The steward of this house can recognize a cuckoo in the nest, even if King Silas can’t. He shouldn’t be here. Even he consciously makes as if to haunt the palace rather than inhabit it; he makes no special requests, needs no additional accommodations to accompany his meteoric change of fortunes. Absence hasn’t blunted his awareness of palace decorum — he doesn’t go where he shouldn’t, doesn’t speak out of turn, even if on ceremonial occasions his pale eyes sometimes fix on the crown and not the man wearing it. He has no vices, not that she’s observed, not even a nervous cigarette on the balcony or a glass of wine before bed. He doesn’t go out after eleven at night. He loves no one and nothing — an inert replacement for a prince who loved too well. But even he must have his sights fixed on something, and what else can it be?

No real person lives this modestly, so concertedly as to not cause potential offense, this contented to service as its own reward, pleased to be someone else’s proxy; she of all people knows this. It must be a blessing to live without ambition, and devotion to a single purpose must be the next best thing, but she didn’t become palace secretary by sitting on her hands while fate politely caused every obstacle in her path to drop dead. He’s not doing anything. He’s waiting.

Thomasina knows, and Cross knows she knows it. And if he’s cordial toward her, deferent, appreciative, it’s only the courtesy of one observer toward another.

She dreams of trimming back the plants in the palace gardens, of meeting a snake and cutting its head off with the blade of a shovel. Its pale banded colors convulsing on the black soil say, don’t touch me, don’t trust me.