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Benezet had reserved the bistrot’s back corner booth. From here, she could see the entire room. The exterior walls were elaborate, stamped cast iron, and the windows had heavy, dark wood frames, accented with gold. The other patrons were dressed immaculately for a business-casual weekend. They talked quietly. Forks clinked.

Benezet lined up the corners of a thin white folder with the silver and black tiles on the table. She still sat the way they’d learned to when they were kids, motionless, meticulously straightened and balanced until she looked perfectly at ease. She wore sunglasses, even indoors. Her suit, nails, lipstick, and shoes were all subtly coordinated shades of dark green. Her black hair was cut and polished into a gleaming, razor-sharp bob. She rested her jaw on one fist and kept her eyes on the door.

“Hey! What can I get started for you?”

The waitress was a high schooler. Brown hair leaked out of her braid and stuck to her apron strap.

“Three waters,” Benezet said.

“Sure. Are you waiting for —”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She managed to smile. “I’ll be right back.”

The door opened.

For a second, haloed by the daylight, Croley looked like he hadn’t changed in the last seven years. He wore a pure black suit and tie with a snow white shirt. A small gold watch gleamed on his wrist and a diamond sparkled in one ear.

Then he stepped inside, and the image evaporated. His suit hung off him in folds. He hadn’t cut his hair in months. He looked sick. 

Benezet flipped down her sunglasses and raised her eyebrows. 

Croley saw her. A firework look flashed over his face, barely taking shape before it faded and fell. It left a cloudy, indistinct shadow behind it.

Another guy followed him over to her booth, slung his backpack down on the bench, and pushed it over to the wall. His hair was short, and he wore a vintage brown leather jacket over a t-shirt that still smelled like the dryer. He nodded to Benezet and leaned back, bouncing one leg.

Croley slid into the booth and slumped over the menu. Heavy dark circles lined his eyes. The knot in his tie was falling out. His watch was new — it was square and it looked like he’d dug it out of a mall bargain bin. Up close, Benezet couldn’t convince herself that his suit wasn’t the same one he’d worn the day of the coup.

“I’m glad you came, Croley,” she said in Nots Gaelic.

“Yeah.” Croley looked like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t.

“Good to see you, Ben,” Xander said.

Benezet finally recognized him. “You too.” She looked at Croley. “I wanted to talk to you.”

He nodded. She waited.

“Go ahead,” Croley said.

“It’s about our family.”

“Uh-huh.”

Benezet sighed. “Why is Xander here?”

“Oh. I invited him.”

Benezet steepled her fingers, patient. “I understand. Of course we’re doing this for him, too.”

Croley squinted. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going back to reclaim the throne.”

His face went blank. “What?”

She ignored him. “We’ll get Stonorov and Pei, go back to Notland, and kill Mr. Worldwide.”

“Oh,” Croley said, after a second.

“We can make a more detailed plan for the accession after he’s dead. We’ve been gone too long to do it now.”

Croley methodically settled himself in the back corner of the booth. He swirled his water glass, watching ice cubes knock against the sides like he was examining the legs of a fine wine.

“Do it yourself.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“We have to do it together.”

“Why?”

“The prophecy.”

“So?”

“But —”

“Fuck off,” Croley said, in English.

The waitress stepped back.

Croley twisted around. “When the fuck did you get here?” he asked, baffled.

“I’m sorry. I can come back —”

“We’ll have three coffees,” Benezet said.

“Just one.” Croley jerked his head at Xander. “He and I are leaving.”

“Sure.” 

The waitress was gone before Benezet could stop her. 

She turned to Croley. “We can’t let him do that to our country.”

“ ‘Let’?”

“As long as we—”

“You think this shit is my fault?”

“You are the Crown Prince.”

“Not any-fucking-more!”

The girl in the booth behind them flinched. 

Xander looked over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

Croley pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Mr. Worldwide is a usurper,” Benezet said. “We have a duty to take back the throne.”

“Look. Bennie. We don’t — we’re not the royal family anymore. We’re a hit list.”

“As long as we’re alive, he can still be defeated.”

“Okay. I have an idea.” Croley braced his elbows on the table and turned on his old state-visit smile. “The Norns told him he’d rule for fifty years if he kills the four of us in birth order.”

