Baptiste decided to venture a hunch. “So why'd you bring me here? How'd you bring me here?”
“You're a sharp one. Hmm, yes, the why and the how. You're one of the caretakers for Princess Cybill Zenon. She calls you Bap.”
“It's the only part of my name she can remember.”
“A terribly impaired young woman. Tragic, what happened at her birth.”
“Tragic,” Baptiste repeated.
Her mother dying in childbirth, and a life severely restricted by a stunted development. If the Empress Consort's death during childbirth hadn't been painful enough, the daughter's failure to thrive must have doubled the Emperor's grief. Not one, but two tragedies. It wasn't a wonder why Emperor Athanasios had succumbed in subsequent years to the wiles of the upstart Lady's Maid, Narcissa Thanos.
He looked at the creatur
