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“You have to admit that it would make the rest of them seethe with jealousy, though.” Laurent’s smile broadened. “Blue-blooded nobles taking orders from a former whore? They’ll be beside themselves. Are you sure you don’t want to stay and see it?”

“I’m leaving for Gerakia on the last day of…” He almost said spring. “After Yves’ wedding.”

“If it happens.” Laurent picked one of the bells out of the basket. “Half his tasks seem designed to be impossible.” He gave Charon a considering look. “I thought you were leaving before that, though.”

“It would be impolite to miss it,” Charon said.

“Yves talked you into it, did he?”

Charon wished Laurent could, just this once, be a little less keen.

He’d been one of the top-earning courtesans in recent history, and that didn’t come without a sharp eye and a fondness for gossip.

While Oleander asked all the wrong questions and came to outlandish conclusions, Laurent only needed one to glean the truth.

“I’m glad you’re staying, in any case.” Laurent fished through the papers on his desk and handed one to Charon.

“You may be retiring a little less ambitiously than Yves, but you’re still in demand.

Lord Marteau invited you to his city home.

Not as a courtesan, mind. Some nobles in Duciel seem to be under the impression that your familiarity with Sabre and myself may mean that a title is in the cards for you. ”

Charon sighed. Sabre would probably find a way to offer him a noble title if Laurent wanted him to, and Laurent’s hints about Charon taking over the House of Onyx one day meant that was a distinct possibility.

“I could ask Sabre,” Laurent said.

“I would refuse if it was offered.”

“It could be nice to have a secure place to return to when you’re done traveling.” Laurent idly flipped through his other correspondence. “Yves might appreciate it. He’ll cause too much trouble without you to temper him.”

Charon didn’t dignify the obvious baiting with a response.

“You know he adores you.”

“He flirts with me,” Charon said, “typically for his clients’ benefit. That isn’t the same.”

“The same way you feel?”

Charon met Laurent’s steely gaze. “I don’t see how my feelings have any bearing on Yves’ flirtations.”

“Charon. There’s flirting, and then there’s what happens to Yves every time you’re in the room.”

Charon stood. “I should see to the door in the training room. It’s been sticking lately.”

“For gods’ sake, Charon,” Laurent said, “be sensible. Would it truly be so terrible if you admitted that you wanted something?”

Charon turned to look at Laurent. He didn’t know what Laurent saw in his eyes, but it seemed to have a sobering effect.

“I’ll have the door fixed before we open for the night,” Charon said. He turned to leave before Laurent could speak, closing the door firmly behind him.

Yves was sunning himself in the garden with Nanette when Oleander appeared at the gate.

They weren’t wearing their typical scowl, which was mildly alarming.

They were also holding a cat, which made Yves sit up and shove Nanette awake.

The cat was a cross-eyed, sickly creature with a thick black coat and the saddest expression Yves had ever seen, and it clung to Oleander like a lamprey.

“Um,” a voice said behind Oleander, and Yves craned around to find Raul standing there, holding a tiny bell in one hand. He wouldn’t look Yves in the eye, and he opened his mouth and shut it again in mortified silence.

“He found the bell at the cat parlor,” Oleander said, standing there like a grumpy translator with a bedraggled cat in their arms.

“You can’t be serious,” Yves said, sitting up. He hadn’t expected any of his suitors to think of the cat sanctuary. His favorite kept belled collars on their cats, which had given Yves the idea, but he’d assumed that most of his suitors wouldn’t care about a cat sanctuary in the lower city.

“I h-heard you liked…cats,” Raul said, but Oleander lurched forward, their eyes panicky and wide.

“The sanctuary said they were going to kill him because he’s sick,” they blurted. “They were going to kill him! Just because he has a problem with his eyes and his paws are burned because the ground was too hot or something, which—which isn’t his fault. They’re monsters. ”

“You didn’t steal him, did you?” Yves asked, looking at Nanette. This was a side of Oleander he’d never seen before.

“I paid for it,” Raul said, in the softest voice Yves had ever heard. “They were rather upset.”

“Rather upset?” Oleander asked. They looked like they were about to burst into tears. “Any sensible person would be more than rather upset !”

“Easy, Olly,” Yves said. Olly’s distress seemed to have an adverse affect on Raul, who was flinching back with every word. As he expected, their frustration at being called Olly was enough to snap them out of it.

