a man who was supposed to have died with no children. Thorvald has a significantly cleaner, stronger claim."

"I don't understand, what does any of that have to do with the inheritance laws?"

Maxon fiddled with his cufflinks as he continued to explain, "Try to remember that we had no heirs, no Palace full of Schreaves to ensure the royal line. We'd only just found out your mother was pregnant with you around the same time we began laying the groundwork for the amendment. We were still so very vulnerable… and Thorvald, insulted that we would pass the crown to a girl, in flagrant disregard for the customs and norms that had laid the foundations for both of our nations, saw an opportunity to get me out of the way. To correct all of my progressive transgressions."

"He tried to kill you?" Addy asked, stunned. "Katherine Illéa's many-greats grandson tried to kill you?" she felt absurdly betrayed by the spirit of her favorite royal ancestor.

America replied steadily, cooly, "He funneled ungodly amounts of Swendish tax money to what remained of the rebellion… by then led by the same man who'd nearly killed your father. This man took Illéan civilians hostage and executed them on television. He tortured and then killed your Uncle Kota in Carolina. And he was relentless in his efforts to kill me, to kill both of us Addy, before I could give birth to you. He's the reason your father wakes up in the night and makes sure the windows to our rooms are still locked. He's the reason Astra won't go hiking in the woods. He's the reason Uncle Carter walks with a little limp when it's raining. He's the reason Xavier Avery's father is dead."

The horror of her mother's words, the sheer violence she was describing in the detached, far-off voice of the traumatized, made Addy want to curl up in the corner and cry.

"Stay seated, gentlemen." Maxon told the room so that he could stand up and pace without disturbing them. He held his hands behind his back for a moment, rotating his wrists, "Addy, I would say that the fact that you're alive here today is a miracle, but the truth is that it was Uncle Aspen, Uncle Ryland, and men just like them who saved you, your mother, and me at every turn." Maxon clasped his hand on Uncle Aspen's shoulder at those words. "King Thorvald did not personally commit any act of violence against us, but he made it easy for our attackers to gain followers, train up, purchase weapons, and hunt us down. So many people we loved would be alive today had he not resorted to such madness."

Addy pushed and shoved against the numbness in her mind to try to fill in the blanks for herself. "This is a secret, other nations don't know what he did. There are some kind of sanctions on Swendway, England uses spies to ensure they are enforced."

Maxon tilted his head to the side, impressed, "You've been doing your homework, Adrienne."

"Andrew and I had a conversation last May. He didn't tell me any of Swendway's crimes, just the measures that were put in place afterward."

America nodded, "We seized as many Swendish assets as we could get our hands on, and your father and Mr. Stavros orchestrated an elaborate series of economic sanctions put in place by all of our allies. The sanctions targeted military equipment, travel for governmental officials, and luxury goods, but did not touch food, medicine, or other supplies that the Swendish people need. They are not at fault in any of this, Addy."

"So the Swendish King and Queen are never at any summits because they've been banned from traveling?" Addy clarified, trying to imagine what it would be like to have to conduct a nation's affairs while stuck in a country the size of one or two of Illéa's provinces.

Maxon nodded, "They can take off at their airport, but they're not permitted to land in any of our ally's countries. They're certainly not welcome here."

Addy was stunned, trying and failing to fully absorb what her parents were telling her. She'd known that, whatever Swendway had done, it had been bad. Andrew had called it "a terrible act of aggression", but this was beyond anything Addy had ever imagined. She'd been prepared for violence, for military attacks or explosions of critical infrastructure. But this was so far beyond a military move or countermove. This was an entirely different game.

"I take it King Thorvald has not learned his lesson in the years since you caught him, has he?" Addy asked, knowing the answer.

"He's angry… betrayed." Maxon said.

"Your father is too generous toward Thorvald's motives." America said, "He always has been. I think Thorvald is interested in power, not protecting his world-view or his idea of what Illéa should be."

"Why can't it be both in equal measures?" Maxon challenged her, voice pained. "The one does not preclude the other, my dear."

America opened her mouth to scold him about the nickname, but thought better of it at the last moment.

