Page 39 of By Mistake

"Finish that sentence and see where you wind up sleeping tonight," Andrus cut in. Around them, everybody gawked in disbelief before a few laughed hesitantly.

Oresti only grinned in that bright, sunshine way of his that made Andrus melt. "You know I like it when you threaten me, sweetheart. My sister requires our presence briefly, and then you can go back to dancing. Have you saved a dance for me?"

"Always," Andrus said softly, taking the hand offered and happily letting Oresti pull him through the crowd, ignoring the ever-present weight of eyes watching them. "Who was the mean woman I stopped dancing with? Did you even see that?"

"Everyone saw that, whether they were here or not," Oresti said dryly. "That was Lady Mai-Falla, only daughter and second child of the Duchess of Porren. She is unofficially betrothed to Lord Hashken, fucking an ambassador's wife, and Hashken is fucking her bastard half-sister."

Andrus wrinkled his nose. "Does somebody have a chart for all of this?"

"Alina might, but she wouldn't admit to it. She likes everyone to think she effortlessly memorizes it all. She, Shimari, and Latasha are becoming fast gossip buddies."

"Oh, good, that's a wonderful idea."

"What's a wonderful idea?" Alina asked as they drew up to the dais where she and Oranti sat.

"You and Latasha becoming gossip pals with Shimari."

Alina grinned, the same sharp, mischievous smile as her brother. "He's so good at getting the little details. Alas, we must focus on work right now, and the evening's objective has just arrived."

Andrus glanced subtly in the direction she indicated, where indeed, Farthing had arrived.

As always, he cut a handsome figure, dressed in a green so dark it was nearly black, making his white skin almost glow, a choker of jet and emeralds around his throat, his hair pulled back into an elegant knot at the back of his head and wrapped in more emeralds.

He could have been a beautiful stranger, someone Andrus would be tempted to dance with just for the pleasure of it, if he wasn't rotten all the way to his fucking core. "Bastard," he muttered quietly.

"Imprisoned bastard soon," Alina replied.

A figure appeared at Andrus's side, dressed in black pants and the white shirt trimmed in red and gold worn by the servants.

Kressen, though his hair was currently a dark russet brown rather than silvery white, and his eyes a rather unremarkable brown.

"He looks exactly like the great grandfather who summoned me and made me kill people, made me go after the nitwit currently stealing shrimp from the buffet table. "

"Nitwit?" Andrus echoed, and glanced to the buffet table in question, where sure enough, a deft little black paw peeked out to abscond with another shrimp-laden cracker.

Recalling all that they'd been doing in bed earlier, cheeks heating, he said "Yes, he rather is, isn't he?

I didn't think any of you bothered with food. "

"Humans don't strictly require most of the foods they eat. Like wine and cake and shrimp crackers," Kressen replied dryly. "Renik once drank all the beer in a tavern, left not a single drop. Paid so much for it that the owner started crying. It was pathetic. Renik, not the tavern owner."

Andrus laughed. "So what do you like, other than wine?"

Kressen gave him a look that said he would not be answering that question.

"Cretins always get beauty they don't deserve," Markus, Alina's husband, said with a sigh as he watched Farthing move around the room like a hungry barracuda.

"He and I were friends for a few years in school.

Back then, he seemed like a genuinely good person.

Then he turned completely fucking rotten.

To this day, I still don't know if the kind version was ever real.

Suppose it doesn't really matter at this point. "

Movement caught Andrus's eye, and then Shimari was standing amongst them. "I don't like that choker he's wearing."

"Nor I, but he's got it so well shielded, I cannot get a read on it," Kressen replied. "There's something else on him, shielded and strange. Either he knows he is going to be arrested, or he's rampantly paranoid. Or both, I suppose."

"Be careful," Shimari said. "With every second, I like this less and less. I do not think you should arrest him here."

Alina's mouth flattened. "Spectacles must be made to prevent greater problems in the future."

"Problems like that don't stop ," Shimari replied contemptuously. "They simply get sneakier. But have it your way. I hope you are prepared to live with the blood that will stain your hands." He slipped away again, gone as suddenly as he'd appeared.

Kressen bowed and faded off, weaving through the crowd, effortlessly balancing a wine-laden tray for people to take from.

