There would always be a name over the door, and there would always be someone else, quieter, watching the person whose name was over the door.

The visible heir would be a decoy.

The real one would be a ghost.

I had resented it, when I was younger.

I had wanted my name on things.

I had wanted to walk into the building I would one day control and be known.

It took Rupert to teach me what my grandfather had understood all along: that being underestimated is not an insult.

It is a position.

It is, in fact, the strongest position on the board, because your opponent spends the whole game moving pieces around a threat he cannot see.

Rupert played eight years of chess against a queen he had mistaken for an empty square.