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“Go home, Peter.” Yves got up and opened the door. The shuffling of footsteps alerted him to the end of the hall, where almost all the courtesans of the House of Onyx had gathered to watch, including an irritated Oleander.

“Darr.” Peter folded the card in both hands. “I didn’t mean…”

“Yes, you did.” Yves dug in a box next to the door and held out a few coins. “This should get you home.”

Peter slunk past Yves without taking the money. He kept his head down as Yves escorted him to the garden door, and Yves only just stopped himself from slamming it behind his back.

When he turned around, he found that his watchful crowd had followed him.

Nanette looked like she would burst if she didn’t say something.

Simone was whispering in Oleander’s ear.

Percy was grinning smugly—he was the first person Yves had told, because Yves knew Percy would love lording the knowledge over everyone.

Even Johan the apprentice had snuck in behind Nanette, looking like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to be there.

Only one courtesan from the house was absent.

Yves thought of the closed shutters next to his room and the movement he'd heard through the thin wall, and his brother’s words rattled in his chest.

Then he pushed it aside, extended his arms to the rest of the house, and beamed.

“Guess who’s getting married?”

Three duels had been held for Yves’ hand by the time Charon left the House of Onyx for his morning walk.

The duelists in question were sitting on the ground next to a queue of hopeful older men at the door of the House of Onyx.

The suitors’ valets gave each other aggrieved looks as they retrieved swords and bound minor injuries, and the other men huddled together to prevent the disgraced duelists from stealing their place in line.

“Here, now,” one said. Lord Eastwell was a regular client of Yves, a dominant with minor holdings in the country. He grabbed Charon’s arm. “You’re a whore, aren’t you? The one who pretends he’s an Arkoudai. Can you tell us what Yves’ plans are?”

Charon met Lord Eastwell’s gaze. He didn’t flex his dominance like the nobles at court, who seemed to think that having a submissive king was a novelty at best, and that dominant nobles would prevail.

He knew his stature tended to intimidate people, and with his tattooed arms and the dark eyes of an Arkoudai, he didn’t need to exert his dominance.

All he did was wait. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Lord Eastwell released his arm.

“Good morning, Charon!” Lord Fentworth reached out to take Charon’s hands.

He was a client of Yves’, but he always stopped to say hello when he passed Charon’s room.

He gave the impression of an excitable dog with his wide eyes and shaggy gold hair.

“Just like Yves to make it all a game, isn’t it?

I can’t convince you to put in a good word for me, can I? ”

“He’s not going to make us answer riddles, is he?” asked James Bailey. He wasn’t noble, but he owned most of the printing presses in Duciel. “I’m terrible at riddles.”

“What do you need a pet courtesan for?” Lord Fentworth asked. “Your wife might object.”

“She won’t object to extra decoration around the house,” James said with a grin. “Even if he is a brat.”

The men in line around them chuckled and smiled at each other.

Charon kept his expression carefully blank.

Most nobles enjoyed hiring a popular courtesan as a pretty distraction for a few years.

The fact that Yves had called for a husband in his invitations meant little—the men waiting eagerly in line would always consider it a temporary contract.

They’d parade Yves around for a year or two, then discard him as soon as they tired of the novelty.

Charon politely disengaged from the queue, but if he was hoping to escape talk of Yves’ marriage hunt, he was mistaken.

The bakery across the street was full of people gossiping about the invitations, which had been sent to almost every house in Duciel.

The woman who owned his favorite bookstore had an invitation on her desk when he entered.

Even the flower sellers in the lower city were whispering about the glamorous courtesan who was searching for a husband.

Charon stopped in one of the public gardens and held back a sigh when he found nobles murmuring to each other on the benches. Perhaps it would be better if he expedited his departure from Staria, after all.

Change didn’t always happen slowly for Charon.

The first time had been brutal, like a rockslide tumbling over the mountains to choke the sky in dust. Despite the violence of that first upheaval in his life, it was almost easier to bear than the slow, gradual changes that followed.

He could put distance between the man he was in Staria and the man he’d been before.

First he was Nikos, a boy hiding patiently in a gully as Arkoudai patrols walked past. Then he was Charon, emerging from the mountain range into the foothills of Staria, where smoke rose from fires ringing the marble quarries beyond.

Slow change was far more dangerous. It slipped in when Charon wasn’t looking.

It happened in a thousand small ways—an extra stop in his morning routine to buy a box of chocolates he didn’t care for, books on subjects he didn’t read appearing on his bookshelf, and an extra cup of tea on the bedside table at the end of the evening.

He started leaving his door cracked open when his last client left the House of Onyx.

He had a warm robe too small to fit him hanging in his closet.

Every night, he looked up at the exact same time to watch Yves sweep in, wrap himself in the robe, collapse on the chaise near the lamp, and pull out a book.

Then, with the deceptive ease of night descending over the hill, Charon realized that he had fallen in love with Yves Cooper.

It had truly struck him a few weeks before.

Yves’ brother Tony had come to the House of Onyx, and Yves had barged into Charon’s room with tension straining every line of his body.

Charon had listened to Yves rant about his parents while he’d made tea for them both.

Yves’ favorite cookies were out of the tin before he’d asked for them.

When Yves had finally quieted, sprawling on Charon’s chaise like he belonged there, Charon had unthinkingly threaded his fingers through Yves’ hair and felt the truth pierce him like a blade through the ribs.

Love had driven him from Arktos. Love, and the irrefutable knowledge that Charon had no right to it.

It brought Nikos rushing back into Charon’s mind—Nikos with blood under his fingernails and the last, shaky gasps of the man he’d loved scraping through him with every step through the desert.

Nikos, the youngest torturer of the old Strategos, a prodigy in his ancient art.

Nikos had only known how to hurt, and he’d clawed the last traces of love out of the hollow of his heart until only Charon remained.

Yves needed someone who could care for him without remembering all the ways he could hurt him.

The old habits lingered under the surface, analyzing every breath and movement, determining what he could use to bring the subject sobbing the truth onto the first attentive shoulder.

Now that Charon knew what it meant when he laid out Yves’ slippers and woke early to join him for breakfast in the garden, Nikos was starting to return.

It would be all too easy to hurt Yves—a word, a touch, the right cutting statement at the right time—and Yves deserved better than what little Charon could provide.

So Charon had left Yves with his book and his tea, made his way downstairs, and told Lord Laurent that he intended to retire.

Laurent had been the proprietor of the House of Onyx for over a decade and had seen many courtesans come and go, but he’d accepted Charon’s resignation with far too much concern in his eyes.

Charon had always wanted to travel, and he’d been in Staria too long.

His old Arkoudai accent had faded since he’d first come to Duciel, lost after years of mirroring clients to set them at ease.

He could map Duciel with his eyes closed.

He could draw Yves from memory. Yes, it would be best to leave.

Yves would find someone kind, someone without shadows in his soul, who’d never watched men writhe under the knife and weep at the first comforting hand.

He deserved better than the men lined up outside the House of Onyx, but Charon couldn’t do anything about that. Yves was clever. He probably set up the contest as a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, and he knew better than to fall for a few charming words from a wealthy man.

Still, if this was a sign of what was to come, perhaps it would be best for Charon to leave for Gerakia earlier than expected. Yves had been so absorbed in his plans that he hadn’t even stopped by Charon’s room for tea in almost two weeks. Surely he would forgive a swift farewell.

Charon abandoned the gardens and returned to the House of Onyx, where Laurent was handing folded papers to the last stragglers in line.

“But what does it mean?” a man asked. “It just says to deliver his favorite poem. Do we have to write one?”

Laurent’s smile gave nothing away. “Perhaps.”