“All right, good,” Amit said.

“Wait, what?” Cardenia said, entirely surprised. “Begging your pardon, Lord Amit, but I was under the impression, from your sister most of all, that I was here to be charmed and wooed by you. You now being visibly relieved that I don’t wish to marry you is… unexpected, to say the least.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“I’m not,” Cardenia said, and it was Amit’s turn to be surprised. “I’m relieved that this tedious bit of politicking is over with. It means we might actually enjoy our tea together.”

Amit laughed at this.

“But I don’t understand why, after more than a year of a full push by your family, and by you, that you’re now relieved to learn that I have no interest in marrying you.”

“It’s complicated,” Amit said.

Cardenia motioned around them as if to say, We are totally alone; this is the time.

“The short version is that we have been made aware that other houses believe we already exercise too much influence over you. At this point we run the risk of losing influence rather than gaining it, through close association with you.”

“Well, I don’t know quite what to make of that statement, Lord Amit.”

“I understand, Your Majesty. Suffice to say that guild and parliamentary politics are complicated enough now, and we have reason to believe they are about to become even more complicated in the future.”

A warning went off in Cardenia’s brain. “How so?”

“The matter of End, in the near term.”

“And in the longer term?”

“Well, who can say in the longer term,” Amit said, and started to walk again.

“No,” Cardenia said, and stayed where she was, obliging Amit to stop walking. “Excuse me, Lord Amit. I don’t believe you’d throw away your path to the throne because of the rebellion on End. I don’t believe your sister would do that, either. There’s something more to it, isn’t there?”

Amit Nohamapetan looked for all the world like a child caught raiding the cookie jar.

“And this calling off of the marriage attempt isn’t something that you want, is it?” Cardenia asked. “Which is to say, this isn’t your idea. You’re being made to do it. By your sister?”

“Not by her,” Amit said.

“But you wouldn’t abandon this on your own,” Cardenia said. “So whatever reason you have for it, she signed off on it. But she told me that she was willing to give up her seat on the executive committee for you if I chose to marry you. Because the House of Nohamapetan being on the executive committee is obviously trumped by the House of Nohamapetan marrying into the royal family and placing an heir on the throne. So something has happened between when I talked to her, and now. What is it, Lord Amit?”

Amit was silent.