Later that evening, Simon was finally allowed to meet his son. Before that, though, he was given a tour of the pace he already knew reasonably well and shown the apartments he’d be living in until such time as Seyom was grown or the Queen grew dissatisfied with his performance. While he certainly didn’t expect the tter to apply, he did hat she’d given him a room at the top of the tower, furthest from her own bedchambers, which was very clearly a message all of its own.

  Don’t get any ideas indeed, he thought to himself.

  He didn't mind, though. The space rivate, out of the way, and uo be spied upon. It was even fairly defensible should he ever require that, and there le room for him to work on several of his art and magic-reted experiments.

  It was only ter that evening when Simon had unpacked his possessions a servants to the library and the bazaar to retrieve the things he thought he’d need for the uping lessons Simon was actually introduced to Seyom, he was stunned for a moment.

  He could see plenty of the Queen in his dark-eyed features, but he could see something of himself, too, and it had more of an effect than he’d expected. Simon had tutregor, Niko, and the Alexin children, but something about Seyom being his own flesh and blood, even if the child didn’t know it, ged that dynamic immediately.

  He’d had a short speech prepared about disc the wonders of the world together, but he only got a few words out before it was clear the boy wasn’t listening, which ruihe moment. At first, Simon thought that his son had just grown up into a precocious brat, but as it turned out, he’d simply been coddled within an inch of his life.

  The boy g to his mother’s skirts whenever possible, which wasn’t so unusual for a boy of eight, but even when he art from her, he was surrounded stantly by half a dozen servants to tend to his every need. He could not shout being offered three handkerchiefs.

  When it came to eating, he wasn’t eveed by Seyom; the boy was seated at a small table with three other servants, and he ut at the Queen’s left hand at the high table. “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

  “I think that you do not want that answer,” Simon mused, drinking some of his wine.

  She didn’t challenge him directly on it, and the polite versation tinued, interrupted only occasionally by their verbal feng. It was only after the dinner was winding down after Simon was stuffed within an inch of his life by fine dishes of rid mb, that she asked to speak with him about his pnned curriculum in private that he finally told her the truth.

  “I think that boy is being smothered within an inch of his life,” Simon excimed as soon as the door was closed.

  Elthena, for her part, only made a few excuses about how precious Ionia’s heir was before she grudgingly agreed. “What do you propose, then?” she asked.

  “Besides that, you cut the apron strings? Give the boy some friends!” Simon said, exasperated. “Why is he sitting with servants three and four times his age. Why is he not with other children.”

  “Well, as you well know, I have no other children, Simon,” she answered pyfully.

  “Your choiot mine,” Simon shot back before adding, “I have no doubt your court is overflowing with other children whose parents would love to get into yood graces. Surely they will do.”

  “We’d phat, of course, but…” she hesitated. “When he’s older, you know?”

  “Older? Impressionable?” Simon sighed. “Elthena, I love you, but yoing to ruin our… You will ruin Seyom. When he is still young and impressionable is exactly the moment you want him to be exposed to other children. That's where he will learn virtues like curiosity, independence, and masity.”

  “That’s too harsh,” she insisted. “My son is very curious and intelligent. He often asks questions that men twice his age have not yet sidered.”

  “Oh?” Simon asked, “And when he asks these fine questions, what answers is he given?”

  “I have the fi schors of my court. They tell him whatever he wants to know,” she answered softly. This made Simon pound the windowsill he was standing beside in frustration.

  “Then all you have taught him is that he rely on men smarter than him to expin things to him,” Simon sighed. “Is that what you want? To be led around by his advisors?”

  “Well, of course not,” she insisted. “But I was raised much the same way, and I turned out alright.”

  “And so will he, eventually,” Simon sighed, “But I want more than, alright. I want exceptional. I don’t think that’s asking too muot for my… pupil.”

  When he was in public, he had no problem referring to Seyom as a near stranger, but in private, with the Queen, it was much harder. There, the secret was evidence of the life that he might have led.

  “How would you ge things thehena asked.

