Page 24 of By Mistake

Grinning, Coret offered up his wine glass.

"Good luck, my friend. For what it's worth, my mother isn't a bad sort.

Strategic as any general at war, but she doesn't approve of backstabbing and the like, so you can trust her.

My brother is going to be married off if my mother has to drag him to the temple herself, and my sister's wedding is in six months, and she is constantly throwing potential suitors at me.

She's determined to find someone I like more than my books. "

"Worse things to love than books. Why demons?"

"My dissertation for my crown mastery was on summoning, specifically the fatality rate of high level summons and why it is.

I don't think it's as simple as 'overtaxing the body' as has always just been believed.

Nobody even studied it when it first happened, just made an assumption and everyone stuck to it. "

"Fascinating," Andrus said. Also fascinating that Coret already had a crown mastery. As far as Andrus knew, it normally took scholars until their thirties to achieve that. "So what's your theory?"

Coret's face lit up, and it really wasn't hard to tell that people didn't ask him about his interests very often, or at least not with any sincerity.

"I think it's external energy, after a fashion.

Sort of like when you've been in your cool house all day, and then when you step outside you're struck by a massive wall of summer heat. "

"Or you've been freezing all day in the winter weather and stand by a fire, and it's almost painful to thaw out. That is terribly clever."

"Thank you. Unfortunately, absolutely no studies have been done on this sort of thing, and I don't think it's one or the other, I think it's both—summoning is taxing on the body, and it's met with that blast of heat, so to speak, and the combination does the killing.

With no previous studies of any sort done, though, I'm stuck with what I can glean from accounts of other things, essays on magic in general, records of past summonings…

" He lifted the book, and once again seemed faintly amused by something as he met Andrus's gaze.

"This one is a history of the few times that any of the Five has been summoned.

Fascinating stuff. Kressen of the Blood has been summoned three times that we know of.

Hashti of the Shadow, Tashka of the Marrow, Renik of the Hunt…

. Four to six times each. Shimari of the Harvest, though…

only once that we know of. Strange how the others have been brought forth so many times, relatively speaking, but Shimari of the Harvest…

makes you wonder how terrifying he is, even compared to his brethren. "

He was an overbearing, smirking know-it-all who liked to sit around drinking expensive wine or lounge by the study fire as a cat, but Andrus could hardly say that.

"I think the key is 'that we know of,' and there's no telling how many times any of them have really been summoned.

I think if Shimari of the Harvest had been summoned only once, we wouldn't know as much about him as we do. "

"Very true. I—"

"Coret!"

"Whoops, I'm caught," Coret said with a laugh, setting down the wine and retrieving his book. "Coming, Mother!"

As they stood, she came around the corner, angry look on her face turning into surprise. "Oh, Lord Bothwell. I hadn't realized…"

"Coret has been telling me so much," Andrus said with a smile, moving closer to her. "We hadn't intended to slip away for so long. I still have much to learn, of course, and he's been extremely helpful."

"I'm glad," Lady Whyte replied, briefly eyeing Coret like she'd never seen him before. "Everyone has noticed your absence, my lord, if you're not adverse…"

"Lead the way," he said cheerfully.

He'd barely returned when he was dragged into dancing once more, and then sandwiched between persons whose names he'd already forgotten as the interminable poetry and singing began, followed by a last bout of dancing before everyone finally began to trickle away, dusk just beginning to tease along the edges of the sky.

Garden parties weren't meant to last so long, he didn't think, but he was hardly an expert.

Back in the entrance hall, he lingered with Coret.

"Would you like to come over on Sehlday?

My personal assistant and secretary have me scheduled up to my eyeballs, but I insisted on one day a week where I do not have to leave the house, or least leave it minimally.

Ori will likely be around; he'd love to hear all about your thesis. "

"Ori?" Lady Whyte asked from nearby, a funny tone in her voice.

"Oresti, my apologies. He started calling me Andi, so I took to calling him Ori in revenge, but of course the brat just enjoys it." Andrus shook his head, smiling faintly.

"His Royal Highness, you mean? Prince Oresti?"

"Yes?" Why did everyone keep asking that. What other Oresti could he possibly be talking about?

