She looked at the working list.
The fourth prince — her brother — was on the throne.
The noble factions were running the revenue structure.
Seven people had died in the incursion whose movements in the preceding two weeks had been cleaned from the official record.
The specific generous expediting of her bank instrument had been authorized by a man whose appointment traced to the cleared period and who had been managing the imperial treasury queue for six months in the interest of the factions that controlled the emperor.
She looked at the window.
The merchant district was doing its morning thing — ordinary, continuous, the specific reliable texture of a working city.
She thought about the fourth prince at dinners. Quiet. Appropriate. The careful register of someone who had learned that appropriate was safe.
She thought about what a person who had learned that appropriate was safe did when they were given power.
Did they remain careful?
