Camwyn looked around again. Nothing but boxes, chests, shelves of smaller boxes and chests, cabinets … The steward and his tutor joined in opening boxes filled with sacks of coins old and new, counterfeit and true. The castle’s own expert, Master Junnar of the Money-changers’ Guild, arrived to show him how to test coins for gold or silver, how to use fine scales and displacement to determine whether a coin had the right amount of a precious metal.

Camwyn found that part moderately interesting, though he was tempted to ask why Master Junnar didn’t just smell the coins. To him, each had a distinct odor, and he saw no reason for the tests. He did not ask, suspecting that this was yet another sign that he was developing powers he should not.

He did learn more about the Tsaian coinage than he’d known before, and his ability to pick out the counterfeits impressed Master Junnar, but it was not until near the end of the lesson, when he walked about the treasury and asked what was in this or that box or chest, that he found the one containing the regalia.

The closer he got to it, in fact, the more he wanted to approach. It was a plain box—not finely finished, carved, or inlaid—and its only distinguishing feature was a lack of any: no hinges, no hasp, no discernible line where lid met body.

“What is this?” he asked, though he already knew. “A box without any opening?”

“It’s a puzzle,” the steward said. “It houses the gifts Duke Verrakai gave the king at his coronation.”

“It’s none of your concern, Prince Camwyn,” Master Danthur said. Master Junnar nodded. “Such a thing, even if it could be seen, would have no place in your education.”

That was too much. “Surely, sir, a foreign crown in our treasury—one that has both affected our history and is like to affect our future—should be part of my education. The king—” He stopped, thinking how to say anything useful without breaking Mikeli’s prohibitions. “Any king,” he said, “or any king’s advisor, must understand the implications of such a thing, should he not?”

Master Danthur looked down his nose, more difficult as Camwyn was now his height. “Well, prince, you certainly are showing more interest in foreign affairs than you were a few days past.”

“Mikeli—the king—explained to me why it was important, especially with the Lyonyan queen visiting,” Camwyn said, attempting a mix of naivete and humility and seeing from his tutor’s face that he’d failed.

“Hmpf. And I see you apply that advice to what interests the boy you are, not to what may be needed by the man you might become. Explain to me, then, what you see as the ‘implications,’ as you call them, of these objects.”