"His Highness is courting Andrus," Coret said.

Lady Whyte's mouth dropped open before she recovered herself and said, "I see. Congratulations, my lord. That is quite the coup."

"I don't consider him a prize," Andrus said.

"He was kind to me when no one else was, befriended me when I was a pauper and could offer him nothing in return.

If you'll excuse me, speaking of Oresti, he is expecting me home any moment now, so I'd best be on my way.

Thank you again for the wonderful party, my lady.

I could not have asked for a better start as I venture into society. "

"Of—of course, Lord Bothwell," she replied with a real smile, nothing at all like the polite one from his arrival. "Will I see you at the Starlet soiree?"

"Yes, I believe you will. I look forward to enjoying your company there, and Coret's if you can convince him to attend." He bowed over her hand, bid them goodnight, and finally departed.

Back at his house, finally, he let the footman help him once more, stripping down to just his shirt and breeches before wandering into the study.

Shimari and Oresti were there, along with Greivs, who sat at the desk, shifting through the newest pile of correspondence even though Shimari had hired a secretary. "How was the hunting?"

Oresti immediately rose from where he'd been reading near the fire and swept him up into a brief kiss.

"Not terribly exciting, I'm afraid. Did arrest that creepy bastard who killed the servant girl, and there's going to be a further investigation to how knowledgeable his employers were of his unsavory actions, if they were party to any of them… "

"Gossip is already abuzz," Greivs said, "though I'm certain it will be drowned out by what everyone has to say about Andrus."

"That might be drowned out by talk of my untimely demise, as apparently it's going to crush a lot of hearts that Oresti is courting me and not any of them," Andrus said dryly.

Oresti rolled his eyes and collapsed dramatically back on the sofa. "For the love of—"

"I'm not sure what you were expecting," Greivs cut in. "I don't think there's a single noble in Esaria that hasn't tried to catch your eye, and we won't discuss hopeful suitors from further afield. Even a queen, if you'll recall."

"She was old enough to be my mother," Oresti grumbled.

"I invited Lord Coret Whyte to visit on Sehlday. We met hiding in a hedge."

They laughed, and Shimari said, "Another name I know. Good family, not really plotters and connivers, but not fools either."

"That was more or less how he described his mother." Andrus stole the wine in front of Oresti as he related the rest of his conversation with Coret. "I did not know how to tell him there is nothing impressive about you at all."

Shimari grinned in that devious way of his. "Only because impressive draws attention."

"If you say so," Andrus replied, refusing to be flustered by that smile, the wicked glint in his eye. "Are you lot going hunting once it gets dark?"

"Much later, yes," Oresti said. "I was wondering if you'd like to go to dinner while we wait."

Andrus almost said 'we have food here' purely from reflex, before biting it off because he could afford to eat out now, and anyway, he already knew Oresti wouldn't let him pay for so much as a crust of day-old bread. "All right. Let me change."

"That easy?" Oresti grinned. "I had a whole battleplan laid out."

"Why am I letting you court me again?" Andrus asked, rolling his eyes as he left the study.

Upstairs, Toli and Erra were already waiting to help him change. Would his new life ever stop feeling surreal? Probably not, and it would only continue to change dramatically, since he was involved with a prince.

Once he was dressed, in black with white and silver accents, he picked out suitable jewelry from the case that had mysteriously appeared in his room one day and finally headed back downstairs.

Oresti waited for him in the hallway, also in formal dress, and Andrus would be lying if he said he didn't want to push the bastard up against the nearest wall and do filthy things to him. His cologne didn't help, something dark and spicy, like if sultry had a scent.

"Ready?" he asked softly as Andrus reached him.

"You could have anyone at all," Andrus replied. "Anyone in the world."

Smiling crookedly, Oresti replied, "Only one person in the world ever wanted a plain, boring investigator.

When you learned my real identity, instead of immediately plotting all you could have and get, you threw me out.

" He held out his hand, and when Andrus placed his own in it, lifted it to brush a soft, warm kiss across his knuckles.

"All those would-be suitors either want me to treat them like a doll their whole life, so they never have to lift a finger to do anything ever again, or want me to be the pretty little doll they can show off like the crown jewel of their collection. "