Ten minutes later, we were sitting in Leonora's private drawing room. It was painfully elegant—velvet chairs, crystal vases, and enough sunlight to grow a tomato farm.
"It has been a nightmare, Prim," Leonora sighed, putting down her porcelain cup with a dramatic clatter. "My father, the Emperor, is driving everyone mad. Absolutely mad."
"Is it the trade routes?" I asked, taking a bite of a very buttery cookie.
"No, it's family," she groaned, rubbing her temples. "He wants a tutor for his niece—my little cousin, Lady Ellia. But Ellia... she's a menace. A literal disaster. She bit the last tutor. She set fire to the robe of the one before that. And she threw a globe at the royal mathematician."
"Sounds like my kind of kid," I noted, grabbing a second cookie.
Leonora laughed, but the sound was brittle. She looked down at her tea, her reflection swirling in the amber liquid.
