Chapter 270
Felix
"Thank you for—" I start, the words of genuine, stunned gratitude forming awkwardly on my tongue.
She cuts me off with a sharp, dismissive gesture, raising her hand without even looking back at me.
"Not for you," she says, her voice clipped and final. "Your wife's request."
Wife. Edith.
The reminder is a cold splash of reality. Of course. The countless nights I found Edith at her escritoire, the scratching of her pen a persistent counterpoint to my own restless pacing.
She'd been sending letters. To the one person we both knew could change the game, if she could be reached.
Initially, I'd been ashamed. We shouldn't need her, I'd argued, pride stinging.
We'd had major disagreements, voices raised behind closed doors. Eventually, a grim resignation settled over us both. She was right. There was only one force in the kingdom that could counterbalance my uncle's decades of plotted momentum: the woman who answered to no one.
