The newly anointed admiral of England stared down at his cell phone. He’d had it in the pocket of his pants the day of the conclave, and somehow it had survived the rush to the hospital. It wasn’t until James had set it down in front of him that he even thought about the little device.

“Arthur?” Sophia asked. She was speaking to him again, which was good. After the rather dramatic scene yesterday, Arthur had wanted to talk to her and James, but his arm had started to hurt to the point he couldn’t ignore it. He’d been given additional pain medication and warned not to move around so much without help. He’d slept, partially because of the drugs, partially from exhaustion, until eight a.m. this morning. The nurses had been planning to give him a sponge bath, and though Sophia and James both offered to help, he’d begged them to let him keep some of his dignity. They’d agreed, and had just returned from breakfast.

He looked up from the phone. “Who knows?”

“What do you mean?” She perched gingerly on the edge of his bed.

“I mean, who else knows I’m the admiral?”

“I could answer that, if this were a normal situation.” Sophia touched his knee. “But it is not, so I’m not sure how it is being handled.”

Tristan—damn it, he still sometimes thought of himself as Tristan—sighed. “No, it’s not normal.”

“Because you were in the hospital, my father, in his role as messenger from the conclave, might have contacted your vice admiral or your finance minister.”

“I need to call them.” Tristan—no, Arthur, from now on, he was Arthur—turned the phone over in his hand. “Lorelei, the vice admiral, has been my boss since I was a squire.” He set the phone down on the table and went to run his hands through his hair.

But there was only one hand. His right arm was strapped to his chest in a complicated sling. The good news was that while he was wearing it, he was allowed to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom all by himself. The bad news was, walking and moving were difficult.

“Do you…do you need help dialing?” she asked.

“No,” Arthur ground out.

He was going to need help. He couldn’t snap at people every time they offered.

But damn it, he could still do this. He snatched up the phone, held down the button, and used the voice command. “Call Lorelei.” He set it to speaker and placed the phone on the table.

The phone rang twice before she answered. “Admiral.”

Arthur let out a sigh. That answered his first question. She knew.

“Lorelei.”

There was a beat of awkward silence before she said, “I’m sorry about your arm.”

That answered his second question. She knew about his arm.

“Thank you, Lorelei.”

“You’re calling for a status update?”

Arthur grimaced. As vice admiral and head of both the knights and the security officers, she was leading the hunt for the shooter. “No, I’m not going to distract you. You’re busy.” That was probably an understatement. “I called in case you, uh, didn’t know.”

“The admiral of Rome called me to let me know of the conclave’s decision. I told Lennon Giles and Beatrix Faulkner.” Beatrix had served as Britain’s finance minister for nearly twenty years.

Arthur blew out air, and Sophia’s hand stroked down his good arm. Heavy fingers dug into his shoulders, and Arthur looked back to see James leaning over the back of the raised hospital bed.

“I’m sorry,” he told Lorelei. “You would be a much better choice for admiral.”

Lorelei snorted. “Of course I would.”

Arthur smiled.

Lorelei hissed as if she’d realized what she’d said. “My apologies, Admiral.”

“Don’t. Please don’t. I am not so arrogant or conceited that I can’t acknowledge that you’d be a better choice. And I’m sorry you weren’t made admiral.”

“I’m not. I don’t want to be admiral.”

“But you just said you’d be better.”

“Well, I would. But I don’t want to be admiral.” Then she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “glorified matchmaker.”

Arthur laughed, really laughed. He could feel the tension draining out of his neck. “In that case, Vice Admiral, I’d like a status report.”

“Glad you finally asked.”

Sophia looked a bit scandalized by the conversation, so Arthur squeezed her knee and winked.

For a moment, everything was okay.

Lorelei cleared her throat. “We currently have all six of our security officers, plus eight members of Aegis Canopy and eleven additional personnel from other territories on the case, searching for anything that might lead us to who did this.” Aegis Canopy was an English security company fronted by the Masters’ Admiralty.

Sophia leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Who are the additional personnel?”

Arthur repeated her question to the vice admiral.

Lorelei rattled off a list of names, which included Antonio. Sophia nodded as the vice admiral spoke. Arthur twisted his head to look up at James, who raised his eyebrows. He remembered something Giovanni had said yesterday after the first time he’d insisted he couldn’t be admiral.

“Of course you can. With my daughter as your spouse, you will make an excellent admiral.”

“That’s, uh—” Arthur cleared his throat. “That’s great, Lorelei. You found where the shooter was, right?”

“Yes. They left in a hurry. Left the gun behind. It’s a beautiful gun.” She rattled off a make and model, but Arthur knew less than nothing about guns. Some of the information was a repeat of what Antonio had told them yesterday.

“Can we track him via the gun?” Arthur asked. “Where it was purchased?”

“I did that already.”

“Ah, of course you did.” So far, he was doing a great job as admiral.

“The gun, as far as all paperwork and records indicate, belongs to a United States Marine Corp sniper.”

“The U.S.?” Arthur sat back, cradling his throbbing right elbow with his left hand, his mind whirling. “Fuck.”

“Precisely. This may have something to do with that business in Boston.”

Damn you, Wes. I thought we were friends. Then you lied to me and manipulated me.

“What business in Boston?” James asked.

“Who’s there?” Lorelei asked sharply.

“Oops,” James muttered.

Sophia straightened, though Lorelei couldn’t see her. “This is Sophia Starabba, wife of the admiral of England. The man who just spoke is James Rathmann, husband of the admiral of England and legacy member of the territory of England.”

There was a pause. “You’re married?” Lorelei asked.

