“You did one thing wrong, Pete, and I never want to see you do it again.”

Peter lay in his bed, his dark blue eyes looking at her solemnly. “What was that, Mother?”

“You didn’t use your napkin,” said she. “You left it folded by your plate, and it made me sorry to see it. You ate the roast chicken with your fingers, and that was fine, because that is how men do it. But when you put the chicken down again, you wiped your fingers on your shirt, and that is not right.”

“But Father… and Mr. Flagg… and the other nobles…”

“Bother Flagg, and bother all the nobles in Delain!” she cried with such force that Peter cringed back in his bed a little. He was afraid and ashamed for having made those roses bloom in her cheeks. “What your father does is right, for he is the King, and what you do when you are King will always be right. But Flagg is not King, no matter how much he would like to be, and the nobles are not Kings, and you are not King yet, but only a little boy who forgot his manners.”

She saw he was afraid, and smiled. She laid her hand on his brow.

“Be calm, Peter,” she said. “It is a small thing, but still important-because you’ll be King in your own time. Now run and fetch your slate.”

“But it’s bedtime-”

“Bother bedtime, too. Bedtime can wait. Bring your slate.”

Peter ran for his slate.

Sasha took the chalk tied to the side and carefully printed three letters. “Can you read this word, Peter?”

Peter nodded. There were only a few words that he could read, although he knew most of the Great Letters. This happened to be one of the words. “It says god.”

“Yes that’s right. Now write it backward and see what you find.”

“Backward?” Peter said doubtfully.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Peter did so, his letters staggering childishly across the slate below his mother’s neat printing. He was astounded to find another of the few words he could read.