“Apparently I don’t,” Jacob growled in agreement. He was more frustrated with Caspian than he was with Iris for that reason, because he never would have imagined Atlas’s son would do something so reckless. The new king had butted heads with his father over plenty of things before and had a weakness for the night life in the capital, but he’d never done anything that had the potential to damage the crown’s reputation. He was responsible. If he drank to excess, he walked with an escort instead of driving; if the young women in the city flirted with him, he wouldn’t take advantage of their interest; if the previous ruler had needed his help, he always stepped up to do the job. For a young man in his early twenties, he’d matured beyond his years, so it was dumbfounding to the security guard that he would have thought up such a shortsighted plan.

As Iris went on about Caspian’s original intentions to run away, Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. The more he uncovered, the worse it seemed to get. The former prince had known that his father was on his deathbed, that there were no other successors in line for the throne, and yet he had still come so close to abandoning his people. Flightiness wasn’t a good quality in a king. Now that he knew it had almost happened once, he was going to keep a closer eye on the fledgling monarch in case he was ever overwhelmed enough to try it again. Until Caspian named someone else as his successor or had children of his own, the monarchy was precariously close to collapsing.

He remained quiet while the rebel girl seemed to give up before his eyes. She had fought him hard in the beginning, but it looked like she didn’t have enough resolve left to keep going. His eyes flicked once more to the filthy kitchen contemplatively before returning to her face. “Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the couch behind her. His words were still firm, but the initial anger had melted from his voice. Now that she had answered his questions and had lost her willpower, he didn’t feel the need to keep fighting with her.

Taking his own advice, the guard sat on the opposite end of the sofa and leaned back with his arms crossed. He was still alert enough to stop her if she made any sudden movements, but there wasn’t an immediate threat that required him to stay on his feet. “You say I’ve been kept in the dark about the king recently, but I do know him, Iris. Better than you do,” he told her bluntly. Someone needed to tell her the truth, and right now, he was the only one who was in a position to do so. For Caspian’s sake, he was going to be candid.

“You two only met a few months ago. I promise you that isn’t enough time to learn every detail about a person, no matter how much you care about each other, and I can tell you right now that the Caspian you know isn’t the same Caspian who was prepared to be the leader this country needs.” Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees as he held Iris’s gaze seriously. “I’m sorry if this is difficult to hear, but this relationship the two of you have is a detriment to him. Now that he’s been crowned king, Caspian has committed every facet of himself to Aspiria. I’m not yet sure if he grasps the full depth of what that means, especially after discovering [i]this[/i],” he gestured vaguely at the suite, “but running around in secret to be with someone who isn’t even a highborn, let alone a person who could strengthen the monarchy politically… These aren’t actions befitting of a king, and I can no longer stand idly by and watch him revert into an impulsive teenager. That means these meetings are going to stop.”