But pleasure was for a later time. This was a moment for a father's stern instructions. So Anton removed the smile, came to an abrupt halt, and half-glowered at his daughter. He ignored the four soldiers who abruptly found themselves coming to an unexpected halt, almost stumbling into their charges.

"And so what?" he demanded. He made no attempt to keep his basso voice from rumbling down the hallway, although the thickening Gryphon highlander accent probably made the words unrecognizable by the time they reached the ears of the majordomo standing by the far doorway.

"The monarch stands at the center of things, girl. For that, the Crown gets my allegiance. Unconditional allegiance, too, so long as the dynasty respects the rights of their subjects. But the reverse stands true as well. I do not condemn Her Majesty for the actions of 'her' government, mind. It's a constitutional monarchy, and as things stand at the moment, that would be silly. But she gets no praise for it, either."

He almost laughed, seeing Berry swallowing. To the former urchin of Chicago's underworld, power was power and "the laws" be damned. No laws nor lawmen had prevented her from suffering the horrors she'd lived through. Nor would they have, ever, in the world she'd come from. All that had ended it was the naked violence of Anton's daughter Helen, a young Havenite intelligence officer named Victor Cachat, and a dozen ex-slave killers from the Audubon Ballroom led by Jeremy X.

Yet a father's job is to educate his children, and Anton would no more shirk that duty than any other.

He heard one of the soldiers standing behind him clear his throat in a none-too-polite reminder. The Queen is waiting, you fool!

A splendid opportunity to continue the lesson, he decided. Anton gave the soldier—the sergeant commanding their little four-man escort—his most intimidating stare.