What her father was saying didn't land right with Addy. What kind of man gave a blank check to a crazed murderer? Swendway had been Illéa's closest ally just five years before Addy had been born. She tried to imagine Andrew, Queen Nicoletta, or Princess Camille launching a similar attack against her family. It didn't work, it was wholly unimaginable. "Dad, if King Thorvald felt his claim to the throne was stronger than mine, he should have spoken to the people and made his case there." Addy frowned, eyes narrowing. The Schreaves ruled by consent of the governed, if the people revoked that consent then the Schreaves would no longer rule. "The fact that he never even tried to persuade the citizens of Illéa to support him just goes to show that he wasn't acting out of respect for Illéa or concern for its people. If that's what he says when he looks in the mirror at night, then he's lying to himself just as much as he's lying to everyone else."

America tilted an eyebrow at Maxon as if to say, "See? Even our baby bird gets it", but Maxon just couldn't do it. Maybe because Thorvald reminded him too much of his father, he had to make justifications, to make sense of the psychological torture inflicted on him by a man he'd completely trusted.

"So… so that's everything up until today?" Addy asked quietly, wishing she wouldn't need to process anything else, but knowing her parents were telling her this for a reason. "Our cousin wants us dead so he can take our crown?"

Maxon smiled sadly at his daughter, "Technically, Thorvald is much more August's cousin than ours. We ought to let him deal with this."

It was a feeble joke, and Addy managed an equally feeble laugh in reply. "So then what changed, Dad? Why tell me now?"

"I know that you don't have daily security briefings at university, but have you been able to keep up with the news at all?" Maxon asked gently.

"A little." Addy shrugged. There were newspapers at the coffee shop and at the library, and the televisions in the dining halls were usually set to the news.

"There were news reports of an earthquake in Swendway." America prompted.

"Oh!" Addy said, lighting up with recognition, "Yes. We heard about that last night." She and Luke shared a look, both thinking at the same moment how incredible it was that their triumphant 'Special Dish' had only been concocted the evening before. It felt like weeks by now.

Maxon offered a tired, proud smile, "Good job Bird, I'm glad that you're keeping up with current events, even on top of your studies."

"Are there injuries? Do earthquake survivors need help?" Addy asked.

"We wondered that ourselves." Maxon said. "Take a look at the map on the table, love. It'll show you the broad outlines of the earth's tectonic plates."

Addy's eyes naturally flew to Angeles, and indeed the entire northwestern coast of Illéa had been sculpted by and perfectly fit against a tectonic plate. This was why little earthquakes were so common in Angeles. Addy's eyes dragged across the map to Swendway and her eyebrows knitted together, "Wait… there's no fault line there…"

"I had the advisers pull seismographic data going back centuries. Small, undetectable earthquakes are routine, and every 50 or 100 years there will be a medium-sized earthquake, usually a 3.0 or a 4.0 on the Richter scale."

"So they've had their once-in-a-generation earthquake?" Addy asked, knowing she was wrong but not knowing what else to think.

"Evander?" Maxon prompted.

Mr. Evander opened a manila folder full of papers. He pushed it across the table for Luke and Addy to examine. "The first page is the waveforms generated on a seismograph during an earthquake from Likely last year. The second page is what was recorded in Swendway."

The difference between the squiggles was obvious, Addy just didn't know what it meant. "Likely's waves are curvier, and Swendway's are spiky. What does that mean?"

"The ground was shaking in a different way." Maxon said. "And Swendway's earthquake registered at a 5.0 on the Richter scale. An order of magnitude stronger than what's been recorded in the region in recent history."

Uncle Aspen added, "What's more, the epicenter of the earthquake was in an old mining town."

Addy looked between the expectant faces of the adults in the room, clearly hoping she'd be able to put it all together. "You're just going to have to tell me what I'm missing, Dad. I couldn't squeeze seismology into my course load this semester."

From beside her, Lucas placed a finger on the spiky waveforms and breathed, "It can't be a bomb."

Maxon stopped pacing in his tracks and looked over at Lucas keenly, "Go on, Luke."

Lucas squirmed to find the whole room looking at him, "It's nothing. I mean to say, I'm sure I'm mistaken. Only, I've read a lot of military history books… in the old days, hundreds of years ago, testing for all of the most powerful, destructive bombs in history was conducted far underground. The only way other countries would realize that someone was testing such a horrible weapon was because it would register on seismograph machines. But no one's bothered with weapons like those since the World Wars, since we almost destroyed all of humanity."