“I know. What’s your point?”

“If you really want to take him out, kill yourself.” Croley shot a pair of finger guns at the ceiling. “Bada-bing, bada-boom,” he added in English.

“Could you take this seriously?”

“You think I don’t take this seriously?”

“You don’t act like it.”

“He killed Fife.”

“What?”

Croley looked like a bird that had flown into a window. “Did you not know?”

“I — no. I hadn’t heard.”

“It was on the news this morning.”

“I haven’t checked yet.”

“ ‘Doing this for all of us,’ huh?”

“It’s been — how long have you known? Two hours?”

“He killed her kids, too.”

Benezet froze. 

Croley saw her eyes widen through her sunglasses and smiled grimly. “Yeah.”

She shrugged jerkily. 

Croley leaned forward. “My memory’s hazy, but I remember her oldest. Pretty sure she brought him to the last palace Christmas party before the coup. He was two, maybe three years old? Blond kid? Looked a lot like —”

Benezet shook her head quickly. “This is exactly the kind of thing that Mr. Worldwide will keep doing —”

“ ‘Kind of thing?’ Fuck you.”

Benezet raised her voice. “— until we stop him.” 

“You didn’t even fucking notice.”

“I would have checked the news this morning if I wasn’t meeting you.”

“Please.”

“But —”

“I was drunk off my fucking ass this morning, and I still found out.”

“Are you drunk now?”

“No.” He smiled, barely. “We’re Cawdors. We sober up way too fast.”

A second passed. Then Benezet forced a sigh.

“So. Mr. Worldwide had Fife killed.”

“He did.” Croley folded his hands. “Are you gonna tell me I should have stopped him?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.”

“You had no opportunity to stop him.”

“E-fucking-xactly.”

“However, I’m here to give you the opportunity to stop him from doing things like this in future. The next time —”

“Fuck. Off,” Croley snarled.

Xander put his hand on Croley’s shoulder. His muscles felt like steel wire, even through his jacket. Then he closed his eyes tightly and deflated into the back of the booth. 

“Sorry, Xander.”

Benezet tapped one flawless nail steadily on the table. Xander watched her with a fiercely neutral expression.

“Mr. Worldwide will kill you,” she said to Croley.

Croley’s back straightened like he’d been shocked by an electric fence. He leaned over the table. “Yeah? What else is new?”

“Ben,” Xander said. “He knows.”

“That bastard has been trying to kill me for seven years,” Croley said. “You’re just on the fucking waitlist.”

She shrugged, more smoothly this time. “He wants all of us dead.”

“Yeah, and so do you, apparently!”

Xander looked over his shoulder. Three waiters were whispering behind the host station. He sighed.

“It’s him or us,” Benezet said.

“No. It’s die now, or die slightly later.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Great positive thinking.”

“At least I am thinking,” Benezet said, “about how we can fix this. You’ve completely given up.”

“You think I’m going to be the fucking king?”

“Technically, you are the king.”

Croley started to laugh.

“This isn’t funny.”

Croley kept laughing, high-pitched and almost doubled over the table.

“Ben,” Xander said. “You should go.”

“Xander, thank you for helping to get him out of the country during the coup. Really.”

He tilted his head. “You’re welcome.”

“But you’re not involved in this anymore. Leave us alone.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“You are.”

“He’s not gonna do that,” Croley said into the table.

“If you won’t listen to me while he’s here, he needs to go.”

“Excuse me.”

A woman in black stood at the end of the table. Red acrylic nails, stained with pen ink, tapped on her arm.

Xander sighed.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the woman said.

Benezet flipped open her wallet and pulled out a pair of crisp hundred-pound bills. “We’ll only be here for a few more minutes,” she said in English.

The woman’s mouth flattened. Then she molded it into a polite smile and took the money. 

“Thank you, miss.”

Benezet smiled. “Of course.”

“Take your time.”

She was gone. For a moment, no one spoke.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Benezet asked Xander.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She shook her head quickly. “Why are you trying to stop him? Did the Secret Service put you up to this?”

Xander stared.

“What?” she asked.

He pressed one knuckle between his eyebrows. “Fucking hell,” he muttered.

Benezet turned to Croley. “I’m just going to take you outside.”

