I looked at the scrap of burnt lace in my hand. Then I looked at the man sitting in my chair.
Philippe, Duc d'Orléans. My cousin. The man who called himself "Philippe Égalité" to the mob, but wore velvet suits that cost more than a peasant earned in a lifetime.
He was smiling. It was the smile of a man who had just played a royal flush against a pair of twos.
"Well?" he asked, drumming his fingers on my desk. "Are you going to call the guards, Louis? I wouldn't recommend it. Half of them are on my payroll. The other half are too busy punching each other in the courtyard to hear you scream."
I closed the door. I locked it.
My heart was pounding against my ribs, but my face was frozen. I had faced hostile takeovers before. I had stared down board members who wanted to strip-mine my companies.
Philippe was just a corporate raider with a powdered wig.
"Get out of my chair," I said.
Philippe laughed. He didn't move.
"You're in no position to give orders, cousin. Danton has the letter. The city knows you're a traitor. You have zero leverage."
He leaned forward, picking up the quill I had used to sign the arrest warrant for our brother.
"Here is the deal," Philippe said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Abdicate. Tonight. Sign a decree naming me Regent for the Dauphin. You and Marie can retire to... let's say, a nice hunting lodge in the country. I'll handle the mob. I'll handle Danton."
It was a tempting offer. A golden parachute.
If I signed, I could stop fighting. I could stop lying. I could just be a man again.
But I knew history. I knew what happened to deposed Kings. They didn't go to hunting lodges. They went to shallow graves.
"If I sign that," I said, walking toward the desk. "We are both dead."
Philippe raised an eyebrow. "Oh? I think I'm quite popular."
"You think the Jacobins want a Regent?" I asked. "They hate the monarchy, Philippe. Not just me. The idea of me. If I step down, they won't put a crown on your head. They'll put it on a pike. And then they'll come for you, because you're a Bourbon too."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the burnt lace.
I dropped it on the desk, right on top of the German newspaper.
"And when they find out you were the one who leaked a state secret to the enemy just to steal a throne... how long do you think your 'popularity' will last?"
Philippe looked at the lace. The burnt edge matched his cuff perfectly.
His smile flickered. Just for a second.
"It's a scrap of cloth," he said dismissively. "It proves nothing."
"It proves you were in this room," I said. "It proves you burned the copy. And I will testify to the Assembly that I saw you do it."
"Who will believe you?"
"Robespierre," I said. "He's paranoid. He already suspects you. If I give him this, he'll tear you apart just to see what's inside."
It was a bluff. A desperate, flimsy bluff. If Philippe called it, I was finished.
But Philippe was a gambler. And gamblers hate uncertainty.
He stared at the lace. Then at me.
"You're bluffing," he said. But he didn't sound sure.
"Try me," I said. "Burn the palace down, Philippe. But remember, you're standing inside it."
The silence stretched. The candle on the desk sputtered.
Philippe stood up. He brushed a speck of invisible dust from his coat.
"You have a speech to make tomorrow," he said, changing the subject. "Danton's price."
"I know."
"You're going to denounce the Émigrés," Philippe said. "Your own family. Your own blood."
"I'm going to do what is necessary to save the company," I said. "The Crown."
Philippe chuckled. He walked to the door.
"You think you're clever, Louis. But you're just buying time at a usurious rate. You'll betray the nobility tomorrow to please the mob. And when the mob wants more next week? Who will you betray then?"
He opened the door.
"I'll give you twenty-four hours," he said. "Make your speech. Survive Danton. But if you're still sitting in that chair on Tuesday... I won't be so polite."
He left.
I stared at the empty doorway. My knees finally gave out. I sat on the edge of the desk, gasping for air.
I had survived the raider. But the audit was still coming.
The walk back to the Royal Apartments felt like a funeral procession.
The palace was quiet. Too quiet. The servants had vanished—either fled or hiding in their quarters. The stone halls were cold.
I passed a long mirror in the hallway. I looked at myself.
I looked like a King. The velvet coat, the sash, the sword at my hip.
But inside, I was hollow.
I saw a maid scrubbing the wall near the nursery. She was crying silently as she worked.
I looked at what she was cleaning.
Someone—a guard? A servant?—had scrawled on the silk wallpaper in charcoal.
DEATH TO THE AUSTRIAN WHORE.
The maid saw me. She dropped her brush and curtsied, trembling.
"Leave it," I said, my voice hoarse.
"Sire?"
"Leave it," I repeated. "It doesn't matter."
I walked past her.
The insults didn't hurt me. I had been called worse in boardroom proxy fights. But Marie...
Marie wasn't built for this. She was built for opera and gardens and light conversation. I had dragged her into a war zone.
I reached the bedroom door. I hesitated.
I had to tell her.
I opened the door.
The room was dim. The trunks were unpacked, but the clothes were thrown haphazardly into wardrobes. It felt temporary. Like a hotel room you were checking out of in the morning.
Marie was sitting by the window, looking out at the dark garden. She was still wearing the gray traveling dress.
She didn't turn when I entered.
"Is he gone?" she asked. Her voice was flat.
"Philippe left," I said. "We are safe for tonight."
"Safe," she repeated. It sounded like a curse.
I walked over to her. I wanted to touch her shoulder, to comfort her. But I stopped. I didn't have the right. Not with what I was about to say.
"Marie," I said. "About tomorrow."
"The speech," she said. She still didn't look at me. "Jean told me."
Of course Jean told her. He was loyal to the Crown, not just the King.
"Danton gave me an ultimatum," I said. "I have to denounce the Émigrés. I have to seize their property. I have to declare them enemies of the state."
Marie turned slowly. Her face was pale, like marble in the moonlight.
"The Émigrés," she whispered. "My friends. Your aunts. The Princes of the Blood."
"They ran away," I said, hardening my heart. "They took the gold. They left us here to die."
"They ran because they were afraid!" she cried, standing up. "Just like I was afraid tonight! And you want to steal their homes? You want to declare them traitors for saving their children?"
"I have to!" I shouted back. "It's the only way to pay the army! It's the only way to prove I'm not a puppet!"
"You are a puppet!" she screamed. "You are Danton's puppet! He pulls the string, and you dance! He tells you to eat your own family, and you ask for a fork!"
"I am saving our son!"
"By becoming a monster?"
She walked up to me. Her eyes were blazing with a cold fire I had never seen before.
"You are not the man I married," she said.
"The man you married was weak," I said brutally. "He would have let you die. I am keeping you alive."
"At what cost?" she hissed. "You lie to everyone, Louis. You lie to the Assembly. You lie to my brother. You lie to me."
She pointed to the door.
"Get out."
"Marie..."
"Get out!" she screamed. "I won't sleep in the same bed with a Judas."
I stood there for a moment. I wanted to argue. I wanted to explain the logic, the strategy, the necessity of the sacrifice.
But there is no logic in betrayal.
I turned and walked out.
I went back to the Solar. I didn't sleep. I sat in my chair—the chair Philippe wanted—and watched the candle burn down to the wax.
I was the King of France. I had outsmarted a demagogue. I had bluffed a prince.
But as the sun rose over Paris, turning the sky the color of a bruise, I realized the truth.
I had saved the partnership. But I had lost the wife.
And in three hours, I had to go to the Assembly and sell my soul to the Devil.