“How bad?” I asked them.

“Well,” Alex said, taking a moment to think. He suddenly smirked. “Remember when you decided that King Markus of Fastus was instead Queen Marcia?”

“Yeah,” I said, again, not sure I wanted to know where this was going.

“Well, that was just a note on the page for you.” His smile faded. “I found out that here, the people woke up to find their king missing, and a usurper on the throne. It threw the entire country into a civil war that lasted almost six months.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Civil…” I turned to Adrovan. “How many…”

“Thousands,” he said.

“Maybe you should have just made Markus a cross-dresser,” Robert joked.

Alex slammed a fist on the table. “This isn’t a joke, Robbie!“

Robert went white. Alex was the only one who could get away with calling him Robbie, and he only did it when he was furious.

It was Jaime who defused the situation. “He’s sorry, Alex. But that’s not important.”

She looked at Adrovan. “How soon do we need to kill Albrecht?”

“Soon.”