Oleander glared at him.“Stop that. And if you tell Laurent that I have a cat, I’ll throw all your clothes in the mud for the rest of your life.” The cat wrapped his paws around Oleander’s neck.

“How did you both end up in a cat parlor in the first place?” Nanette asked. Yves took the bell from Raul and slipped it in his pocket.

“I wasn’t following him, if that’s what you mean,” Oleander said. “It’s not important. This man says you know cats. Is he—is he going to die, or…”

Yves struggled not to smile. Underneath their haughty airs, Oleander really was a scrap of a thing. “We’ll help, Olly. Don’t panic.”

“Do I look like an Olly?” Oleander said, peevishness winning out once again.

“Right now?” Nanette looked them over. “You’re kind of an Olly.”

“I can’t believe I’m asking you all for help.” Oleander muttered, and readjusted the cat in their arms.

Yves, Raul, Nanette, and Oleander shuffled into the House of Onyx through the garden door, keeping the big cat hidden between them.

They’d almost made it to Yves’ room when Charon came up the stairs the other way, looking like a storm cloud.

He stopped, stared at the motley group frozen in the hallway, and raised his brows when he spotted the cat.

“Olly found him,” Nanette said. Charon’s brows rose higher. “He’s sick.”

“I still have the box from when Rose found the orange kittens,” Charon said. “We can keep him in the spare room upstairs.”

“You’ve done this before?” Oleander clutched the cat. The cat clutched them back.

“More times than you’d expect,” Yves said. “Charon, I’ll get another box and some sand. And chicken, do you think?”

“Make sure it’s soft,” Charon said. Yves nodded and peeled off to find the box, and Raul pattered down the steps after him.

“You really do like cats, then,” Raul said. He kept his gaze on his feet. “Some people are wary of them.”

“They only claw you when they’re scared.” Yves grabbed a box full of apples, tipped the apples onto the kitchen counter, and went out to get the sand they used to clean Nanette and Simone’s chainmail. “Help me fill this?”

Raul obeyed quickly. “Olly kept asking me questions about you. They might be a little insecure. I’ve seen it before.”

“Really?” Yves sifted the sand in the box. “Where?”

“The…” Raul cleared his throat. “The House?—”

Oleander slammed open the door. The cat was still clinging to their neck. “He won’t let go! He cries every time we try. Is he hurt? What if he can’t move his paws?”

Yves got up and carried the box to Oleander. “Have you ever had a cat before?”

Oleander shook their head. “Mother said they carried disease.”

Yves held his hand up for the cat to sniff. He looked a little wet and wheezy, but it probably wasn’t fatal. He was also purring erratically with every breath, and he squinted his crossed eyes up at Oleander, drooling lovingly.

“He likes you,” Yves said. “Congratulations, Olly. You made a friend.”

Yves met Charon in the hallway again. For now, Yves was too distracted by Oleander to remember the mess of emotions he’d felt in Charon’s room the other night, and he slipped all too easily into their old rhythm.

They set up the room while Oleander and Raul looked on, barely needing to speak.

Charon guessed what Yves needed before he could say it, and Yves was already there when Charon needed his help moving the bed and stripping the bedding.

They arranged a spot for the cat to sleep, and when the cat growled as Charon tried to take him from Oleander, Yves cut up chicken on a plate to tempt him out.

“I can try,” Raul said, and reached out for the cat.

He looked like he’d never even touched a cat before, but the cat looked at him, closed his eyes in a slow blink, and let Raul ease him out of Oleander’s arms. Raul’s hands brushed Oleander’s when he set the cat down, but he seemed too concerned with the animal to notice.

“They’re a little hapless, aren’t they?” Yves said, watching Oleander and Raul lean over the cat. He was blessed with a small, private smile from Charon. “Olly, huh? What do you bet they’ll stop thinking I’m their rival after this?”

Charon rubbed his chin. There was a bit of stubble growing in, and Yves had the sudden urge to run his hand up his jaw to feel it. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead. “You might need another cat.”

“Or three. Do you think Lord Laurent knows?” Yves backed out of the room, and Charon walked at his side, a warm presence filling the hallway.

“He might be convinced that it’ll rehabilitate our resident ambassador from Katoikos,” Charon said.

“Except Olly thinks you’re from there, too.

” Charon made a face at that. “What does Arktos really think of Katoikos?” When Charon shot him a sharp look, Yves put on his most appeasing, please-don’t-spank-me-daddy expression.

