Her father watched her as he ate, the smell of pickled onions and fish sauce thick in the air. He had always been gaunt, but he was thinner and paler now, his humble clothes making him indistinguishable from anyone on the street. She remembered when she was young, looking up at him as this broad-shouldered figure, his face looming like a distant mountain. Now he looked shrunken somehow, smaller.

“I’m still your father,” he said when he was halfway through. “What’s bothering you?”

Was it that obvious? Ranami always said she wore her emotions like she was drenched in them. Phalue hesitated before speaking, but what did it matter? He was in a dungeon – who would he tell? “I’m meeting with the Shardless Few this afternoon. I’ve been dividing my focus too many ways. If I can get them to leave Nephilanu peaceably, then that’s one less thing I need to worry about. I don’t have enough guards to clean up the mess with the constructs and to fend off Gio. As soon as I send too many out on patrols, I’m leaving myself vulnerable at the palace.” A bounty on the constructs was all well and good, but Phalue felt all that did was encourage citizens to go after beasts they weren’t capable of handling. There had been more than one attack and several deaths on Nephilanu since Lin had ascended to the throne.

Her father set down the bowl. “Meeting with them lends them legitimacy. Nephilanu is yours, not Gio’s.”

She sighed. “Technically, it belongs to the people and I am just the steward. One person can’t own an island.”

He wrinkled his nose, and she couldn’t help but notice he reached for the mug of water and not the mug of wine. He stared into it, as though searching for poisons. “Do you truly believe that?”

“I’m learning to. What’s the point of having power if we can’t use it to help people? The farmers, the gutter orphans – they’re no different than you or me.”

He took a drink of water and grimaced. “If you’re so set on helping people, what about helping me?”

And this was why Phalue hadn’t wanted to come to the dungeon in the first place. She knew he would ask her this. He lobbied for his freedom each time she brought him food. And the truth was that she wanted to give it to him – that was the worst of it. He hadn’t been a bad father, and she still loved him in her own way. But he’d been a terrible governor.

She rose abruptly.

“Phalue,” he called after her.