Page 12 of By Mistake

"Uh—" Oresti looked suddenly miserable. "There's something I need to tell you, actually."

His smile fading, Andrus forgot all about his meal as he stared at Oresti, whose misery was looking more and more like guilt. "What could you possibly— Oh, gods. Oh, gods . I'm so stupid." Oresti wasn't named after the prince. "You're him. You're really, truly him. You're Prince Oresti."

"I'll wait outside," Greivs murmured.

Andrus barely noticed his departure, eyes wide as he stared at Oresti, who looked like a combination of a kicked puppy and a soaking wet cat.

"What are you doing as an investigator? Why— How— Oh, god I'm so fucking stupid.

" It was all so obvious. How he'd paid off the taxes.

Why he didn't seem concerned about Farthing.

The food, the expensive wine, the necklace.

The invitation made more sense now too. Oresti's family had probably found out about this little…

whatever it was…and were going to stamp it out by way of abject humiliation, putting him in his place publicly and brutally.

He scrambled to his feet, backing away from Oresti. Who was the royal prince, the king's youngest son, some said his favorite child, born of his third wife, the one he'd truly loved, or so rumors said. Andrus didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry.

"I didn't want you to find out like this. I was going to tell you—"

"You need to leave," Andrus said, biting his tongue against immediately retracting the words as Oresti's face shattered.

"Please, Andrus, just give me a chance—"

"Leave," Andrus said, voice wobbling. "You shouldn't be anywhere near me, and I definitely shouldn't be consorting with royalty. I'm the pauper great grandson of the man who supposedly murdered your ancestors. Well, not yours, but—never mind. Leave, please."

His heart broke even more at the distraught look on Oresti's face, and all he wanted to do was take everything back, beg Oresti to stay, ask all the questions spinning through his mind.

Go back to when he'd thought Oresti was just a charming, kind-hearted investigator who actually took his job seriously and had been unfortunately named after royalty.

God, the more he thought about it, the more painfully obvious his own stupidity became.

Not waiting for Oresti to leave, Andrus fled back to the basement, down into the secret room where nobody would be able to find him. Sliding to the floor right at the base of the ladder, he curled up into a ball and finally let the tears out.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The word repeated in his head over and over.

Because that was what he was. Whatever his plans to run away, leave everything and everyone behind, he could no longer deny that some small part of him had hoped Oresti would track him down, would care enough to look for him, find him, want to be with him wherever he was.

A fool's wish, a child's dream, but it had been lurking in his heart all this time anyway.

Gods, he'd been pining after a prince this whole time. Had been flat out rude to him. Had invited him to sit in the kitchen eating food that must be laughably simple and boring to a man who ate only the best every day.

That wasn't fair, though. Oresti was kind to everyone, and had never once seemed to think anything was beneath him.

It had been one of the first things to capture Andrus's attention.

One of the reasons that even now he wished this night had ended any other way.

He could safely daydream about an investigator falling in love with him, sweeping him into a better life where he wasn't scared and stressed and exhausted all the time.

Daydream about keeping the house and running errands and being what Oresti came home to each night.

But a prince? With his family's sordid history? Laughable at best. The king himself had probably sent that invitation, was probably waiting to put him in his place, sever any relationship between them once and for all.

Or maybe…maybe Oresti had been ordered to get close to him, find this trove of magic treasure that his predecessors had failed to locate. Was that what had been truly going on this whole time? Had the royal family caught wind of what Farthing was up to and decided to make their own play?

Why couldn't he have one thing? One person to call friend, one day without a problem, one dream come true?

Wiping his face, he grasped the ladder and pushed to his feet.

He shuffled off to the spell casting room and looked blearily at his half-finished work.

Tonight's revelation didn't really change anything.

All it really did was drive home that leaving, and sooner than initially planned, was the right decision.

It was long past time he gave up on ever belonging here.

A little village in the middle of nowhere was vastly more suited to him.

Maybe he'd meet a nice baker, or a farmer, or a shopkeep.

He'd been overreaching even in his daydreaming that he'd ever be good enough for an investigator.

Being good enough for a prince? He'd have more luck courting a demon.

On that depressing note, he wiped away a last few stray tears, picked up his chalk and notes, and got back to work.

Several hours later, he slumped back against the wall opposite the archway, so tired and sore that all he really felt was numb. He couldn't even muster pride in all the work he'd done. He just wanted this over with. Summon the brownie, pack, leave.

Never see Oresti—Prince Oresti—ever again.

He closed his eyes, willing away the hurt and anguish, then opened them and pushed himself to his feet, setting his shoulders as he held his hands out, fingers up, palms to the circle, and recited the words to activate the spell.

The marks lit slowly, in scattered patches of many colors, flashing in and out for several minutes before the colors began to hold, slowly but steadily lighting the circle up in a rainbow, filling the room with brilliant light.

Smoke filled the circle, swirling like it was caught inside a glass bottle. Bit by bit, it trickled away, leaving…

A cat. A large, sleek black cat with glowing green eyes.

That…that was not right. That was very, very wrong. Precious few demons could shift into animals, and all of them were class one or worse. "What are you doing here? You are not what I summoned!"

The cat made a noise suspiciously like a laugh—then blurred, like water spilled across glass, changing in size and shape before fading into clarity again.

As an impossibly beautiful man with eerily pale white skin, night black hair, and eyes that now glowed red. He was dressed all in black, including a long, draping coat that had been in fashion decades ago and even now remained popular amongst much of the working class.

"Who are you?" Andrus whispered. "I just wanted to summon a brownie."

The demon quirked a delicate brow and turned in a slow circle, eyes on the spell work.

"Well congratulations on being either the best or worst summoner in existence, because you missed 'brownie' by fathoms and went straight to me, and unless mortal rules have changed since the last time someone was this stupid, summoning me is dangerously illegal.

" He turned back to Andrus and swept a beautifully elegant bow.

"Shimari of the Harvest, at your service, Master. "

Andrus was going to throw up. Shimari of the Harvest was a zero class demon, so impossibly powerful and dangerous that even thinking about summoning them was illegal.

He'd been trying to summon a brownie, for the love of the gods, not a demon of death.

How had he gotten it so terribly, horribly wrong?

Forget running away, he'd be lucky if he made it out of this room. "How…" He stopped, froze, as Shimari stepped out of the circle like it wasn't even there. That shouldn't be possible.

"Tsk, tsk, little human," Shimari said, the words making him shiver helplessly, swallow the lump in his throat as his heart threatened to explode in his chest. Cool fingers traced the line of his left cheek, those red eyes searing him down to the bone. "Who are you, my brazen, foolish mage?"

"Bothwell," Andrus whispered, because what did it fucking matter if the demon knew his full, true name? He was dead anyway. Gods, he hoped somebody would be able to capture and banish Shimari before he destroyed the whole city. "Andrus Bothwell."

To his astonishment, Shimari dropped his hand and stepped back. "Bothwell? As in Sendrus Bothwell?"

"Yes, my great grandfather," Andrus said. "What's it to you?"

Shimari looked him up and down, an expression on his face that Andrus would have taken for worry on anyone else, but why on earth would a demon worry about a human? "I think the questions and answers will have to wait until you are not seconds from collapsing, little human."

"I'm fine." Pushing away from the wall he'd scrambled back against without even really noticing, Andrus forced himself to take a step forward—

And everything went dark.