Chapter 3
The Old Table had six seats.
My father.
Two elder capos.
Wesley.
My aunt Margaret.
And Gideon Vale.
There.
The voice.
Gideon.
Seventy-one now.
Former Bellandi strategist.
The man who taught me chess and told me queens were useful because kings were replaceable.
I should have recognized him immediately.
He had disappeared from family life after I took command.
Not exiled.
Retired.
Again, apparently retirement meant hiding until tradition needed a witness.
“Gideon was on the phone.”
Wesley did not deny it.
“What does he want with Hazel?”
“He wants nothing personally.”
Wrong answer.
People who say that usually want a system that benefits them personally.
Adrienne finally spoke.
“Blackthorne is neutral.”
I almost laughed.
“No building is neutral when a child is taken there against her mother’s will.”
“She wasn’t being taken.”
I looked at the suitcase.
Adrienne followed my eyes.
Her face tightened.
“Transferred.”
There.
Worse word.
Cleaner cruelty.
I asked who authorized it.
The Old Table did.
Why?
Because I had supposedly violated Bellandi succession by refusing to name a future second.
A deputy?
No.
A blood successor.
I had refused because Hazel was three and I had no intention of assigning her a throne before she could read.
The elders interpreted that as instability.
Then came something stranger.
Wesley said:
“You also rejected the Hartwell arrangement.”
I frowned.
“What Hartwell arrangement?”
Adrienne went pale.
Interesting.
Wesley realized he had said too much.
I leaned forward.
“What arrangement?”
Silence.
I stood.
“Then we’re done.”
Adrienne snapped:
“Hazel was never supposed to know yet.”
Know what?
I turned.
She closed her mouth.
Too late.
“What was Hazel supposed to know later?”
Wesley stared at his daughter with fury.
Then I understood.
This was bigger than Blackthorne.
Bigger than temporary guardianship.
Someone had planned a future for Hazel.
Not marriage.
Not yet.
Something about her name.
Her position.
A branch called Hartwell.
I knew one Hartwell family.
Old allies from Boston.
Their current head had a five-year-old son.
My stomach tightened.
I looked at Wesley.
“You weren’t just moving my daughter.”
He said nothing.
“You were delivering her into a future arrangement.”
Adrienne whispered:
“It was supposed to preserve peace.”
May you like
There it was.
My three-year-old had been turned into diplomacy before she could tie her own shoes.
