He knew that she’d feared the plan as he told it to her, the one that would make them orphans, alone in the world. Their mother had absconded from court decades prior, shunned by the stunning pure-bloods, while their uncle and grandfather had become scorned relics. No one would miss them, no one would care, as Tom’s ascent had begun to rise at court. No one knew as he threw himself into revelry and delighted in hunting parties that he was a halfling; one that was one of them, and not. He’d maintained an era of mystery and charm and had been popularized for it.