The king received Rima's confession in his private sitting room with four of us present: me, Louis, Khalid who had arrived the night before from the border with new intelligence, and Safiya standing at the window like she always did, arms folded, watching the courtyard.He read Safiya's written summary first. Then he looked up and asked me to tell him directly what Rima had said, and I did, all of it, the same way I had told Louis. He listened without interrupting, which was its own kind of intensity, the complete focused attention of someone taking in information they intend to use and not waste.When I finished, he set the paper down."She helped your mother survive," he said."Yes.""And then she fed information to the network that eventually killed her.""Not directly. But yes."He was quiet for a while. Not the grief-quiet from before, when Faris's letters had landed on him. This was something different. More analytical. More king than father."Six years of intelligence leaks," h
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