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next whisper. “How ironic.” He shifted his weight and prodded the fire. “Sleep well, Erika.”
    Erika shut her eyes and rolled onto her side. Then she heard herself ask for his name. She felt silly. It seemed like such a grade-school question.
    â€œJeremiah,” he said.
    The echo of empty air that followed was comforting. For once in her life, Erika Stripling embraced the quiet.
    The king ran his palm along the edge of the wooden table and reached for another pen. His advisors stood in a line on the other side of the room, waiting for a word or motion from him. He ignored them and turned back to his work.
    A request from the Upper Kingdom for Pellegrino Aretusi, with a commission for frescoes in a new public square. Next, they would be wanting Raphael himself. The king scribbled his assent and moved the paper from one pile to the next. If only he’d known, when he was younger, what the crown and Sickle really meant: years and decades and centuries of signing his name and transferring papers from one side of his desk to the other. The king glanced at the next appeal and then straightened. Lifted it up to look more closely at the red wax seal stamped at the bottom.
    â€œWhat is this?”
    â€œHighness?”
    â€œThe queen wants a new handmaid?” He shook his head. “She has twelve already.”
    The youngest of his advisors shrugged. “She wants another.”
    â€œAn unlucky number.”
    â€œShe wants another.”
    The king set aside his pen. “And are there any courtiers waiting?”
    There was an uncomfortable hush.
    â€œWell?”
    The advisors shuffled against the wall.
    â€œHighness …”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œShe says that her seraph court gossips and bickers and does not heed her to its best. She asks for a rogue.”
    The king picked up the appeal again and squinted at it.
    â€œA rogue?” he muttered. “Ridiculous. The rogues are busy enough, ferrying souls into the Kingdom. And what will we do when the fashion fades? Cast him back into the woods?”
    â€œHer, Highness.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œCast her back into the woods. Her ladyship …”
    â€œRidiculous!” The king waved his hand, brushing away the thought. “Are we to make one? There have been no female rogues in five hundred years.”
    â€œHighness …”
    The king lifted his chin. He hated being corrected.
    â€œAn accident,” the advisor murmured. “Last week.”
    â€œAnd I wasn’t told? What is the point of advisors if they do not advise?” He snatched up the pen and signed his name to the order. “I married a spendthrift.”
    â€œHighness.”
    â€œTake it! Take it and your evasive answers!”
    The retaining room cleared quickly, carrying the queen’s order out in a wave of fur, silk, and heavy gold rings.
    Â 
    Shawn knocked on Megan’s bedroom door before going in.
    â€œMorning, Meg.”
    Megan was already sitting up, legs tucked under her comforter. Sleep tousled her hair, the ends of her bob tickling her round jaw. A collection of Hans Christian Andersen stories lay open in her lap.
    â€œGood morning,” she bubbled, shutting the book and dropping it on the carpet beside her bed. “Tell Mommy I don’t like that shirt she made me wear yesterday. Katie called it ugly.” When her brother said nothing, she gave his face a once-over. “What did Becky do?”
    Shawn swallowed and wet his lips. He took the chair from Megan’s desk and dragged it to her nightstand.
    â€œYou’re eight, Meg,” he said. “So you’re a big girl, right? I can tell you the truth?”
    â€œShawn, what’s wrong?”
    â€œMeg …”
    â€œShawn, what happened? I have to get to school —”
    â€œWe’re not going today, Meg.”
    The frantic climb of her voice settled. She closed her mouth and looked at him. She had brown eyes,