“Your tower guards are unreliable. You should have had all the locks changed. What I’ve found to be the case with you technocrats”—he took up her wineglass and sniffed at it—“is that you respect subtlety overmuch. You obsess over whispers and rumors and intangible marks of authority, and fail to consider what will happen when a man with a knife breaks into your rooms and cuts your throat. Aurdwynn is not civilized enough for subtlety.”
