There were few things Sedgewick liked better than a chance to sit down with his former pupil, the young Queen Eleyna of Abreyla. She'd grown from the inquisitive child who used to sit on his lap and listen to him read her spell books and stories into a brilliant young woman who was a tribute to the throne she sat on.

Unfortunately, there were few things Sedgewick disliked more than having to sit down with her unworthy idiot of a husband.

Fenroy, the king consort, stared at him like he was already getting a headache while he shifted his hulking form in the decorative chair. Sedgewick sat across from him in another one of the sitting room's uncomfortable contraptions. If Eleyna was here, she would have brought him to the royal family's private sitting room, which was designed to be less showy and more comfortable. This one, with the narrow chairs, and stiff, embroidered pillows, was designed to look impressive—and to run off guests as quickly as possible. "So I heard you wussed out," Fenroy said, smirking.

Sedgewick's ear twitched. It was quicker than his "I despise having to tolerate you" twitch but dipped lower than his "I will end you and the rest of the world while I'm at it" one. "Do you have a source for your information or are you fabricating things again?"

"I don't—" Fenroy let out a breath, apparently letting it go. "Beryn told Eleyna and 'Leyna told me. Are you and Feyla there yet? You know, where you tell each other everything?"

Sedgewick would sooner sew his own mouth shut than tell that man anything about, well, anything. But particularly his relationship with Feyla. He was about to tell him so when the door to the sitting room flew open and a flash of white-blonde hair dashed into the room.

"It's not fair!" the young Princess Glemdring cried as she flung herself at her father. "You'll let me do it, won't you, Daddy?" She widened her crystal-blue eyes and gave her father her biggest, most pitiful gaze.

Sedgewick chuckled and leaned over his chair. "What has you in such a fuss, little one?"

Princess Glemdring held up her head exactly the same way her mother did and great-grandmother had. "Mother's letting Faren go to the council meeting and I can't!" Her lip wibbled as she stared at both men expectantly.

Fenroy stroked his daughter's head, his large hand practically covering it. "Glemmy, those meetings are boring anyway. You should be glad only your big brother has to sit through them."

Glemdring's ears, still too large for her head, drooped and she crossed her arms. "When I grow up, I'm going to start my own kingdom and I'll have my own meetings every day." She popped off her father's lap and ran over to Sedgewick. "You can live there with me, Uncle Sedgewick!"

Sedgewick dug a candy out of his upper coat pocket and dropped it in her hand. "My first tribute."

Glemdring gave him a gleaming smile and popped the candy in her mouth before her father could say otherwise. "Why are we in this room?" she asked quickly. "I thought it was for people we don't like."

"It still is," Fenroy said, fighting a glare that Sedgewick didn't find at all intimidating.

Glemdring sucked on her candy and either ignored or misinterpreted the remark. After all, why wouldn't her dear father like her favorite honorary uncle? "Did you really wuss out, Uncle Sedgewick?"

Fenroy bit down a laugh. "Where did you hear that, Glemmy?"

"I listened at the door when Uncle Beryn came over."

Beryn was technically Eleyna's cousin, but calling older relatives or close family friends aunt and uncle was common for feys, particularly Abreylians. "You shouldn't give away your sources so easily. And no, I did not 'wuss out'." Sedgewick shot Fenroy a triumphant look.

Glemdring clapped her hands together and nodded her head in approval. "Good! If you're not going to wait for me to get bigger so that we can get married then you must marry Aunt Feyla right away. So you can have a baby. So that I can play with the baby."

Sedgewick chuckled. Glemdring hadn't been too fond of him courting Feyla at first. He was glad she'd come around, even if it was just for the hope of a future playmate. "I'll take that under advisement. Where is your mother, little one?"

"I was wondering the same thing," Fenroy added.

"She said she had to talk to the steward about the council speaker-people. Mother told me to come here and practice being dip— diplomathic."

"Diplomatic," her father corrected.

Glemdring huffed. "That's what I said."

"Don't have an attitude." He reached a hand over and ruffled his daughter hair that her nanny had probably spent half-an-hour taming. "Go play. I guess I'll talk to...Uncle Sedgewick," Fenroy hesitated at the last bit.

Glemdring kissed her father's cheek. "That's from Mother. Do you have any messages for her?"

"None I can give you." Fenroy smiled. "Now go on."

Glemdring waved goodbye and skipped out of the room, still chewing on her candy.

Fenroy's smile dropped the moment his daughter left the room. "What do you want, Alverdyne?"

Clever Eleyna. Sending her daughter in her stead to keep her husband and mentor from fighting. But sadly only a temporary solution. Sedgewick sighed as he resigned himself to telling his request to Eleyna's, he loathed the word, husband. "I saw a man who should be dead earlier today."

