Vanessa was giving a statement to the media, which we could not hear. Mr. Carter picked up the remote and turned on the sound. The police had found him out at the family hunting camp—I was sure I knew exactly where. There didn’t appear to be any doubt about how it had happened. He’d left a note.

“That’s a hell of a thing to do to your wife and kids,” Mr. Carter said.

“They don’t have any children,” I said.

The television vultures were feasting on what lay before them: Charismatic Southern Republican Senator commits suicide in the midst of a tight race. Potential for upset in the reddest of red states. Who would the party tap to replace him? What scandal would emerge? Could the Dems seize this moment of crisis to narrow the gap in the Senate? Who would fill Arch Creigh’s shoes in the eleventh hour? Would the grieving widow take up the mantle herself?

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Charlie?” Mike asked. “Are you all right?”

I was crying. The tears just came. I couldn’t stop.

“Charlie?” Mike repeated.

I looked away from the television and over at Mike and the Carters, who were staring at me.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Forgive me.”

Mr. Carter looked back toward the television. His wife glanced down at the floor.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” Mike whispered.

I wiped my eyes.

“I knew him,” I said.

“You knew Arch Creigh?” Mr. Carter asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Like, you knew him,” Mike said, “or you knew him?”

How could I even begin to answer such a question?

Part One

Princes in the Tower

one

When I learned what had happened to Arch, what he’d done—when I saw him there on the TV screen in the living room of a dead soldier’s family and wept—I thought not of what he’d become, but, rather, of a boy I once knew, with a mop of golden hair and a golden smile and a sense of certitude so strong it spilled onto everyone around him. And I thought of the boy I had once been, aimless and timid, and how when that magnificent boy turned his light toward me, I fed on that light, and in doing so, became transformed.