Bax Latyvuh had three days to learn something true about the monarch, and no way to learn it. The rumor market gave nothing useful: that the monarch slept in silver sheets, that the monarch fed pet birds from a hand mirror, that the monarch had once wept at a farmer's funeral. Bax sat on the low wall outside the palace gardens and pressed a soft pink spine flat against one knee. On this world Bax had been called beautiful by strangers in three languages, and twice a week someone stopped Bax in the street to say Bax looked like the ruler. That was the whole plan: walk into the garden ceremony, meet the monarch face to face, and win the monarch's heart. Empty flattery would not do it. Bax needed a hook, and Bax did not have one. Bax had already scouted the site. A path of tall crystal spires ran the length of the lawn, each prism catching the afternoon light and throwing colored beams across the grass. The monarch would walk that path through the crowd. Sight lines were open. No handlers. At the far end of the lawn stood a stone obelisk with a black polished face, and carved into the stone were rows of the monarch's profile, repeating down the shaft. Bax stood at the base and studied the carvings for a long time. The face in the stone had a small notch under the left eye, a scar the public portraits did not show. The obelisk kept it. The paintings did not. Bax walked to the artisan quarter and spent the last of the travel funds on a crystalline flower on a long stem, petals cut to shift color when turned. It was the kind of gift a hundred nobles would bring. Bax paid for it anyway, then went back to the obelisk at dusk and traced the notch with one finger. A groundskeeper passed and Bax asked, plainly, where the mark came from. The groundskeeper said the monarch had fallen from a fruit tree at nine years old, chasing a bird the monarch had raised from a chick. The bird had died in the fall. The monarch had ordered the tree kept, and it still grew in a private courtyard, unpruned. Bax turned the crystal flower in one hand and understood the gift was wrong. A hundred people would offer bright things. One person could offer the tree. Bax left the flower on the wall of the obelisk for whoever wanted it and walked back toward the artisan quarter with a new errand: to find a woodcarver before morning, and to bring the monarch a small carved bird instead.