Addy turned from Luke to look up at her father, "You think Thorvald is trying to put together such a dangerous weapon?"

"We're looking to learn more right now." Maxon said. "Lucas, your father and brother authorized a spy plane to fly over the area and take photographs for us to examine. Meanwhile, I've got the Chancellor of the German Federation rounding up satellite imagery of the area from the last few months. If the spy plane shows us earthquake damage above ground, damage that looks like what we would expect to see from a typical earthquake…well, that's one thing. We'd offer to send emergency aid at once."

America grumbled, "Not that he'd ever accept it."

"But if the spy plane shows something else… maybe a lack of surface-level damage, or maybe damage inconsistent with what we've seen from similar-sized earthquakes in the past… well, that's a cause for concern."

Addy shook her head, "That couldn't be enough to accuse them of anything, Dad, the damage might just… be weird. Or maybe they got lucky."

Stavros and Evander frowned and squirmed in their seats, obviously holding their tongues from disagreeing with the Princess.

"You're exactly right, Adrienne." Maxon said, casting a glance at his most trusted advisers to quash their dissent. "I've learned over the course of my reign that having an overabundance of evidence is an absolute necessity when it comes to accusing another world leader of misbehaving. That's why we asked the Germans to assist us. If satellite imagery shows suspicious activity in that region of Swendway—"

"Like assembling bomb-making materials?" Addy hazarded a guess.

"Exactly. If that's the case, then we'll need to plan our next steps very, very carefully."

Addy leaned back in her chair but kept her shoulders straight, a compromise between the dignity of her station and the weight of the moment.

Beside her, Luke looked like he might vomit. His skin had gone clammy and he had a tiny sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"What is it?" Addy asked him softly, "What are you thinking?"

"Those bombs are the stuff of nightmares— horror stories you tell world leaders so that they will behave themselves. The historical photographs of areas that were bombed… the burned survivors, the clothing on their bodies literally disintegrated by the heat… regions obliterated and still too toxic to recover to this day! Addy, a man like King Thorvald, full of self-righteous indignation on an endless quest for power, with that kind of weapon…"

Luke knew more about these weapons than Addy did, probably more than anyone but Maxon's military adviser on weaponry, thanks to those military history books he read so much. Addy had heard him talk about "Waterloo" and "The Marne" and "Culloden", famous battles of history, but he'd never talked at length about the machinery of those wars before. He cared about the human drama behind those conflicts, not displays of military might.

"Dad, if King Thorvald did successfully test a bomb, could he drop it on us?" Addy asked outright.

"No," Maxon said with a heavy sigh, "Or… that is to say, it's highly unlikely. The weight of such a bomb would be tremendous, and the distance between our countries is so far. Even if Swendway had developed a plane capable of making such a journey, Illéa would have plenty of notice ahead of time, and could easily run our own fighter planes to down the unit." Just as Addy allowed herself to feel relief, Maxon continued, "That being said, it would be no trouble at all to fly a bomb like that across the North Sea and drop it on England. That is our primary concern."

Addy felt like she'd been punched in the gut, but the puff of air that she heard exhaled was Luke's as he imagined the hellish carnage he'd read so much about befalling his family and his people. Addy couldn't take it anymore, she stood from the table, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and began pacing too.

The advisers took a moment to decide if they should follow protocol and stand or not, and when Addy noticed them having the silent debate she said, "I apologize. Keep your seats, gentlemen."

America was the next to speak, turning in her chair so that she could see both her husband and her daughter pacing on opposite sides of the long table, "What would Thorvald have to gain by unleashing such a weapon? An act of war on England would warrant a response from our entire coalition of allies. Illéa, New Asia, The German Federation, Italy, France… to use such a weapon would gain him nothing and cost him everything." America insisted.

"Well my love, let's hope Thorvald agrees." Maxon said gravely. "That line of reasoning didn't stop him from trying to kill our family eighteen years ago."

"Eighteen years ago, our alliances weren't half as strong as they are now and your reign was only just beginning. Your power is solidified now, and the people have mostly come to terms with Adrienne serving as your heir. It's a different world now." America countered.

"A world that largely left Swendway behind." Maxon countered. "I should have known back then that leaving Thorvald in power, with diminished standing on the world stage, would only give him time to stew in his own juices. Now he's eighteen years more bitter and more resentful, and probably more than passingly bored since he can't travel. Why not experiment with explosives?"

