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“Oh, that’s almost quaint.” Harriet wrapped an arm around Charon’s. “Yves said you were nice. That’s good. He needed a few friends in the city.” She walked alongside Charon as they rounded the corner, stopping at the side entrance to the maze. “Is there a trick to it?”

“Not that I know of,” Charon said.

“Right.” Harriet rubbed her hands together and bent to tie her skirts in a knot. “You try it the normal way, and I’ll do it my way. Shout if you see him.”

Harriet proceeded to climb onto the top of the hedge with a chorus of snapping twigs and rustling leaves. Charon heard a thump and a giggle as she collapsed on the other side, then another rustle of bushes as she climbed another hedge.

Charon took the left path, which led down a hodgepodge of brick and hedge. He listened for Harriet, who was gleefully breaking all the rules of hedge mazes everywhere by barreling through it.

“Hisst!”

Charon stopped short as a piece of the hedge lifted up like a window, scattering leaves onto the path. A pale hand popped out and gestured frantically.

“Hisst!”

“Yves?” Charon ducked down to stare into the hedge. Yves looked up at him from a small tunnel built into the hedge. He was dressed in white, which was streaked with green from the hedges, and he looked like he’d just run off with the royal treasury.

“Get in here,” Yves whispered. “Quick, before someone sees you.” He shimmied backward through the tunnel.

“It’s a little small for me,” Charon said.

“That’s your fault for being built like a hot, sleeveless wall, Charon.

” Yves disappeared into the tunnel, and Charon tried to gently climb inside.

The tunnel was supported by wood, with green paint that stretched past the hedge leaves to blend in better.

It squeezed him uncomfortably as he moved, and when the flap closed behind him, he was left in pitch darkness.

He shuffled forward until he reached the other side, which opened up into a shady pavilion shielded on all sides by high hedges.

Yves sprawled on a pillow in the middle of it all, with a basket of fruit and glazed scones next to him.

“I found this place a few years ago,” he whispered, gesturing for Charon to join him.

Charon sat on the other side of the basket, and Yves fished out a scone.

“I think the queen used to come here with her lovers, but I’m the only one who knows about it anymore.

I saved you the honey and cinnamon one.”

Charon couldn’t imagine the old queen shimmying through a small tunnel for some peace and quiet, but Yves’ talent for gossip was reliable. “Shouldn’t you be outside?”

“Yes, but this’ll thin out the ones who don’t want to put in the work, and it’ll give Sabre’s people time to seek out the nobles we invited.” Yves popped a grape in his mouth. “He dressed up his spies like courtesans, but they’re all too serious to pass as them.”

“You may want to come out regardless. Your cousin is in the hedge maze, and if the noble who killed that boy is here, that could mean trouble.”

Yves nearly choked on the grape. Charon thumped Yves’ back, and Yves grabbed Charon’s arm with both hands to brace himself.

“Harriet’s here? In the maze?”

Charon couldn’t see Yves’ face well enough in the dark to read his expression. “Yes.”

“She’s going to scare them more than the swans,” Yves said. “I need to find her.”

“You aren’t worried that she could be in danger?”

“Oh, not Harriet. She’s been a farmer her whole life. She could probably throw you if she wanted to.”

“She seems to like you,” Charon said.

“She has to be, if she’s made it all the way to Duciel. She’s like Pearl; they hate cities. They make them feel boxed in.” Yves flashed a smile. “I feel that way about the country, so we understand each other.”

“She was climbing over hedges when I lost sight of her,” Charon said, and Yves covered his mouth with both hands to hide a laugh.

“I should stop her before she breaks an ankle,” Yves said. He covered the basket and dusted off his outfit. “Help sneak me out?”

Charon waved a hand to the tunnel, and Yves wriggled in. After a few seconds of that, Charon gently nudged Yves’ leg with a boot. “You’re showing off.”

“What? No! I’m so modest it’s painful.” Yves finally climbed all the way in, and Charon waited a few seconds to follow.

“I think I hear her,” Yves said, standing on his tiptoes as Charon squeezed free on the other side. “Hoist me up, will you?”

Charon held out a hand, and Yves scrambled up him like a tree. Charon wrapped an arm around Yves’ waist, and Yves braced himself on Charon’s shoulder to peer out over the hedges.

“There he is!” someone shouted.

“Shit!” Yves tried to duck down again. “Set me down! Set me down! She’s this way!”

Yves took off down the path, turned back to Charon, and started hopping anxiously in place.

Charon knew he should have been practical.

