Minerva's smile widened just enough to prove she had been aiming for that exact reaction.
"Oh, Dean dear, you can't blame me for asking. You and Arion have done your duties and not even once visited me or Otto in the last three months."
Dean sighed. "Minerva… you have eight other kids. Five are yours."
Minerva's expression did not change.
That was how Dean knew he had made a mistake.
A lesser woman would have blinked. A weaker woman might have been offended. Empress Minerva of Alamina merely turned her head by a fraction and looked at him with the kind of polished maternal severity that made generals remember forgotten appointments and grown princes reconsider their tone.
"Yes," she said. "And yet somehow the dramatic one is the one avoiding me."
Dean stared at her. "You have narrowed that category too much."
Minerva's lips twitched.
Dean regretted speaking.
