pilothouse is all wrong. If that's meant to be a Mephisto, it's too far astern."
The shopkeeper nodded slowly, leaning back with a smile. "Oh, you're quite the young master, aren't you? You'll school me in mechaniks next, I suppose."
Alek's hand went instinctively to his side, where his sword would normally have hung. The man's eyes tracked the gesture.
The room was dead silent for a moment.
Then Volger stepped forward and swept up the money purse. He pulled a gold coin out and slapped it down onto the workbench.
"You didn't see us," he said, his voice edged with steel.
The shopkeeper didn't react, just stared at Alek, as if memorizing his face. Alek stared back at him, hand still on his imaginary sword, ready to issue a challenge. But suddenly Klopp was pulling him toward the door and back out onto the street.
As the dust and sunlight stung his eyes, Alek realized what he'd done. His accent, his bearing ... The man had seen who he was.
"Perhaps our lesson in humility yesterday was insufficient," Volger hissed as they pushed through the crowds, heading toward the stream that would lead back to the hidden walker.
"This is my fault, young master," Klopp said. "I should have warned you not to speak."
"He knew from the first word out of my mouth, didn't he?" Alek said. "I'm a fool."
"We're all three fools." Volger threw a silver coin at a butcher and snatched up two strings of sausages without stopping. "Of course they've warned the Guild of Mechaniks to look out for us!" He swore. "And we brought you straight into the first shop we found, thinking a bit of dirt would hide you."
Alek bit his lip. Father had never allowed him to be photographed or even sketched, and now Alek knew why - in case he would ever need to hide. And yet he'd still given himself away. He'd heard the difference in Klopp's speech. Why couldn't he have kept his own mouth shut?
As they reached the edge of the market, Klopp pulled them to a halt, his nose in the air. "I smell kerosene. We need at least that, and motor oil, or we won't get another kilometer."
"Let's be quick about it, then," Volger said. "My bribe was probably worse than useless." He shoved a coin into Alek's hand and pointed. "See if you can buy a newspaper without starting a duel, Your Highness. We need to know if they've chosen a new heir yet, and how close Europe is to war."
"But stay in sight, young master," Klopp added.
The two men headed toward a stack of fuel cans, leaving Alek alone in the market's crush. He pushed his way through the crowd, gritting his teeth against the jostling.
The newspapers were arrayed on a long bench, their pages weighted down with stones, corners fluttering in the breeze. He looked from one to the next, wondering which to choose. His father had always said that newspapers without pictures were the only ones worth reading.
His eyes fell on a headline: EUROPE'S SOLIDARITY AGAINST SERBIAN PROPAGANDA.
All the papers were like that, confident that the whole world supported Austria-Hungary after what had happened in Sarajevo. But Alek wondered if that were true. Even the people in this small Austrian town didn't seem to care much about his parents' murder.
"What'll you have?" a voice demanded from the other side of the bench.
Alek looked at the coin in his hand. He'd never held money before, except for the Roman silver pieces in his father's collection. This coin was gold, bearing the Hapsburg crest on one side and a portrait of Alek's granduncle on the other - Emperor Franz Joseph. The man who had decreed that Alek would never take the throne.
"How many will this buy?" he asked, trying to sound common.
The newspaper man took the coin and eyed it closely. Then he slipped it into his pocket and smiled as though speaking to an idiot. "Many as you like."
Alek started to demand a proper answer, but the words died on his tongue. Better to act like a fool than sound like a nobleman.
He swallowed his anger and filled his arms with one copy of every paper, even those plastered with photographs of racing horses and ladies' salons. Perhaps Hoffman and Bauer would enjoy them.
As Alek glared at the newspaper man one last time, an unsettling realization overtook him. He spoke French, English, and Hungarian fluently, and always impressed his tutors in Latin and Greek. But Prince Aleksandar of Hohenberg could barely manage the