"What was the alternative, Maxon? Invade his country to remove him from power and start a war? Let him go unpunished for what he did to us, let him try again while Adrienne was a baby?"

While her parents went back and forth about the past, Addy raced forward in her mind. "What's done is done, we can't change it. Listen Dad, King Thorvald probably knows you'd detect a bomb test like this, and he probably knows you'd call his bluff about using such a weapon. The question is, how many moves ahead do you think he's planning? What does he expect you to do about it? What can he manipulate you into doing about it?"

Luke craned his neck around so he could see Addy, "You think he's playing a game?"

"Remember? Every interaction is a game, Luke. But we can't play an infinite game if King Thorvald is playing a finite one."

"What does that mean, Bird?" Maxon asked, folding his arms and leaning back.

One look around the room showed Addy that none of the others had ever studied game theory before, and she felt a jolt of excitement at knowing something that might actually be helpful.

"The point of building alliances with foreign governments is not to beat them or take all their resources… Luke's parents didn't let him study in Illéa so that he could learn all our secrets and report back."

"That's what you think." Luke joked, and Addy was glad he was starting to feel a little better, at least well enough to offer a weak joke.

"The point is that our countries each have something to offer the other, and when we cooperate, we both prosper. The point of an alliance is to keep that cooperation going for as long as possible, in other words it's an infinite game. The hope is that it goes on forever."

Luke spoke up, "The other type of game is what we saw in the World Wars. Invasion, domination, an attempt to pillage one another until someone has undeniably lost and someone is irrefutably victorious. It's a finite game."

"You can't win a finite game with a strategy from an infinite game, eventually your opponent will go for the throat and the game will end." Addy said. "We learned that on our first day in class. If Thorvald is playing a finite game, nothing but a clear defeat will stop him."

"I'm afraid you may be right, war may be inevitable." Maxon rubbed his forehead hard.

"Not necessarily." Addy gripped the top of the chair she'd been sitting in and kneaded the leather, "It doesn't have to be a full war, and it doesn't have to be a military defeat…"

"Princess," Stavros said, "As we said earlier, we've been sanctioning the country for years. There's nothing left for us to take economically."

"A country is more than its economy and its military."

Luke studied her face closely. "What are you thinking, Addy?"

Addy wasn't exactly sure yet, and she was spared having to develop her spur-of-the-moment brainstorm any further by the large screen at the far end of the table flickering and then illuminating. Larger than life, the upper-halves of King Eoan and Prince Andrew appeared on the screen.

Though the room where King Eoan and Prince Andrew sat was similar in size to security room A, it was far more grand. With all of their advisers and assistants bustling behind them, it looked like they were running their meeting in the middle of an art museum.

"Maxon? Is this thing working?" Eoan said as the lag in their connection leveled out and the Illéan security room appeared on his screen.

"We're here, Eoan." Maxon replied, returning to his seat. Addy followed her dad's lead.

"Lucas!" Eoan spotted his youngest son and grinned, "How are you doing, lad?"

Luke grimaced, and Addy couldn't tell if it was because his dad was drawing attention to him in an official meeting, or if it was because he missed his family so much."

"I'm well, Father. Better before all of this."

"Indeed." King Eoan nodded his head gravely. "I'm sorry you had to be called down from school, but I'm proud of you for answering the call. Can you see Lukey, Andrew?" Eoan turned to his heir. Evidently, the screen they were using to see the Illéan contingent was smaller than the one on the Illéan side.

Andrew laughed at their father abusing Luke's toddler nickname like that and said, "I certainly can. It's good to see you, Lucas. Get home soon, mate, you can see how badly things have gone wrong without you here to keep us on track."

"You're hopeless without me." Lucas agreed.

"Any updates, Eoan?" Maxon asked, gently reminding his friend that they were there for more than a family reunion.

"We've sent the photos to our ambassador via a secure line. He'll have them to you in the next couple of hours for you and your people to inspect."

"Have you seen them?"

"I have. There's not much to see, to be honest. The town appears to be completely empty."

"No one lives there?" Maxon clarified.

"Not that we could detect. No traffic moving, no people in the streets, and no discernible electric lights."