Andrus sighed, because if Shimari was this upset, they should be listening to him. They should be heeding his advice, anyway, but especially if he was so upset. But Alina had made the decision, and Oranti was not contesting it, and so they would do things her way.

Turning to Captain Nesira of the Royal Guard standing nearby, ready and waiting, Alina gave a bare nod. Nesira strode off, and moments later returned leading ten guards, forming two lines behind her. As they slowly drew attention, the ball came to a standstill, even the music cutting off abruptly.

Farthing, speaking with his wife and another person Andrus did not recognize, turned around slowly. In a voice more frigid than winter, he asked, "What is the meaning of this?"

"Lord Grell Farthing, you are under arrest," Nesira said, and read off the list of charges, everything from harassment and assault to bribery, abuse of prisoners, and more.

When she reached out to take hold of him, he snarled and jerked away.

"You have no proof of any of that, and I will not be made a spectacle of just because some tart has the king's golden child by his dick. "

"Take it up with the judge," Nesira said coldly, and made to grab him again as her guards fanned out into a circle, forcing everyone else even further back than they'd already retreated.

Farthing's wife stared, face ashen, eyes wide, and even from a distance, Andrus could see she was trembling. That…seemed a peculiar reaction. What had her so terrified?

Before he could voice the question, Farthing bellowed and shoved Nesira so hard she went flying back at least a dozen paces, taking two of her guards with her, their attempts to catch and stop her completely in vain.

Oresti swore and surged forward. "Stop it, Farthing!"

"Get out!" Shimari bellowed. "Everybody get out!"

Instead of Farthing, it was his wife who was suddenly in front of Oresti, eyes glowing yellow, tears streaming down her face. She moved strangely, as though her body wasn't her own, but controlled by puppet strings.

Oresti dodged and weaved her shockingly fast movements before finally slamming a hand over her face and doing something that made her drop unconscious to the ground.

While that happened, Farthing had three other puppets dealing with the guards. He stood in the midst of still more, as though he'd had these people under his control the whole time, simply waiting to use them. Or had he been using them all along?

Doors slammed shut as people still attempted to flee.

"Stop this at once!" Alina bellowed.

Drawing Farthing's attention.

"Run!" Oresti bellowed over his shoulder, then shoved his way past more puppets bound for Farthing—and getting slammed with some sort of dark, burning orange light that sent him tumbling like a rag doll across the room.

"Oresti!"

Farthing snarled, knocking everyone out of his way.

The orange light seemed to surround him like armor, but also like another puppet or something, taking the crude shape of a body that surrounded his.

He made straight for Alina, throwing out orange light that caught her as she was nearly to the door, right behind her father.

She wailed in agony as it caught her, dropping to the ground in a pool of rapidly growing blood.

"Alina!" Oresti screamed.

Kressen appeared at her side, and then vanished with her, casting them a brief look of don't move before he was gone.

"What is going on? What is that around Farthing?" Andrus asked shakily as he helped Oresti to his feet.

Oresti let out a shaky breath and touched the necklace around his throat. "If Shimari hadn't insisted I wear this…"

A bellow of rage like nothing Andrus had ever heard filled the room, shaking the chandeliers so violently that they came crashing down. Crystal shattered, scattered everywhere, turning the ballroom floor into a sea of sharp edges and deadly points.

Across the room, by a servant door, Coret stood crouched by a knocked over table. Greivs was by the grand staircase where he must have been helping people.

On the dais, cutting off further assault from Farthing, was Shimari. His eyes blazed red, brighter than Andrus had ever seen them, and his clothes seemed more somehow, the ends flapping in some unseen wind.

"You took him," Shimari said, voice resonating deeply, loudly, cracking the windows all around them. "You ripped him from his corporeal anchor, and you stole him. Give him back!"

"Make me," Farthing snarled, and lashed out, that strange body made of orange light moving seamlessly with him.

"What the fuck is going on?" Andrus asked.

Kressen appeared beside them. "Renik of the Hunt.

Farthing ripped his soul from his body somehow and stowed it in that ring he's wearing.

That's why we couldn't feel him, why we had no fucking clue—" He snarled.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is he has full control of all of Renik's power at this point, and that necklace we couldn't figure out keeps Renik from possessing him. "

"A puppet."