Page 17 of By Mistake

Oresti had tussled with dangerous criminals.

He'd once stalked an especially dangerous murderer through the late-night streets.

He'd been stabbed, thrown off buildings, assaulted, strangled, and early in his career someone had thrown a pot of embers in his face.

Thankfully he'd blocked most of the damage, but his right cheek would always bear the scars.

His father had been so angry over it that Oresti had feared he was going to tear the city apart to find the bastard—who they'd found a week later, and that was the last Oresti ever saw of him.

Not a single bit of that was as terrifying as standing in a parlor waiting to see if Andrus would have anything to do with him.

He'd waited three long, agonizing days, distracting himself every way he knew how, then put on the best clothes he could without drawing too much attention to himself and come here as quickly as his legs would carry him, apology gift in hand.

He hadn't taken a coach or horse only for the same need not to draw too much attention.

Despite the rumors that had reached him, delivered personally by his sister, he still could not believe the changes he was staring at.

The house looked entirely new, like a completely different house.

The parlor he stood in currently would be envied by the finest houses in the city.

How? He'd never really been allowed beyond the kitchen and staff quarters, but he knew the house hadn't looked like this.

It was all over town how much 'Lord Bothwell' was spending, all the staff he'd hired, the mysterious, very handsome man doing everything on his behalf, a supposed personal assistant or some rot.

The door opened, and Oresti turned around with far more calm than he felt—and struggled not to show his heartbreak when the same servant from before stepped into the room. So Andrus wasn't going to see him. Damn it, there had to be something he could do.

"Lord Bothwell will see you in his private salon," the man said. "If you'll follow me, Investigator."

Oresti almost couldn't move, the shock and relief were so strong.

He managed to acknowledge the words, though, and grabbed up his package before he followed the man through the house, up stairs busy with staff and contractors going up and down, and finally to a room where he could just hear two voices—one familiar, one not.

His skin prickled with magical awareness. Had Andrus cast a spell or something? Was that what all this wealth was about? That made no sense, though, nothing short of summoning a demon could manage something as dramatic as going from poor to obscenely wealthy in the span of days.

The door opened, and he stepped inside—and was immediately assaulted with the unmistakable tang of demon .

His gaze swept the room and landed on a smirking, smarmy little bastard.

Oresti cast his package aside and stormed across the room toward him, magic sparking at his fingertips.

"You! I don't know what you've done, but so fucking help I will send you back—"

"Oresti, stop!" Andrus said, moving to stand between him and the demon he was about to rend limb from limb before throwing it back into the eternal realms, arms out defensively. "Stop, it's all right!"

"That's a demon! Nothing is all right when there's a fucking demon in the room," Oresti snarled.

"Who the fuck are you? You're masking your full power; I can tell that much.

I'll knock that smirk off your face if you don't remove it yourself.

What have you done to Andrus? Who summoned you? What have you been ordered to do?"

Hands fell heavy on his chest, shocking him so hard he froze. His gaze fell helplessly drawing to the beautiful, compelling man it had hurt to be without for three days. "Oresti, stop, please. Everything is fine. He won't hurt me; he swore on his own name."

"He— What?" Oresti blinked, stared, then dragged his gaze back up to the demon before saying slowly, "What in the fuck is going on here?" He stepped back, looking between them again, stomach knotting for no reason he could say.

Before he could speak, a knock came at the door, and Oresti watched in silence as tea was brought in and arranged at the round table set in front of a half-circle bank of windows, an older tea tray taken away.

When the three of them were alone again, he snapped his attention back to the demon. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I summoned him by mistake," Andrus blurted out.

Oresti stared at him, unable to comprehend the words just spoken. "Say again?"

Face flushed, Andrus stared at Oresti's chest as he repeated, "I summoned him accidentally. I was trying to summon a brownie. It, uh, didn't work right. Obviously."

"You can do magic?" Oresti shook himself. "How do you accidentally summon a demon? What demon did you summon?"

Andrus winced, but before he could reply, the demon himself cleared his throat. Oresti turned to face him, watched as he elegantly bowed, green eyes shifting to red as he rose. "Shimari of the Harvest, at your service, Your Highness."