“Let’s pretend I’ve been in and out of your room long enough to pick up an open secret or two. ”

For a second, he thought he might have crossed a line, but then Charon spoke. “I don’t know what they think of Katoikos. I was young when I left.”

Yves had a hard time imagining Charon as anyone but the man he knew now.

He knew Charon had worked as a guard in the quarries before he’d grown frustrated with the practice of sending courtesans there.

He’d come to Duciel to speak to one of the House lords in person, but Yves had always thought he’d been past his thirties by then.

He looked up at Charon, noting the lack of prominent wrinkles he’d always attributed to phenomenal luck.

Yves suspected that whatever Charon left behind in Arktos wasn’t good, but the thought that he hadn’t yet been a man when he fled through the mountains made his chest ache uncomfortably.

“Well…” Yves blew out a long breath. “I’m glad you made it here.”

Something brushed his curls, and Yves turned in time to see Charon looking down at him. Had he touched him, or had Yves only imagined it? His voice was so low that Yves almost couldn’t make out the words. “So am I.”

Then why is an attachment impossible? Yves thought. If Staria is worth it, why aren’t I?

Footsteps thumped on the stairs, and Laurent appeared in the stairwell with an aggrieved look on his beautiful face.

“You’re all paying to keep it here,” he said.

“Good,” Yves said. “Olly’s probably already named it.”

“Olly?” Laurent narrowed his eyes. “You mean Oleander? ”

“Go see for yourself,” Yves said. Laurent opened the door to the spare room, and stared for a solid half a minute.

“Fine,” he said at last, and stalked off toward his bedroom. “Why not?”

“I should check on him,” Charon said.

“Let him go to Sabre first,” Yves said. “Sabre will know what to do.” He strode toward the open door, grinning at what he found there.

Raul and Oleander were both kneeling next to the cat, who was on his side with his bandaged paws tucked up and his stub nose running.

Oleander looked at Yves, and their awestruck expression shifted to sudden wariness.

“This doesn’t mean I have to like you,” they said, “even if it was…nice.” It sounded like it pained them to say it.

“But he’s so kind,” Raul said, and Oleander looked so flustered that Yves almost laughed. “I don’t know why you have to be so suspicious, Olly.”

Yves was impressed. Raul had managed to say an entire sentence without blushing. Oleander opened and shut their mouth a few times, then whipped back around to look at Yves. “Are you done staring?”

“Not really,” Yves said.

“Yes, we are.” Charon took Yves’ arm and pulled him away. Yves sighed heavily.

“Most doms would let me get a few more words in,” Yves said, as Charon towed him down the hall.

“Yes, but I’m not one of your noble admirers.”

A month ago, Yves would have lowered his lashes and asked, Do you want to be? Instead, he rolled his eyes. Charon wasn’t immune to a dominant’s dislike for backtalk, and he glanced at Yves sharply.

“Oh, my admirers punish me all the time,” Yves said. “I can’t get away with anything around them.”

Charon stopped in front of Yves’ door, as though alarmed by the enormity of the lie. “I don’t think the threat of punishment can stop you.”

“Well, no. I’m experienced in carrying on regardless. It comes from being the family black sheep. If I can survive the punishment of mucking out the stables for months, no amount of spankings can do anything. I’m immune.”

“No one is immune,” Charon said, and Yves felt a ripple of something dark and delicious roll through him.

“Really?” He stepped closer. “And how would you break me?”

Charon went still. It wasn’t the stillness of a man considering his words, or even the easy silence he fell into when Yves joined him on his morning errands. It was cold and tense, like the pressure in the air turning before a storm, and Yves took a wary step back.

“I wouldn’t,” Charon said. Before Yves could open his mouth to speak, Charon turned on his heel and walked away.

Yves stared after him, wondering what he’d done wrong.

Charon had always smiled along with Yves’ flirtations before, acting like a large dog playing with the small kitten jumping at their heels.

Now, he went hot and cold, following the moves of a complicated dance that Yves didn’t know.

Yves followed him for a few paces, but when he reached the door to the spare room, he stopped.

Oleander was holding the cat and talking to Raul with a smile Yves hadn’t seen before, and even though Raul turned to give Yves a look full of yearning, Yves couldn’t help but feel distant and strange.

He watched the cat purr and tickle Oleander with his whiskers, and reached up to tug on his curls, chasing a touch he’d barely felt.