Maddock looked confused. “You’ve never had a cat, and given that you pride yourself on climbing trees, you certainly would never ask anyone to rescue it for you. Besides, you were one hundred and forty-three years old when I was born, making it impossible for me to have known you when you were a child.”

Again, the princess nodded.

“Why the questions, Highness?” Arturus asked.

“Someone is going to try to assassinate the emperor. He is a sorcerer and can appear as anyone.”

“Is that true?”

“It is. Be wary.”

“We will, Your Highness.”

Farilane marched up the corridor, turning left rather than right, tracing as direct a path as possible to the Office of the First Minister of the Empire. She ignored his three secretaries, who scrambled to get clear of their desks before she reached the minister’s door. None of them was successful, and she threw the door wide, stepped in, then slammed it shut, locking it.

Martasen Dray was once more caught seated at his ridiculously large desk, its size accentuated by the lack of anything on it. He promptly stood. “Your Highness?” he said, sounding surprised, but not concerned.

On her previous visit, Farilane hadn’t bothered to take note of such subtle clues. Now her senses were on alert.

The office, so tidy that it was almost empty, was an unequivocal giveaway, but on her last visit Farilane had been misdirected by Dray himself. How could I not? The man is a sight! That, too, should have been a clue. How obvious is his freakish peculiarities, how deviant, how ugly he is. Nothing captures attention like the repulsive. People self-consciously stare at the grotesque.

That’s how so much of it is done, Farilane realized. Misdirection—look here, not there.

This time, she looked everywhere.

Nothing decorated the walls. Not pictures, not tapestries, not even a map of the empire. The throne room had the world inlaid in tilework on the floor, but the First Minister—the man charged with wielding the knobs and levers that ran the empire—didn’t have so much as a sketch. Of course there were no books, scrolls, pens, or ink. Such things—while certainly useful to one such as he—were outlawed. There was a hearth filled with three unburned logs stacked in a perfect pyramid. Four oil lamps mounted in sconces illuminated the windowless room. The only furniture was the desk and the chair the minister was sitting in. The desk, large as it was, appeared to serve no purpose at all, except as an elbow rest and companion to the chair.

Farilane advanced, then stopped when her thighs touched the edge of the desk. “How did you get this job?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Beg all you want. I won’t give it. Answer the question.”

“Your grandfather appointed me.”

“How’d that happen?”

“I’m pretty sure he pointed at me and said, ‘You are the First Minister.’”