Addy frowned, "King Thorvald could say that he evacuated the town after the quake. This isn't enough proof for any kind of action on its own."

"My goddaughter is right," King Eoan agreed with a sneaky wink Addy's direction, "Whatever the Chancellor is able to find, we need more intelligence."

"You've got people in place?" Maxon asked.

"Informants, not my own people." Eoan divulged. "Illéa still has friends in Oslo, and that helps."

"We'll see what the German Federation turns up." Maxon decided. "And if they're able to find something suspicious in the satellite images, we'll present what we've found to the other world leaders. If they're as concerned as we are by what we've uncovered, we'll work together to collectively ask to send in neutral inspectors. Perhaps the Brazilians. They'll be able to tell us one way or another what's happened over there."

Eoan nodded, "Well, in that case, it's going to be a few days."

"I think so." Maxon agreed.

"Maxon," Eoan said, lowering his voice just a little, "it would be nothing at all for Thorvald to drop this weapon on London."

"I know."

"He wouldn't dare… but if he did…"

"Tell us what you need." Maxon said simply. "Whatever you need, it's yours. Do you need troops?"

Eoan shrugged, "What are troops going to do in the face of an aerial attack? Watch, I suppose. Run."

"Planes, then? Pilots?"

"That would help. And perhaps battleships, if you've got any nearby?"

"I'll work that out, you'll have them." Maxon promised.

"Lucas?" Eoan said, "You know all about what's happening, don't you? King Maxon has filled you in?"

"Yes, Father."

"London has been bombed before and it will be bombed again, no peace lasts forever no matter how hard King Maxon tries. But should anything happen to us in the palace… well..."

The rest was unspoken. If Eoan and Andrew were killed in an attack on London, Lucas would become King immediately.

"Dad—" Luke's eyes watered and he shook his head, "No! I can't—"

"You'd never be alone, son. You've got Maxon and Addy and all of our allies behind you. You understand me?"

"But Dad—"

"Don't worry, Luke!" Andrew grinned, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "You're a worst-case scenario backup plan. It won't happen. It's just all the better for England that you're stashed someplace safe and ready to go. As an exercise."

"Right…" Lucas nodded, trying to convince himself, "As… as an exercise."

Maxon knocked his knuckles on the table as he made up his mind about something, "I'll get to work getting those reinforcements in place for you, Eoan. Until we hear back from the Germans, let's all go and try to get some rest." Addy watched her father tilt his head toward America as if stretching his neck, but secretly showing Eoan that he was worried about her, and America glared at him for using her as an excuse like that.

Eoan chuckled, "We'll be in touch soon." With that, the screen flickered and went black again.

Next to her, Addy heard Lucas gulp. Croakily, speaking as if he had not given himself permission to say anything, he said, "Get them back please."

"What?" Maxon asked, surprised.

"What if I never see them again?" Lucas leant forward, voice now a few decibels too loud for the room. "Get them back please!"

Maxon nodded his understanding and held out his hand as if calming a spooked horse. He turned to the advisers, "You all may leave. Stavros, thank you for coming in tonight."

"It's my honor, sir. You and I have been working on this one for a long time."

"God willing, we can finish this soon." Maxon said, eyes flickering to Addy as he spoke.

As the men filed out of the room, Addy nodded to them and thanked them for their time.

"Leger, I need your help." Maxon said as Uncle Aspen prepared to close the door behind him, the last adviser remaining.

"What is it?"

"I need help coordinating. I'm going to get on the phone with every single country within a two-day sailing distance of the North Sea and ask them for a ship. I want a flotilla flying flags from as many countries as possible, stationed all throughout. If any unauthorized military plane attempts to cross to England, I want there to be no mistake that they'll have to make it past all of us first."

This was enough to undo Luke, who lowered his chin to his chest and sniffled, swiping at his cheek to hide a tear.

Addy grabbed his hand and squeezed, "Your family is safe, and so in your country. We won't let anything bad happen."

Aspen, feeling a little more free to speak his mind now that it was just family in the room, rounded the table and clapped a hand on Luke's shoulder, "Listen to me Luke, let me tell you what it looks like from a military perspective. First of all, we can't even be certain Swendway tested something. Secondly, if they did, we don't know what it was. Third of all, it takes time to make these things, they won't just have another one sitting around, waiting to deploy. If their scientists had to test it, that means they didn't know if it would work. They wouldn't have wasted resources making a duplicate of what they thought might be a dud. We've got time. I know what your dad said scared you, but you're going to see him and Andrew again soon. What are we… two months from coronation day?"

