Scratch braced herself for the pain that wrapped around that loss. It came, but it had dulled significantly, a bruise fading to yellow and green. “I do.”

“You were the exception, and you might have changed the way he looks at people with backgrounds like yours. We’ll never know, of course.” She tapped her teacup. Dink, dink, dink. “I thought that if he could see you clearly, then maybe he could be led to clarity on the invasions.”

“His priority was expansion. If he saw me as anything, it was a tool toward that end.”

Frances gently nodded in acknowledgment. “You’re right, of course. But he was blind to anything outside of his own stubborn views. I thought that seeing you was deviation. It wasn’t. You had just made yourself the perfect, undeniable option. You fit yourself into his scheme.”

There was no reason to be offended. Still, it prickled. “And what could he have seen if he knew to look?”

“That the annexations were putting Ivinscont in danger,” she said fiercely. “Of course Koravia knew that he was taking countries. That my father was trying to make himself a stronger opponent if Koravia decided to attack again. The Koravian king also knew that he would have to attack before my father got too strong to defeat.”

Scratch swallowed. “Oh.”

“The king here is different. Instead of annexations, he’s formed peace treaties with neighboring nations. If Koravia decided to attack Ivinscont, five other armies would join them.”

“Well.” Scratch pursed her lips, thinking. “Your father wasn’t worried?”

“He thought that if he just got stronger—stronger, stronger, stronger—there would be nothing to worry about.” Her eyes were narrowed, the lines beside them pronounced. She shook her head. “He’s a fool.”

“Yes,” Scratch replied. “A fool with two new additions to his country. A fool who has a rather successful army at his back.”

“Of course you’d know all about that.” Frances eyed her, carefully tracking Scratch from pale head to scuffed boots. “And you think that, because you know how his army works, you should be my Lady Commander?”

“I’m not trying to be your Lady Commander.”

Frances stilled. “You’re not?”

“No,” Scratch said. “I want to be your Hand.”

It had come to her the night before while she watched Frances waffle over whether to lock her and James away. Frances needed more people, people with skills she didn’t have. Not that she wasn’t doing well on her own. Frances was formidable at seventeen and had already enacted a plan that threatened her very existence, let alone the fate of the people over whom she reigned. She had taken a leap, either recklessly or bravely or, most likely, a combination of the two. If nothing else, Scratch wanted to see that up close.