“Eight minutes.” Headmaster Faust sighed at the ivory watch face embedded in the knob of his antique cane. “Eight minutes without a female chaperone and we’re already at each other’s throats.” He snickered at the problem. It was a marvel, really, that such a mixture rarely degenerated into duels: the Chief Director and King Prime Minister locked in a room with their foe the Emperor, an acerbic young Ganymede, and Faust’s gadfly sense of humor. Kosala (not yet Chair) was not there to add her maternal restraint, and even the authoritative calm of the Comte Déguisé was absent, for that glorified bureaucrat we call the Censor was weak in those days, barely important enough to visit this inner circle, since He Who six years later would unmask him as the Anonymous was still in the laborious process of gestating.

“Anyway, there’s no need for us to fight over this.” Faust tried his best to smile the tension away. “The child will stay with its mother, that’s the way kings usually dispose of their bastards, isn’t it? Unless Spain wants to go the other traditional route and pretend the child is their nephew by some convoluted logic.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Andō was fastest to accuse. “Giving the two of you equal claim as uncles?”

Faust snorted. “I don’t think much can be done to keep me from being the child’s uncle.”

“I won’t have it raised a Brillist, Felix.” The Chief Director slammed the wall. “I won’t!”

Faust’s smile died. “You’d prefer a set-set?”

“Stop, both of you.” Stress made His Majesty’s voice kinder, like a nurse trying to soften a diagnosis. “It’s not what we want that matters, it’s what the child needs. They will be second in line to the throne of Spain. If the Crown Prince proves unpopular, there may be a faction that tries to make this child King, or Prime Minister. They need to grow up prepared for that, to have support, a bash’, a family, ready to help the child refuse if others try to exploit them for their power games.”

“That’s what I’m offering,” Andō answered, harsh. “Myself, a father, family, I can give the child that, you can’t. Let me raise the baby as my own and, whatever its parentage, no Spaniard will want it on the throne, and no European will want to make it Prime Minister. It’s the right solution.” He searched the others’ faces for signs of softening. “You think I’m basing this on nothing? Madame came to me. They said—”

“They said they think of you as the child’s true father,” MASON interrupted, slouching on his bench like a storm-tired tree. “They said they don’t care what the DNA test says. They even said they planned to name the child after your favorite philosopher as a tribute. Which one was yours, Andō? Epicurus?”

The Chief Director’s fists trembled with the desire to contradict.

“The Emperor’s right, Chief Director,” the Censor ventured, tense and formal, knowing himself a mere clerk among kings. “This was no accident on Madame’s part: twenty-nine years running a brothel without a single pregnancy, then suddenly, at a moment that all of us are poised to think ourselves the father, a bouncing baby boy. It’s not coincidence, and it’s also not coincidence that the actual father is the only one of us for whom the bloodline really matters.” His tone stayed calm, but passion and his left fist spilled his whisky. “With the exception of Their Majesty, none of us has children of our own. None of us is likely to, not while the only women that can excite us are the ones Madame controls. This right here, this is Madame’s goal, all of us squabbling for a chance to raise their child, when this whole stunt was obviously planned to give Madame a stronger hold over us.”