  “pletely,” Simon said. “From top to bottom.” He spent the few minutes ying out what he meant by that. To start with, he wahe number of minders around Seyom to be slowly reduced.

  “He should never be outnumbered by his own servants,” Simon expined. “He may have one servant, but not when I am teag.” She balked at all of that, but he tinued, expining that heh, instead of being Seyom’s private tutor, their css was about to get rger.

  “I would like five to eight students around his age,” he insisted. “And some of them should be girls. An even mix will make him feel less special.”

  “But he is special,” Elthena insisted.

  “He is,” Simon agreed, “But he should feel the o prove that, not have it hao him. He will go nowhere in life until we build that drive.”

  They argued about it for some time, and Simon wasn’t sure he’d made any headway oter. He was certain that his insistehat his son have more men in his life hurt the Queen, but still, somehow, at breakfast the following m, which he had with the Queen and her son in private, he was only waited on by a single servant.

  There, in front of a few of her advisors, she proceeded to expin to him that his duties would be expao include a few other boys and girls who were the children of court luminaries. Simon nodded along, agreeing to everything.

  In the end, only her Vizer protested the new arra in any serious way. He was a different ohan Simon had known when he’d st been here, but the Queen dismissed his s about the increased risks of injury that came with roughhousing. “Our dear Mister Ennis is too taleo keep all to ourselves. Surely, the future of the Kingdom will be muhanced if he helps to mold as many young minds as possible.”

  After that, Simon hoped to get to work, but instead, he was tasked with going out to find more students for his css. A few of the Queen’s courtiers provided him with a list of names, whicluded all of the best families with children who were between six and ten, and the him to his own devices.

  Simohe week of his life having lunches and dinners with the crème de crème of the city, discussing art and some of his travels, along with cossip. It wasn’t wasted time, truthfully, he just did not care for it. At his age, he could eat only so much rich food before he started to pay for it at night with heartburn and sleeplessness, and truthfully, all he wao do end time with Seyom.

  Eventually, he settled on five likely children to join his son and had the pace carpenter fashion six desks in a small out-of-the-way room he gardens. “Do you really mean for the prio learn in such a drab pce?” the Vizer asked one day when the Queen was visiting to i his new .

  “Not at all,” Simon said. “We will only be io learers and when the weather is poor. The rest of the time, I pn to teach them outside.”

  “Outside?” the man asked. “What they learn in the gardens that—”

  “We’ll only be in the gardens for a few years,” Simon corrected the man. “When Seyom and the rest are a bit older, the city, the mountains, and the sea will be our boratory just as much as everywhere else.”

  “Wha-what?!” the man exploded. “Queen, surely this tutor has gone quite mad. He would risk the lives of the prind—”

  “Yes, expin yourself,” the Queen responded, only slightly annoyed.

  “What you learn of the world without being in it?” Simon asked. “How you learn to swim without stepping foot ier? I assure you, all of them will be fihere is no safer p the world than there is with me.”

  The versation was dropped when workmen arrived to install the rge piece of ste that he po use as a chalkboard, but it was far from resolved. In private, the Queen expressed her disapproval very clearly, despite further expnations. “You will have the ce to see the results for yourself from the garden sessions alone,” Simon promised her.

  Those started shortly after that. At first, they were little more than py time, with Simon funing as a doting grandparent or elderly babysitter. He noticed the Queen would often watch from one of the windows on the upper story, but she didn’t interfere, which was for the best.

  Simon did very little teag in those first few weeks. Instead, he did signifit untraining that their servants and parents had unwittingly inflicted on them and taught them how to be kids again. At first, he dictated the games they would py and taught them tag and hide and seek, along with tug of war and a few others, but after a few days, they mostly hahat themselves and he could see friendships starting to form, which pleased Simon to no end.

  It was only after they were fortable with each other and with him that the real learning could begin. It started in small ways, with discussions about where the rain came from and why the grass grew, just as it had with the Alexin children. He made finger paints for the children, which led to the briefest of discussions about alchemy, but it was a start, and ohe children saw learning as a form of py rather than torture that involved words on a page, his job was halfway done.