Everything went dead quiet around him, and then a buzzing filled his ears, the words churning in his head. "You can't. You can't be serious. That's a joke, right?"

"No," Andrus said miserably.

Oresti walked numbly over to the table, poured a cup of still-steaming tea, and threw it back.

Then he sat down heavily and poured another cup.

"Explain this to me, Andrus, because I should be arresting you right now for committing an execution-level crime.

Do you have any fucking idea who you've summoned? "

Anger filled Andrus's face, and he bristled like a pissed off cat. "Yes, I know who I've summoned! I'm not a fucking idiot ."

"You did it by accident!" Oresti howled.

"That doesn't make me so fucking stupid I don't know my demons!"

"I didn't say—"

"Enough," Shimari said, voice reverberating in a way that made Oresti's bones vibrate. He moved to stand between them, arms outstretched toward them both. "What is all this shouting and bickering like children? You both have more sense than that."

Oresti's hands balled into fists. "Somebody tell me what in the hells is going on around here. I was gone three days—"

"And you should still be gone," Andrus said. "I told you to go. Your Highness."

All of Oresti's anger left him. "Andrus…"

"What do you want?"

"To see you. To not be sent away again. I liked what we were building."

"What we were building was based on a lie that you were an inspector and not a royal prince ," Andrus replied. "I'm nothing, a nobody, a poor—" He stopped, eyes going wide before he looked sharply away.

Heart racing, Oresti fetched the gift he'd tossed aside when he'd seen Shimari. He still couldn't comprehend the demon of all demons was in Andrus's parlor. Summoned by mistake.

Shoving all that aside for the moment, he handed over his gift. "A small token of apology. I truly never meant for everything to happen the way it did. I'm sorry I wasn't honest from the beginning."

Andrus's hands trembled ever so faintly as he took the gift, untying the ribbon and opening the box.

Oresti had wanted to give something more extravagant, but was absolutely certain that wouldn't be received well.

So he'd settled for practical: a beautiful pair of lambskin gloves, dyed black with a spray of wildflowers stitched on the back and mother of pearl buttons.

They wouldn't fit perfectly, as he hadn't had Andrus's measurements, but hopefully he'd gotten close.

"They're beautiful," Andrus said quietly.

"Thank you." He stood there staring at them, running his thumb over the soft leather.

Given the changes in the house, the beautiful clothes he was wearing, a pair of gloves seemed suddenly unimpressive, but Andrus still stared at them like they were precious jewels.

Oresti really did want to keep him forever.

"Master, take a seat," Shimari said, and then gently led Andrus to sit on the opposite side of the table, before taking his own seat right between them.

Oresti sighed, brought back to the matter at hand. "Tell me everything, Andrus." He watched as Andrus poured tea and added ridiculously tiny amounts of cream and sugar, heart hurting at the reflexive conservation of expensive foodstuffs. Andrus probably didn't even notice he was doing it.

Huffing softly, Shimari took everything away from him, fixed the tea properly, and handed it back.

"It was fine," Andrus muttered.

"You're not poor anymore," Shimari retorted. "Stop acting like it."

"Demon," Oresti said warningly.

"I meant to summon a brownie, like I said before," Andrus cut in, staring at his tea as he spoke.

"I— I was going to leave, move to a village or something.

I hadn't really figured that part out yet.

Staying here was no good for me, and once Farthing learned of you…

" He laughed sourly. "I was worried how badly he could hurt, even kill, a nosey investigator.

Stupid me. You were never in danger from Farthing. "

Oresti could say nothing to that, because it was largely true.

Farthing himself was no threat. "Depends on how much he's willing to pay to hurt me or my family, and I can tell you right now he is not my sister's greatest admirer.

We have him in sight for a few things; it's merely a matter of pinning them to him, and he's good at making certain his scheming never sticks. "

"Oily is definitely the best way to describe him," Andrus replied.

"I can't believe you were going to just vanish into the night. That was never going to work."

Andrus glared. "How do you know that? You would have had no idea where I was or how to begin to find me."

"I'm an investigator, mysteries are what I do, and I would have torn apart this entire continent if that's what it took to find you."

"You— What— Why ?" Andrus demanded.