“I’ve been over every inch of this place, in case you’re worried.”

“No bombs this time?” Raesinia said, equally quietly.

“Nothing but a few rats.”

At Raesinia’s request, the soldiers standing beside her on the rostrum were the four who’d survived the raid on the Hotel Ancerre. Andy, stiff as a board, looked close to panic as the attention of the room focused on them. Joanna, one arm still wrapped in bandages, seemed to take the scrutiny in stride, but she kept stealing glances at her smaller companion—Barely or Barley, Raesinia wasn’t certain which and couldn’t figure out a polite way to ask—who had a bandage wrapped around her head like a crown. Vicky, the last, wore an elegantly tailored dress uniform complete with gilded sword with an expression of severe embarrassment.

The new President of the Deputies-General was an octogenarian Free Priest from Essyle, a jolly if somewhat forgetful old boy whose greatest feature was that, as a complete nonentity, he was regarded by all parties as a safe choice. He tottered up to the rostrum now, bowed deeply before Raesinia, and straightened up again with only a little difficulty. Once installed behind the podium, he cleared his throat, and in a creaky voice said, “I declare the one hundred and eighteenth session of the Deputies-General of the Kingdom of Vordan open.”

There was more, something about procedures and minutes, but it was drowned under a rising cheer. Deputies on both sides of the aisle got their feet, applauding for Raesinia, or for themselves, or for Vordan in general. The president kept talking, regardless of the fact that no one could hear him, and the crowd had only begun to fall silent when he finished his long preamble.

“As our first item of business,” the president said, “our esteemed monarch, Queen Raesinia Orboan, has come to make an address. Your Majesty?”

“Thank you,” Raesinia said. Sothe, efficient as ever, discreetly pushed a cushioned step behind the podium so Raesinia would be able to stand at something like the correct height. Raesinia took her perch and looked out at the sea of faces, the deputies in their bleachers and the balconies full of onlookers, the hall full of those who hadn’t been able to cadge a seat. And, beyond them, the nation, waiting for the broadsheets that would spread her words across hundreds of miles.

It’s a good thing, she thought, I don’t get stage fright. She pried her hands, carefully, away from where they had taken a death grip on the edges of the podium, and began her speech.