“Is it?” She tugged at the sleeve of her dress. “I should think that it would at times be worse – knowing how someone was feeling, but not the cause. You’ve been what now, three months parted?” She shook her head. “Strange how time manages to both accumulate and fade.”

She did not know the full extent of what troubled my father, but whatever it was had been mounting since my incarceration. Time was of the essence.

“It seems like longer,” I said. “I miss her terribly.”

One eyebrow rose in acknowledgment of my uncharacteristic frankness, but she did not seem surprised. “Do you still wish to play?” She gestured at the Guerre boards sitting in their rack, but it was not the game of which she spoke.

I said nothing for long enough for my silence to be significant. “I will play,” I said. “But only because there is no other worthy opponent.”

“It’s in your blood,” she replied.

The four primary boards floated off their rack, the pieces lifting out of their boxes. They were new, I noticed, elaborately carved out of black onyx and white marble. Undoubtedly Reagan’s work. “Shall we start where the game was left off?”

I nodded, my pulse quickening as I watched to see how she would place the players.

The pieces circled the boards. Kings and queens. Princes and princesses. Warriors, spies, tricksters, nobles, assassins, half-bloods, and tiny humans went round and round. “You play the white.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded for the benefit of those who spied on us.

White pieces rained down onto the carpet, accompanied by only a few black. “You’re losing,” she said.

“But I haven’t lost.”

“Not yet.” Her voice was cool, eyes unreadable as the players settled into their places. The black players were thick on the board – not representing her, but my father. Only a handful of white remained. The king, four warriors, and one human. I stepped closer to look at them, recognizing my own face carved onto the king, and those of Marc, Anaïs, Victoria, Vincent, and Cécile. I touched the piece representing my wife, marble curls hanging down her back and an amused smile on her face. Instead of the cudgel usually wielded by a human piece, she held an open book out in front of her.

“Is the game laid correctly?”

“No,” I said quietly. “I lost her.” I pointed to the female warrior, hair blown back in an imagined wind, sword raised in defiance. The piece floated off and settled gently on the table, her onyx twin rising to settle itself amongst my father’s players. “No.” I snatched the piece off, my eyes searching until I found a female spy on the carpet. “Her.” I set the piece next to the black king.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. There is no doubt.”

Crystal clinked, and two glasses of pale wine made their way over. I accepted mine, holding it absently with a filament of magic while I considered the board. Plucking a male half-blood off the carpet, I set it next to Vincent’s piece. Tips.

“But you lost this one, no?” She lifted Marc’s hooded warrior and started to set it aside.

“Not yet!” My voice was too loud, too heated. I forced myself to relax. “His fate is yet uncertain.”

“Hmm.” She sipped at her wine. “I will have to take your word on that.”

Ice ran through me. Had something more happened to Marc that I didn’t know about? If she knew for certain that he was lost, she wouldn’t have let me keep the piece, but I did not like the doubt in her voice.

“We are in agreement?”

“We are.” It all looked so hopeless, laid out like this. My father stood next to his queen and a tiny crowned prince, surrounded by all his other key players. I had only four allies, all of which were in some sort of jeopardy.

“A bleak position you are in, Your Highness,” she said. “What are the options for the white?” Her tone was lecturing, as though she were still teaching me the game. But she wasn’t. The question was legitimate.

“Political positioning.” In the game, it was a risky move that involved maneuvering your king into a specific position among your opponent’s players. If done correctly, you could replace every one of the players within range with your own pieces. But if you executed your strategy poorly, you could lose your most powerful player.

“Do you see a strategy that would have them in the position to listen?”

“Some of them.” I moved Tips’s piece to the second board.

“Only the weaker players would be in position to hear. It isn’t enough to win.”

I no longer saw the half-bloods as weak, especially as a group, but she was right. “Agreed.” I cracked my neck from side to side. “Assassination.”

“You have no assassin.”

“True.” I nudged my own piece. “But I have a player who could manage the task.”

She sniffed. “Risky, and even if the black king fell, the crowned prince is still in play. You would not have won.”

I looked at the tiny representation of Roland, half-imagining I could see the madness in his onyx gaze. “I know. It would take more than one assassination.”

“Perhaps.”

I turned my attention from the pieces to my aunt. She obviously thought there was another option, but nothing on her face told me what it was.

“You should enjoy your wine while we still have it,” she said, sipping hers. “It will become a dear thing if circumstances continue as they have.”