When Max got back to lunch, Father was on his fourth martini. Max wasn’t sure why he was counting. He was in the habit, he supposed. It was something he’d started doing as a boy, as soon as he’d made the connection that the number of drinks consumed was directly proportional to the intensity of the anger his father would later display. Four was not a lot, in and of itself, but four before lunch was the start of a journey that wouldn’t end well. The familiar stirrings of anxiety started rumbling in Max’s gut, followed by the equally familiar stirrings of self-loathing. He was no longer a child. He didn’t live under the same roof as his parents anymore and was fully capable of retreating to his cottage whenever he wanted. Even here at the palace, he could get up and leave and go somewhere else. They couldn’t actually control him.

So why was he acting like they could?

Why was he sending Marie an SOS text? Why did he need Marie to rescue him when he had two perfectly good legs?

“We were just talking about Sebastien’s little garden project,” Father said tersely. Most people would be slurring after four martinis. But Father always did the reverse as he drank, at least up until a certain point. His speech became more precise, clipped.

“Oh?” Max glanced at his brother. He had no idea what his “little garden project” was, but Sebastien was forever brimming with outlandish ideas. He’d always been like that. Had never seen the potential problem with staging tea parties for his stuffed animals or putting on plays—like the March sisters did in Little Women—right out in the open where Father could wander in at any moment.

“It’s more of a mining reclamation project than it is a gardening project,” Seb said. “But why don’t we discuss it later? It’s Christmas!”

Typical Seb, avoiding conflict, smoothing things over. When would he learn that trying to please Father was a thankless task? Seb was certainly better at it than Max, but to what end? It didn’t actually change anything. Max tried to remind himself, though, that this was his doing as much as anything. Seb hadn’t been around—by design—for so many years. Perhaps he truly didn’t grasp the dynamics at work.

“On the contrary,” Father said. “Christmas is the ideal time to discuss it. So rarely are we all in the same place.” He looked at Max as he spoke, and they all knew he was referring to how much Max traveled. But the implied criticism hardly made a dent. Max had built up tolerance, like Father and his martinis. It would take a great deal more than that to hurt him.