Page 38 of By Mistake

Andrus had never been in a room with so many people at once. The closest he'd come was the extremely rare visit to a tavern, which was a third the size of the royal ballroom; and a bustling market day, which was outside and not at all the same sort of thing.

Nevermind there was so much about attending a royal ball he simply didn't know, so he would probably make at least a hundred humiliating mistakes tonight, and they would all reflect poorly on Oresti. Even he would only tolerate so much stupidity from one person, and—

"Breathe, pet, you are spiraling," Shimari said, appearing beside him from seemingly nowhere, and pushing a tall, narrow crystal glass into his hands. It was filled with a substance the palest possible pink in color and filled with delicate bubbles.

"What is this?"

"Sparkling blush wine. Drink it. Mercy, pet, you're not even in the ballroom yet."

Andrus drank the wine, which was delightful . Sharp and fruity, not at all sticky sweet like he'd feared. "This is wonderful."

"What's wonderful?" Oresti asked as he breezed through the doorway in that way of his. They were in a side room that looked out over the ballroom, waiting for Oresti to arrive from making final preparations with his sister.

"This fizzy stuff. Sparkling wine, you called it?"

Oresti's face lit up. "You like sparkling wine?"

"Do not do whatever it is you are thinking about," Andrus said. "I do not need fifty cases of the stuff lying around my house."

"Pet, that's precisely what wine cellars are for," Shimari replied dryly. "He's a prince; he can afford it. Stop arguing every last little thing and let him spoil you, if only because it makes him happy. Makes you both happy, you stubborn thing."

Andrus's grip on the fragile glass tightened. He forced himself to relax. "I'm not stubborn. I'm reasonable ."

"You are as stubborn as the sun is bright," Oresti said.

"A mule refusing to move is less stubborn than you.

It's one of your most endearing traits, though as with many of your qualities, I am sorry for the terrible conditions that built it.

" He took Andrus's hand, covered in a soft gray glove, and kissed the back of it.

"Now, then, sweetheart. Are you ready to arrive to the royal ball? "

Andrus sighed and drank more wine, because he was not ready, he would never be ready, for this sort of life.

He was the very last person in the kingdom that Oresti should be courting, and every one of them knew it, but if someone else tried to take Oresti from him, he would tell Shimari to claw their eyes out.

"I do like that little bit of demon in you, pet," Shimari said, eyes glowing as red as the jewels wrapped around Oresti's throat. He kissed Andrus sharply, teeth drawing blood from his lip, holding his chin firmly as he lapped it away and kissed him again, leaving his lips sore and throbbing.

Andrus drew a shuddery breath and finished the sparkling wine. "All right, let's be off. Hopefully I do something silly like spill wine all over myself, get the humiliation over with nice and early."

"Dramatic," Oresti chided, offering his arm. "Anyway, Alina and I have both already done that, so you'll have to pick something else. Though technically I spilled wine on a queen, and she spilled an entire tureen of soup all across the table."

"Liar."

Oresti scoffed. "I am not. About that, at least. I was walking toward her with two glasses of wine, pleased she'd asked me to get it for her.

Tripped on a dropped glove and upended both glasses of dark red wine all over her cream silk gown.

I was mortified and inconsolable. Would have fled to my room and stayed there indefinitely if my father hadn't held me in place most of the night.

"Alina was much more prone to waving her arms about when she talked when she was young.

Apparently she was so florid one night, and didn't see the servant arriving with a large tureen of soup, and smacked her arm against it as the servant was setting it down, and that was the end of the poor clam chowder.

Apparently the ambassador across from her didn't stop laughing for half an hour.

Alina has been much more careful with her arms ever since.

"My father assured me that everyone does that sort of thing at least once, and it's all part of the process. Many kind women throughout the night told me their own tales of mortification."

Greivs added, "Lord Nellor once shat himself at dinner, and I lost count years ago of how often one of them winds up roaming the halls mostly or completely naked for one reason or another."

"I want to go back to my house," Andrus said with a sigh. "It was quiet there, and only a single overbearing prince bothered me."

"All in good time, sweetheart. Now let's go dance and make people mad."

