The only person in the room less comfortable than Franz was the new valet, standing at attention by the mirror. Was the man even alive? He looked as stuffed as the taxidermy bear in the corner, which had been delivered that morning, compliments of the Russian tsar—a reminder of yet another thing someone wanted from Franz: military support.

“Theo, do me a favor.” Franz broke the silence.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Find out if the new guy is still breathing.” Despite the deadpan delivery, Theo smiled at the joke, and Franz felt a little better.

Franz took a deep breath and adjusted his collar. The new guy looked a little like Maxi—something about the eyes, the jaw—and Franz wondered where his brother was and if their mother would try to bring him to the execution. After their match, Maxi had—predictably—disappeared. Franz could never get away with that, but Maxi was free as a bird. Freer, even. Birds still had to build nests and feed their young. Maxi’s nests were built for him, and while Franz suspected there were a few screaming infants out there with his brother’s eyes, Maxi definitely wasn’t doing any feeding.

Franz could hear his mother approaching in the hall. She always walked with purpose, a habit he’d found useful when he was a boy trying to hide from his duties and that now gave him advance notice to stand up straight.

Countess Esterházy, his mother’s favorite companion, was rattling off the schedule in her clear, cool voice. “There is a short audience with the Bohemian delegation after breakfast, then you have a fitting for the winter wardrobe. But first, the execution.”

At that, the footsteps stopped abruptly, and Franz’s eyebrows flicked upward in surprise. It wasn’t like his mother to be hesitant in the face of an execution. Was she feeling some of the anxiety in his own heart?

But then the footsteps started again and the disgust in her voice aimed itself elsewhere. “Not another fitting. Postpone it.”

His mother: Archduchess Sophie of Habsburg, the pragmatist. People called her the only man in Hofburg Palace. It was meant as a slight on Franz, but it never bothered him. They weren’t wrong. She was the best strategist, the sharpest mind, in all of Vienna. She was almost psychic in her ability to know the right thing to do, to see danger before it struck. She’d even told Franz not to go out the day of the assassination attempt. She’d told him that there was unrest, that he was in danger.

It was his fault for not listening. For only taking a single guard. So, if his decision to listen to her made people gossip, well, he would bear it. He owed her that much.