“Smooth.” He tossed another pebble in the pond. “Let me tell you a story. A fairy tale, if you will.” He scooped up a handful of small stones and began to throw them, one by one, out into the center of the pond. “A bad king of haunted lineage and barren heart lived in his palace with his trophy queen and imperfect son and imperfect stepdaughter. It was a cold place. But then—oh then, Mr. Kenzie—the king and his trophy queen had a third child. And she was a rare creature. A beauty. Stolen, actually, from a peasant family, but otherwise without flaws. The king, the queen, the older princess, even the weak prince—my God, they all loved that child. And for a few brief, spectacular years, that kingdom glowed. And love filled every room. Sins were forgotten, weaknesses overlooked, anger buried. It was golden.” His voice trailed off and he stared out over the pond and eventually shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Then, on a walk with the prince—who loved her, who adored her—the baby princess followed a sprite into a dragon’s lair. And she died. And the prince, at first, blamed himself, though it was clear there was truly little he could have done. But that didn’t stop the king! Oh, no. He blamed the prince. So did the queen. They tortured the prince with their silences, days of it, followed by sudden malevolent glances. They blamed him. It was plain. And who did the prince have to turn to in his grief? Why, his stepsister, of course. But she…she…rebuffed him. She blamed him. Oh, she didn’t say so, but in her blissfully ignorant way—neither condemning nor forgiving—she drove a stake far deeper than the king or queen had. The princess, you see, had balls to attend, galas. She wrapped herself in ignorance and fantasy to block out her sister’s death, and in doing so, blocked out the prince and left him alone, crippled by his loss, his guilt, by the physical shortcoming that kept him from reaching the dragon’s lair quickly enough.”

“Gee,” I said, “tough story, but I hate costume dramas.”

He ignored me. “The prince wandered in exile a long time, at the end of which his secret lover, a shaman in his father’s court, introduced him to a band of rebels who wished to topple the king. Their plans were flawed. The prince knew this. But he went along while his fragile psyche began to heal. He made contingency plans. Many, many contingency plans.” He threw the last of his stones into the water, looked up at me as he bent for more. “And the prince grew strong, Mr. Kenzie. He grew very strong.”

“Strong enough to cut off his own finger?”

Wesley smiled. “It’s a fairy tale, Mr. Kenzie. Don’t get weighed down with specifics.”