“Wow, and you understood it?” Kiem said. “I studied here. Dropped out before exams came around.” It had been the climax of an inglorious school career and hadn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone, least of all his mother or the Emperor, but telling the newslogs had been uncomfortable. “Turns out being royal can only take you so far if you don’t have the brains.”

“I’m sure you do,” Jainan said, then stopped. “You must—well.”

Kiem realized that sounded like he was fishing for compliments and hastily tried to fix it. “No, honestly, thick as a brick. Ask any of my ex-professors. I got on with them all right, though, so last year they asked me to be one of the patrons anyway. Don’t need to be a good student for that.”

Jainan had his finger on his place in one of Kiem’s ex-professors’

biographies. “I’m sorry,” Jainan said, “I don’t think I can remember everything in this. Is there anything you want me to say to anyone in particular?”

“You don’t have to remember the briefing,” Kiem said, somewhat appalled.

“You’d go mad if you tried to remember it. It’s just there in case you wanted to look something up. You’ll want to talk to the professors in your doctorate subject, won’t you? Sorry, I’m no good at science; you’ll have to remind me what it was in.”

“Nothing important,” Jainan said as the flyer came to a halt and settled to the ground. He closed the folder.

“Uh,” Kiem said. “Right.” He surreptitiously checked his wristband for his own briefing.

The reception was in a vast central hall, which had peeling paint on the walls and an echo that magnified the conversations of the hundred or so donors and staff members mingling there. The chairs were the same cheap ones Kiem remembered sitting on in lectures. The excuse for the reception was the artwork from graduating students temporarily lining the walls, and Kiem made vague appreciative noises at it as their student escort towed them toward the Imperial College chancellor.

“Ah! Your Highness! Glad you could make it!” the Chancellor boomed. She was a statuesque figure in tweed and pearls and smart braids, and she turned away from her conversation to bow to them. An ornate flint buckle winked from her belt. “And this must be Count Jainan. Honored by your presence, Your