“I don’t want to deceive you, I have to be Leo’s friend first.”

“Of course! I should have been a better friend to him myself. I know it was a fool’s mistake to let Orso go, but I allowed my heart to overcome my head, for once. He is my brother, after all, I have…” She had to swallow, the emotion not entirely feigned. “Complicated feelings about him.”

She had thought this might be where Jurand grew suspicious, but for some reason he looked nervous instead. Was there even pity in his eyes? As if he had some secret on the tip of his tongue… but in the end he swallowed it. “Perhaps… you should tell Leo that. I’m sure he’d like to hear it.”

Savine would sooner have set herself on fire than apologise for saving Orso’s life. She passed it off with an emotional sniff. “I fear Leo will not listen to me any more. For good reasons, I know. But he will listen to you.”

“I agree with you about the Closed Council. And about changing the Union for the better. I agree with you about a lot of things. But Leo—”

“Please, Jurand.” She did not let her lower lip actually wobble, or her eyes fill with tears. That would have been sugaring the pudding too much. But she let her voice crack, ever so slightly. Jurand was a caretaker. A fixer of problems, happiest when he was needed. So she let herself be needy. “I need your help. We all do.” She gave his forearm a gentle squeeze. “For my sake and his.” She looked up earnestly into his face. “For the sake of our children.” She left herself defenceless. “For the sake of the nation. Can I be entirely honest with you? Can I lay myself bare?”

He hardly knew what to say to that. “I, er—”

“I think we are alike, in many ways. I can be quite perceptive, too.” She eased even closer, squeezed his arm tighter, made her voice softer so he had to lean down towards her. “I have started to believe that Leo…” She fixed him with her eye and whispered the words. “Is in love with someone else. That he always has been. I have often thought about how he reacted… to what happened in Sipani.” Jurand’s cheek flushed. He tried to pull away but she gripped his arm. “I have come to believe it might not have been disgust at all, but… jealousy.”

There was a long, tense silence while Jurand stared at her, and the birds twittered pleasantly in the budding trees, and the bees buzzed about a patch of fragrant lavender, and somewhere from a high window in the wall of the palace a maid sang in a fine, high voice as she beat the curtains.

“I doubt he would admit it to anyone,” murmured Savine. “I doubt he

even admits it to himself, but… if he ever did… I want you to know I would be the last person to stand in the way of his happiness.” Even softer, so softly it was just breath, she added the last two words. “Or yours.”