“It’s been a busy few days,” Arthur replied dryly.

“You married the Italian princess?”

“Uh, yep.”

“Good. Then you might not fuck this up. The admiral of Rome is ruthless.” Lorelei practically sighed the last word, as if she could think of no better compliment than to say someone was ruthless.

“You should not speak to your admiral this way,” Sophia snapped.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t.”

Sophia looked nonplused by the response.

“Can we get back to this Boston thing?” James asked.

Arthur’s shoulders sagged, and he contemplated trying to explain the whole sordid mess. “To make a ten-year story short, it turned out that in World War II, the U.S. attacked and sank a ship that the Masters’ Admiralty was using to try and smuggle art, antiquities, and…and kids, out of Europe.”

James started massaging his shoulders again. He kept his touch light on the right shoulder.

Sophia stroked his knee. “I heard about this. My family lost children on the ship, my great-great aunts and a great-great uncle. My father was enraged when he heard what the Americans had done. What they are still doing.”

“They killed a bunch of kids, on purpose?” James’s hands paused for a moment. “No. It must have been a mistake.”

“It probably was a mistake,” Arthur conceded, “but they covered it up and kept the art. Sold it to make a profit.”

“They? The U.S. government?” James asked.

“No,” Sophia said. “The Trinity Masters.”

“Wait, go back. Art?” James said faintly. “They stole antiques? Were there coins?”

Sophia made soothing noises at James and reached up to pry his hands off Arthur’s shoulders. “My father demanded an inventory from the Grand Master—that’s what they call their fleet admiral. There’s an American man who uncovered all this. He had asylum somewhere in Europe, but he is now protected by the Trinity Masters. If my father knew this man’s name, we would have our answers.” Sophia looked once more like an avenging goddess, about to lead her army into glorious battle.

Later, much later, Arthur would confess to his role in the whole sordid thing, but he wasn’t going to do it while Sophia had that look on her face.

Arthur cleared his throat. “The point is—”

Lorelei coughed, barely hiding the word “coward” in the sound.

“—that maybe the Americans are working with the Domino.” The words were bitter on Arthur’s tongue. “Maybe, but…I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Sophia demanded.

“Honestly, they barely know anything about us. How would they know to team up with the Domino to strike at us?”

“Why would they want to strike at us?” James asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Arthur grunted. “Because once we found out what had happened back in WWII, we sent them a message. I know, because I was the messenger.”

“What message?”

“‘Some things cannot be forgiven.’”

James paused a moment to think. “They’re over there waiting for us to attack. This could have been a preemptive strike.”

“It could, but I don’t think so. The people who kept the secret were a splinter organization within the Trinity Masters…” Arthur let his words trail off. Despite it all, he still considered Wes his friend. He couldn’t be objective on this subject. “We need to keep investigating the possibility that the Trinity Masters are involved.”

“Gareth Knight has offered to run point on that,” Lorelei said.

“Good,” Arthur said. Gareth was a capable, intelligent knight who always managed to remain objective, to see and analyze both sides of a situation. He wouldn’t go over to America looking to settle a debt.

“Admiral?”

“Yes, Lorelei? Uh, yes, Vice Admiral?”

“I’d like to kill Tristan Knight.”

Arthur blinked. “You’d like to kill me? And are asking me for permission to do it?” He looked around, but both Sophia and James looked as puzzled as he felt.

“Your Tristan Knight identity. We can’t avoid reporting Winston Hammond’s death. We’re going to say it was a disgruntled employee who shot up the building. Winston Hammond, Tristan Knight and Gawain Knight were all killed.”

“Ah, I understand.”

“It might help keep your identity a secret or throw off the Domino. One way or another, it can only help us.”

“Of course. Do what you think is best.”

“I have another question.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you still going by Tristan, or do you want to be called Arthur?”

“You just said you were going to kill off Tristan.”

“Tristan Knight, yes. And the members at large will be told your name is Arthur. But what do you want me to call you?”

“I have a choice?”

“You’re the admiral.” There was an implied “dumbass” at the end of her sentence. “I didn’t call Winston, Winston.”

“That wasn’t his name?”

“No.”

“Then call me Tristan. I’m used to Tristan. I like Tristan.”

“Good. In public, we’ll use Arthur.”

“Great, thank you, Lorelei.”

He waited patiently for the line to go dead. Lorelei wasn’t fond of unnecessary niceties. In fact, this was probably the longest conversation they’d ever had. The call didn’t end.

“You didn’t hang up on me.”

“You’re the admiral.”

“Haha!” Both James and Sophia looked at him as if he was crazy when he crowed in triumph.

Lorelei made a disgusted noise and hung up.

Sophia frowned at the phone. “The English are very odd.”

James slid out from behind the bed and took a seat in the chair. Sophia braced one foot on the arm of his chair, and James started to casually knead her calf.

The two of them were easy with each other. It was effortless.

They weren’t that way with Tristan, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of his injury or if they were still angry with him over his initial reaction to being made admiral. Either way, as he watched James casually touch their wife, he felt removed from them. Alone.

“Tristan or Arthur?” James asked.

Sophia laid her hand on his thigh and the feeling of isolation faded. “Yes, which do you prefer?”

“I’ve been trying to think of myself as Arthur, but…” He shrugged. “Arthur was this punk kid. I’m Tristan. I’d rather be Tristan, but it will get too complicated if I’m Tristan in private and Arthur in public. What if one of us makes a mistake?”

“We won’t,” Sophia said with easy assurance. “If you want to be Tristan, then you will be our Tristan.”

“Your Tristan?”

“Yes,” James said. “Our Tristan.”