Fenroy laughed. It boomed across the room, loud enough to shake the white-and-yellow vase on the small table next to his chair. "That's it? You know we can't go killing every person you think is a waste of space."

Sedgewick growled in irritation. "Not like that. He should have been executed over a century ago."

Fenroy sat up straighter, making the already too-small chair look positively puny. "Who?"

"Dormaeus Carrow. Although, you might be more familiar with the title the public granted him; Dormaeus the Lordkiller."

After Sedgewick dropped that name, it had only taken a few minutes for the King Consort to walk him straight toward the records room. Fenroy's shoulders remained firm and straight, a remnant of his time spent in the Forest Guard on his father's lordship, but the way he ran his hand through his hair for the second time showed his inner worry. "You're sure—"

"Positive." Sedgewick cut him off before he could finish.

Fenroy grunted, his brow creasing. He led Sedgewick down the steps that headed below the palace. Natural light ended, replaced by the orange glow-lights Sedgewick had made himself. "Congratulation, by the way. Feyla's a good woman. You're very lucky."

"I know." That was one thing they agreed on.

They stopped in front of a heavy wooden door flanked by two guards. The light from the glow-lights flickered off their armor as they bowed their heads and placed their fists across their chests at the approaching king. Fenroy nodded back while the guards pulled open the doors to let them in.

The palace wasn't designed to hold every possible record, but this room below it housed the most important. Dormaeus had killed a lord. He'd be in here.

Fenroy stopped in front of the spindly old records keeper who Sedgewick suspected had been placed down here with the foundation. The young king consort took his wife's signet ring off his pinky finger and held it before the old man. "Dormaeus Carrow. Just give us everything."

A few long minutes later, and the two men were leaning over a worn, pen-scratched table while the scent of old papers itched their noses. Sedgewick thumbed through the papers in front of him, passing the unneeded ones to Fenroy as he went along.

"I remember when this happened," Fenroy spoke up. He traced a large finger over the document Sedgewick had just handed him. "It sounds so cold when you see it in writing."

Sedgewick remembered it as well. While the older lords recalled the days when they'd had to organize mages to handle the witches, wizards, and sorceresses in their own territories, for the younger ones, such as Lady Calinya's late husband, black magic users were vague nightmares that Sedgewick ranted about at council meetings. It didn't affect them.

But Dormaeus had.

He'd slipped into their summer home in the dead of night and burnt it with Calinya's husband and daughter in it.

Sedgewick had tried to find a motive. They'd had the standard trappings of wealth, but nothing particularly rare and nothing that wouldn't have been much easier to take if he'd waited two more weeks for the family to leave. Their politics were mild, their territory was doing well, and the kingdom was at peace. Privately, Sedgewick suspected Calinya's husband had been dabbling in things he shouldn't. But that was mere speculation. He had nothing to back it up and was hardly going to tell that to a grieving mother and widow.

"I always liked Laryssa. She was a sweet girl." Fenroy dropped the papers back on the table.

Sedgewick nodded in agreement. His gaze glazed over the papers, words blurring as he rubbed his eyes from under his glasses. A stamp on the corner of one caught his eye. Sedgewick snatched it up. He smacked it against his hand in victory. "Found it."

Fenroy eyed the stamp in the corner of the paper. He wrapped his own larger hands around it and jerked it from Sedgewick's hands. He held up his fist so that Sedgewick could see the stamp matched the seal on the signet ring he wore. "Mine."

"That's not even your ring," Sedgewick grumbled. He started calculating the odds of stealing it from the taller man's hands without damage, but then Fenroy started reading.

"Dormaeus Carrow: found guilty of murder, practicing black magic, arson, theft. Considered a threat to the authority and sovereignty of the Crown. Sentenced to execution." Fenroy looked at Sedgewick.

"It was Dormaeus. I'd stake my hat on it."

Fenroy's eyes fell back to the paper. His brow creased.

"Well? What is it?"

"It's...restricted."

Sedgewick flung his arms at their surroundings. "Obviously."

"No, I mean it's restricted from you."

"What?" Sedgewick snapped. "I'm the Minister of Magic! He's a known wizard! What could possibly be in there that I can't know?"

"But you weren't the one that caught him, were you?"

Sedgewick's ears snapped back and the hair on his neck raised like an angry cat. "I would have had him in another hour if—"

"The battle healers hadn't beaten you to it." He tapped his finger against the page.

"They got lucky." Sedgewick snarled.

Fenroy stared at the paper. He looked...disturbed. "He wasn't executed."

"Oh, really? Because when I saw him bolting through the market today, I thought I was just losing my mind."

He slammed the record shut. "I think you should drop this. Forget you ever saw him."

"Fascinating idea. I'm astonished by your brilliance. Now, tell me why he wasn't executed."

Fenroy took one more look at the report like he was double checking something. He stared back at Sedgewick. "I can't. But...you might want to ask your new fiancée."