Yves should have been paying attention to his suitors, not dragging Charon around to find his cousin.

But as he watched Yves, Harriet’s words stayed with him.

Yves had never had any time to himself before he left home.

How much had his parents really raised him, and how likely was it that Yves had raised himself while looking after his siblings?

Neither of them had truly had a childhood.

Was it so wrong, then, to indulge in something impractical?

Charon strode after Yves, and Yves took off again. They narrowly missed Lord Marteau, who slammed into a truly horrifying statue of a jester blocking the path between them, and Yves had to hide behind Charon to avoid the swan pond. They almost ran straight into Harriet, who saw Yves and screamed.

Yves screamed back.

“You little ass!” Harriet shouted, and drew Yves into a crushing embrace. Yves hugged her back just as tightly.

“When did you start wearing a veil?” he asked. “I thought you hated that.”

“Ma insisted. She thinks people won’t notice that I’m too much like you if I wear my hair up.”

“Fat chance. How many doms have you been seeing on the side, you incorrigible whore?”

“Like knows like, Yves.”

Yves beamed at her. “Oh, I missed you. You’ve met Charon?”

“Did you hear screaming?” someone called. Yves went pink, and Harriet barked out a laugh.

“Your mother brought the troops with her,” she said. “But I bet I can get out tonight, if you want to treat me to dinner.”

“Treat you? ”

“You’re the rich boy,” Harriet said. “Is that one of your men?”

Charon turned to find Lord Marteau a few feet away, red-faced and panting.

“Nice seeing you again, Harriet,” Yves said, and he bolted like a rabbit into the maze. Charon took a step to follow him, but Harriet moved in front of Lord Marteau instead, cocking her hip.

“Well,” she said, “don’t you look like a dom in need of a challenge? Your collar’s loose.”

“What…” Lord Marteau stared at her. “What are you? You aren’t a courtesan.”

“No, honey,” Harriet said, “courtesans are expensive. Have you ever gotten on your knees for another dom before?”

“Harriet!” Yves appeared from around the corner again. “Stop stealing my suitors!”

“I’m only borrowing!” Harriet called back, and Lord Marteau pushed past her to reach Yves. Yves made a squawking sound, laughed, then Lord Marteau emerged with a triumphant smile and a ribbon wrapped around his fingers.

“No,” he said sharply to Harriet, who just smiled at him. “No.”

“I could have fun with that one,” she said as he fled. She shook out her skirts. “But let’s leave Yves to his challenge. I’d like to borrow you . You can let me in on what Yves hasn’t been telling me in his letters.”

“Reveal nothing!” Yves shouted, and went running off past the fork in the path, followed by a beet-red Raul.

“Don’t listen to him,” Harriet said, and took Charon’s arm again with the same coy air Yves had at his brattiest. “I never do.”

“You were the one to set the rules to this engagement, you know.” Laurent de Rue stood in the doorway to the House of Onyx lounge, dressed in a splendid evening suit with an embroidered black robe. Yves rubbed a sore elbow and winced.

“I didn’t think so many of them would tackle me so enthusiastically.

” At least Raul had only begged for the faintest kiss on the cheek, but everyone else had seemed intent on kissing Yves’ neck, chest, or for a good half-dozen of them, his ass.

One suitor had tackled him from three paces away, the grass stains wouldn’t be washing out of his clothes any time soon.

“I only counted eleven. What happened to the rest?”

“Four were chased out by swans,” Laurent drawled, and Yves smiled. “The courtesans from the House of Silver found three. They won’t thank you for the favor, by the by.”

“They’ll thank me when I’m gone,” Yves said.

The king was personally funding repairs to the House of Silver, but the courtesans who’d worked there were living out of the Houses of Gold and Iron in the meantime.

The House lords there weren’t keen to share attention between their guests and their usual courtesans, so the man in charge of the House of Silver had been running back and forth in a frantic attempt to not lose all their clients in one go.

If Yves could give those courtesans a little extra money to laze around in a hedge maze and flirt with nobles, he didn’t mind.

What he did mind was that his cousin had taken Charon away hours ago, and still hadn’t delivered him.

He didn’t think Harriet would seduce Charon.

She did prefer doms, but Charon wasn’t egotistical enough for her taste.

He was more concerned with what she was probably telling Charon.

Yves hadn’t exactly been a model son by the time he left, and he didn’t want Charon thinking he was a brat.

Or… well… an unprofessional brat. There was a difference, however small, between a man who was a delightful brat for money and one who was an inconsiderate brat in real life.