“No you’re fucking not. We’re leaving,” he said in English.

“Stop running away, Croley.”

He grinned savagely. “Too late!”

“Mr. Worldwide is a murderer and a dictator, and we’re the only ones who can stop him, so get off your ass —”

Croley laughed. “Which is it?”

“What?”

“Am I running away, or am I sitting on my ass?”

“You’re acting like a coward.”

“What else would I be?”

“We’re the only ones who can stop him. We’re going to bring him down.”

“No, ‘we’ ” — Croley’s air quotes were almost feral — “are going to walk into a motherfucking deathtrap so ‘we’ can be queen. I won’t.”

“We’re the Cawdors. Our family has — ”

“You didn’t even fucking call me.”

Benezet stopped.

“Seven years. No calls. No texts. No fucking — carrier pigeons, I don’t fucking know.”

“Well, you didn’t —”

“And now you want me to go and die for our family?”

Benezet lifted her hands aimlessly. “I —”

“Okay,” Croley said. “Let’s try this. I will accept your premise. I am the Crown Prince of Notland. I am first in line. Do you have any fucking idea what that’s like?”

“Yes.”

“Wrong. Dead fucking wrong.” He snorted. “Ha.”

“What?”

“Dead wrong.”

“Don’t joke about this!”

“Why can’t I make a couple jokes?” 

“It’s not funny.”

“I think it is.” Croley stretched his state-visit smile across his face until it tore. “I think it’s funny as all fucking hell. When I walk down the street, I can’t even see a car pull up next to me and not think, This is the one. This is the one that’s gonna be full of Secret Service agents. Bunch of fucking LARPers with their AKs and their dumbass fucking uniforms are going to jump out and I’m going to be dead on the sidewalk. Bada-bing. Bada-boom.”

Benezet was pale.

“Every — fucking — time. Even if it’s a VW fucking Bug.”

She opened her mouth. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Tell me that’s not fucking hilarious.” Croley leaned back. 

The restaurant was silent.

Xander lifted his head from his hands. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah.” Croley switched back to Nots Gaelic. “Just one more thing, Bennie — Xander, feel free to leave, this won’t take long. Bennie. You know who knows? You know who fucking knows?”

“Knows what?”

“What the shit this is like?”

Benezet’s mouth stretched into a thin green line. “No one, I assume.”

“Wrong!” Croley pointed at Xander, who hadn’t moved except to drop his head back into his hands. “He knows. He’s been here the whole goddamn time. Seven fucking years of this fucking shit.”

“Wait.”

“And in that seven years, not once has he asked me to hire my own goddamn firing squad.”

“No. What did you say about Xander?”

“Did you hear,” Croley said, “anything I just said?”

“He’s been here since the coup?”

“You didn’t —” Croley’s face cleared to blank confusion. He looked years younger. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I — he decided to stay with me.”

“Why did your math tutor —”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“What?”

Croley half-laughed. “How did you not know?”

“Know what?”

“We’ve been dating since we were fifteen!”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah!”

Benezet tapped her nail on the table again, watching it like it was a golf ball flying towards the final green in the PGA Masters tournament. She started to cross her legs, then stopped. 

In the depths of the bistrot behind Croley and Xander, someone dropped their fork and swore quietly.

“Anyway,” Croley said. “I won’t go.”

“Croley —”

He stood. “See you later.”

Croley’s shoes echoed on the tile floor. He stepped through the door, stopped, and waved to Benezet. Then he let it fall shut behind him. The bell tinkled.

Xander shrugged one backpack strap over his shoulder.

“Wait,” Benezet said.

“What do you want.”

She held the folder out to him. “Take this.”

He sighed. “Why?”

“Just take it.”

He didn’t move.

“It has my contact information in it. In case Croley wants to try to talk again.”

Xander watched her. His intense, neutral look was back in place, like mirrored sunglasses in the sun. Finally, he took the folder and slid it into his backpack. He pinned a fifty-pound note under the ketchup bottle, said something Benezet couldn’t hear to the waiters clustered behind the host station, and left.

Benezet jammed a hundred under her water glass and followed him out, but by the time she was outside, blinking at the white sunlight and the swarm of engines, they were already gone.