In the hallway, they joined Alina and her husband; Latasha and her wife; and Telish and his betrothed.

Andrus had been properly introduced to all of them earlier.

The only one missing was the middle sister, Karina, who was currently abroad assisting allies with her extensive knowledge and magical acumen.

"All ready?" Alina asked in her commanding way. "Very well."

They entered the ballroom in pairs, Latasha and her wife first as she was the youngest, then Andrus and Oresti.

As he had been warned, all eyes were on them, as not once in his entire life had Oresti ever escorted anyone but family to such events.

Now, of all people, he was escorting Andrus. Whom he was courting .

Andrus would probably pass out if he wasn't clinging so tightly to Oresti's arm.

They moved to stand aside as the rest of the royal family made their entrance.

His Majesty went last, having arrived late, and sat in his throne to watch over everything.

In the place meant for the queen was Alina, who raised her fan to signal everything to officially start, though really people had been milling about drinking and talking for some time already.

Andrus could feel so many eyes on him; it was like an oppressive weight. Thankfully, two familiar faces appeared in the crowd. Coret smiled and let go of Greivs's arm to offer a hand. "Would you like to dance, Andrus?"

"Uh, sure, but I'm not very good."

"Neither am I. Doesn't mean it isn't fun when your mother's not throwing people at you."

Andrus laughed, taking his hand and letting Coret lead him to the dance floor. As the music began and they fell into the steps, he asked, "So have you seen our mischievous pair?"

"Kressen is playing at servant for reasons that seem to amuse him, flitting about with trays of wine and such. Shimari I last saw fluffing his way under a table."

"A servant?"

"As I said, it seemed to amuse him greatly.

I don't know how anyone hasn't noticed he's not actually employed here, but then again, I wouldn't be able to pick out all the palace staff if you had a knife to my throat, so…

" He shrugged as much as the dancing would permit, then they were off in a series of turns and wide sweeps.

As the dance ended, Greivs appeared, and Andrus was swept off again. "So what's it like being a noble?" he asked. "Probably stranger for you to be here like this than me."

"I feel it's about the same for both of us, if in different ways," Greivs replied. "It will take getting used to, though not as much as it might have otherwise as I've always been friends with Oresti, despite everything and everyone that said we shouldn't be."

"He does seem to befriend the misfits." Probably because when your life was spent solving murders, catching thieves, and helping the poor and struggling, you could not find much common ground with people who'd never struggled a day in their lives.

They bowed to each other as the dance ended, and then suddenly Andrus was swept off by a beautiful, elegant woman with gold-toned skin and shiny gold hair done up in tens of braids that were all woven together into little rosettes atop her head, set with jeweled pins and decorative flowers.

Her eyes were a dark, stormy gray, and though she smiled, there was a meanness to the set of it that reminded him of all the people who had ever bullied him at market, or stood by and done nothing while he was bullied.

"Good evening?" he tried as they spun breathlessly but awkwardly about, as though she was barely remembering they were meant to be dancing. "You are?"

That seemed to irritate her. "You come here and can't even put names to faces? What a child."

"I was poor, starving, and spurned by all of you for a very long time, my lady.

When you are struggling to have even one meal a day, you don't have a lot of time for learning the names and faces of people who made it clear they despised you.

Have you ever washed dishes or hauled garbage just to be paid in a day-old loaf of bread or the stale dregs of a tea tin?

I didn't think so." He stopped right there in the middle of the dance floor and pulled away.

"Farewell, whoever you are." He turned around and strode off, looking for a familiar face—and landed instead on a table where servants appeared to be serving drinks.

"Could I have a glass of the sparkling blush wine? "

"Of course, my lord." A woman poured him a glass, and he took it happily, sipping as he sought out a familiar face.

Instead, he was inundated by people clamoring for attention, spilling out names and titles he could scarcely keep up with, and asking questions that skirted the line of propriety.

Thankfully, he hadn't been enduring it long when Oresti himself appeared, people parting to let him through even as they preened and breathlessly greeted him. "Here you are, beloved." He took the mostly empty glass Andrus held and replaced it with a full one.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" Andrus asked.

Oresti chuckled. "As though I need you—"