"Three." Lucas sniffled.

"Twelve weeks and counting." He smiled. "And in the meantime, England's going to have all of its allies coming to help, and we'll get more information every day. We're on it, Luke, we've got this under control. I promise you won't have to wear one of those godawful crowns. We'll keep it off your shoulders, no problem."

Luke gulped and nodded, "Thanks Mr. Leger."

Aspen chuckled because back when Meri and Luke had been childhood playmates at the Palace, he'd refused to allow any of the kids to call him "general". He insisted on "Mr." or, for the Schreave kids, "Uncle". Now here he stood in full uniform, looking at one of his daughter's best friends who just so happened to be a foreign prince. "You kids had to grow up too fast." he shook his head.

America stood and stretched her arms up in a long, elegant gesture. "So did we," she reminded him, "These kids aren't as young as you think they are anymore."

"Now you're welcome to go upstairs and get some rest, son," Maxon said to Luke gently, "but if it'll help for you to have something to do, you can stay with me while I make my calls."

Luke looked tired, but he also looked like he would need some time to wind down from the scariest shock of his life, listening to his father tell him that his whole family might die and he might have to become king. And king of what, after such a bombing? Addy shuddered.

"I would like that, sir, thank you. I don't mind speaking to them on behalf of England, if it helps."

Maxon nodded and said, "Then let's move over to my office, we'll be more comfortable there and I'll order an early breakfast for us. Ames… I might not see you until dinner."

"Sleep when you can." America kissed his cheek. She offered her arm to Addy, who stopped to give Luke a hug before accepting it and leaving Maxon, Aspen, and Lucas behind to begin their next moves.

The Palace was quiet this early in the morning. Even Rosie and Lief wouldn't be awake for a few more hours. America and Addy rounded the corner at the end of the hallway and emerged in the opening that lead to the grand staircase. They turned and headed up to the third floor.

"Are you okay, Bird?"

"No." Addy said. "I can't even take it all in right now."

"England's going to be okay." America reassured her.

"No, I know that. I trust Dad and Uncle Aspen, it was just scary to hear Uncle Eoan talk like that…"

"Your father would do the same if Jamesy was abroad while we were under any kind of threat... or even if there wasn't a threat."

"Yeah, anytime we all go anywhere as a whole family, he treats whichever car he's not riding in as if it's driving off with monarchy's last great hope inside." Addy giggled.

America shook her head and smiled sadly, "Deep down, some part of your father will always be running from rebels, sweetheart. You can't live through what he's lived through and sit still."

Addy felt herself choking up at the very thought of her dad never being at peace like that. "Will you tell me more, Mom?"

"About what?"

"Will you tell me about the man who killed Uncle Kota, the one who terrorized you while you were pregnant with me… did he ever really get close to killing you, or was Dad over exaggerating?"

America wrapped an arm around Addy and kissed the top of her head, "He came close to killing you and me both several times." she breathed.

Addy whimpered, "I never knew…"

"Why would you know about that? What kind of bedtime story would that have made?" America gently pointed out.

"Can you tell me what happened? The times he almost got you?"

"Why, Addy? Why would you want to hear about those awful things?"

"I just want to understand… every year on my birthday, you and dad tell me the story of how I was born and how hard it was to change the law so that I could be Dad's heir… I know it like a book I've read a dozen times."

"Nearly eighteen." America leaned toward Addy to tap their shoulders together.

"Exactly. But tonight I learned that you were being hunted that whole time! I knew there were rebels, I guess, but this is different."

"Yes, it was." America agreed. "It was very personal. Most rebels were just angry at the monarchy, but this man wanted to torture your father in particular. And he wanted to use us to do it."

Addy winced and studied her shoes as they carried her off to the third floor in perfect rhythm with her mother. "Shouldn't I know something about that, then?"

America stopped walking to squeeze Addy in a tight hug and when she was ready, when she was truly convinced that Addy was there, was safe, and no rebel could steal her away, America returned to a slow walk with her arm around her daughter. "Well little love, I guess it all started when I convinced your father to amend the laws of inheritance."