Prologue
Prologue: The Architect’s First Lesson
Lucien's POV
The ink on the Royal Ledger was still wet, much like the streets of Silverledge outside the carriage window.
Lucien sat perfectly straight, his spine not touching the velvet upholstery of the royal coach. He was nineteen, fresh from the Oakhaven Academy, and he had been the High Secretary’s aide for exactly three days.
His assignment was simple: Manage the schedule of the Heir Apparent.
A simple task, Yrden had said. She is spirited, but harmless.
Lucien looked at the girl sitting across from him. Princess Cassandra was sixteen, dressed in a gown of ridiculous, fluffy pink tulle that took up two-thirds of the cabin. She was currently twirling a lock of deep mahogany hair around her finger and humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like a tavern song, though she was humming it with operatic dignity.
“We are behind schedule, Your Highness,” Lucien noted, checking his pocket watch. “The Guild of Weavers expects us in four minutes. If we are late, Guildmaster Vance will start sweating, and he smells of wet wool when he panics.”
Cassy stopped humming. She blinked at him with wide, innocent amber eyes.
“Oh, Lucien! You worry so much. We’re just... taking the scenic route!”
“We are sitting in traffic on the Lower Promenade,” Lucien corrected dryly. “This is not scenic. It is a logistical failure.”
He looked out the window. The rain was falling harder now, turning the cobblestones into a slick, grey mess. The carriage had halted near a cluster of beggars huddled against a baker’s chimney for warmth.
Lucien reached for the blinds to close them, a protocol dictated that the Royals should not be gawked at while stationary. But Cassandra’s hand shot out.
“Don’t,” she said.
The voice was different.
Lucien paused. The airy, bell-like chime of the “Porcelain Princess” was gone. In its place was a tone of sharp, commanding steel.
He looked at her.
Cassandra wasn’t looking at him. She was looking out the window, her gaze locked on a young woman shivering in the mud, holding a crying infant wrapped in rags. The Princess’s face, usually a mask of vacuous joy, was stripped bare. Her jaw was set, her eyes dark with a sudden, searing calculation.
She wasn’t looking at the woman with pity. She was looking at the woman like a structural engineer looking at a crack in a foundation.
Then, the carriage jolted as the driver prepared to move.
“Oh dear!” Cassandra suddenly shrieked, flailing her arm. “My wrist! The clasp!”
Before Lucien could react, she yanked a heavy velvet pouch from her sash, her personal spending money for the day, and “clumsily” flailed her hand toward the open window.
The pouch didn’t fall; it was thrown. It sailed through the rain with perfect, calculated trajectory and landed with a heavy clink right in the lap of the shivering woman.
The carriage lurched forward.
“Stop the carriage!” Lucien ordered instinctively, reaching for the signal cord. “Your Highness, you dropped–”
“No!” Cassy lunged forward, grabbing his wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
Lucien froze. He looked down at her hand on his cuff, then up into her face.
She was inches from him. The “ditz” mask was gone completely. Her amber eyes were blazing with a fierce, terrified intensity.
“Don’t you dare stop this carriage, Lucien,” she hissed.
“You threw your gold away,” Lucien stated, his mind racing. “That was fifty crowns. If I log that as ‘lost,’ the Grand Chancellor will order an inquiry into your jewelry clasps.”
“Then don’t log it as lost,” she whispered. “Log it as... I don’t know. Tell them I bought a really expensive hat. Or that I ate fifty crowns’ worth of pastries. I don’t care.”
She released his wrist and sat back, smoothing her pink tulle as if nothing had happened. She glanced out the rear window, watching the beggar woman hurriedly hide the pouch under her rags.
“She needed it more than I needed ribbons,” Cassy murmured, almost to herself.
Lucien stared at her. He thought of the reports he had read: Princess Cassandra– frivolous, light-headed, charming but politically inert.
He looked at the girl who had just executed a covert wealth redistribution operation with the sleight of hand of a street magician.
“You aren’t clumsy,” Lucien said slowly.
Cassy looked at him. She hesitated, her fingers twitching on her dress. Then, she offered him a small, sharp smile– one that didn’t reach her eyes, but felt more real than any beam she had given the crowds.
“Clumsy girls are harmless, Lucien,” she said softy. “People don’t watch harmless girls. They don’t guard their secrets around them. They don’t hide their ledgers.”
She leaned back, resting her head against the seat, the mask of the airhead sliding back into place like a visor.
“If I have to be a doll to survive this palace,” she said, her voice pitching up into the bubbly register again, “then I will be the prettiest, clumsiest doll they’ve ever seen. And while they’re looking at my dresses, I’ll be looking at their mistakes.”
Lucien sat in silence for a long moment. The rain drummed against the roof.
He looked at his ledger. He looked at the quill in his hand.
He had been hired to manage a brat. Instead, he was sitting across from a spy in a ballgown.
Yrden was wrong, Lucien realized. She isn’t harmless. She is the most dangerous person in the city.
And for the first time since leaving the Academy, Lucien felt a spark of genuine interest.
He opened his ledger to the expense column.
“Fifty crowns,” Lucien said, his voice calm and even. “Entry: Emergency procurement of... charitable educational materials.”
Cassy’s eyes snapped to his. She blinked, surprised.
Lucien adjusted his glasses, looking at her with a newfound respect.
“We will need to work on your throwing arm, Your Highness,” he said dryly. “The arc was a bit high. If a guard had been looking, he would have seen the velocity.”
A slow, genuine grin spread across Cassandra’s face.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
“Good,” Lucien nodded. “Now, put your mask back on, Princess. We have a Guildmaster to manipulate.”
Cassandra only smirked at Lucien’s comment. Mask. Yeah, right. She thought.
