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Sybil raised her hands in the air, knocking Lester off balance and back into his seat. “No one else wanted you!”

At the table nearby, Harriet sucked in an audible breath.

“Yes, they do.” Sunny’s voice was small at Yves’ side. “They do, Ma. That’s why you came running. Everyone in Duciel wants to marry Yves.”

At that moment, Yves would have gladly given away every cent he’d earned to set Sunny up in a house next to the opera. He patted Sunny’s back where his mother couldn’t see, and Sunny ducked his head and looked away sheepishly.

“They want to own you,” Sybil said, looking into Yves’ eyes. “Is that what you want? To be owned by someone who thinks they can buy you?”

“That’s not what this is?” Yves gestured to the red-faced Lester.

“Ma, you and Pa run one of the biggest farms on this side of Staria. Anyone from town who asked for my hand would be asking for part of that. Here, I control what I give to people, and I control what they can take from me. And people do want me. Even submissives want me.”

Sybil raised her brows. “What does a submissive want with another submissive?”

“Maybe my company. Maybe my companionship. Maybe he likes me, Ma.” Yves slammed his hands on the table. Sybil rose to meet him, staring into his eyes.

“Does he love you?”

“Does he ?” Yves jerked a head to Lester. “I’m sorry we can’t all have the love you and Pa have. It must be real special. A true love, for him to ignore how you tread all over your children because you can’t handle us having minds of our own!”

“Oh, no,” Pearl moaned.

“I tried,” Sybil said. Her voice was shaking, and she clenched her hands on the table. “I did try, Darling. But at every turn, you tested me.”

“If I was a test, then you failed,” Yves said.

Part of him shrank at the hurt in his mother’s eyes, but he’d already gone too far to turn back.

There was only one thing he could do to end it now.

And it would work. It would be fine. He could manage it, even if it didn’t feel the same as love.

Even if the one thing he wanted was, as Charon had said, impossible.

“It’s too late. You can bring as many dominants as you want here to look at me as though being a courtesan is something shameful, but it won’t matter.

Raul Vitrier, the wealthiest man in Kallistos, proposed to me last night. ”

Sunny gasped outright. Harriet pressed a hand to her chest. Sybil looked almost tearful.

“Yves,” Harriet said. “I think?—”

“He’s a submissive, Mother.” Yves leaned across the table, refusing to break eye contact. “He’s kind, and he’s thoughtful, and he cares about me. And in a few weeks’ time, he’s going to be my husband! ”

Charon stood by the gates of the Crescent Garden.

A low wind swept over his boots, bringing the scent of rose blossoms and the citrus oils Yves liked to apply to his neck, and petals stirred on the pebbled walkway.

Voices rose at the tables in the garden, but they merged into a cacophonous din in Charon’s ears.

It’s too late. Yves had said it himself.

Charon had spent so long punishing himself for his past that Yves had, quite practically, moved on to secure his future.

Charon had even helped ensure that it would happen.

Raul would have never caught Yves’ eye if Charon hadn’t thought him a more deserving match.

All Charon would have now would be a masked dance and a kiss in the candlelight. Yves had made his choice.

Charon left the garden. He thought of Nikos turning his dominance on himself during the long walk to Staria and considered trying again. You don’t love him. You never loved him.

The words wouldn’t come. Perhaps Charon had ruined his chance at being with Yves, but he couldn’t deny how he felt.

He let it take hold inside him, a pain almost deeper than the one that had drawn Nikos to Staria.

Nikos hadn’t truly known what love felt like.

He’d only known the promise of love. What he felt for Yves was that promise made real, and he had himself to blame for not acting on it quickly enough.

He walked back to the House of Onyx alone. Laurent tried to stop him in the lounge, where he was no doubt trying to resolve some burgeoning issue between a worried-looking Nanette and Percival, but Charon brushed him off and ascended the stairs to his room.

If it hadn’t been for Yves living next door, Charon would have left years ago. A part of him had thought that Yves might want him after the night of the fire, but that had just been the result of stress and heightened emotion. Yves had to think about his future, and so did Charon.

He was halfway through gathering his things to be disposed of in the refuse pile at the edge of the Pleasure District when someone opened his door without knocking.

“Turn around and close the door,” Charon said. He didn’t bother tempering his dominance. He heard knees thump on the wood floor and a whimper of pain—the intruder was a submissive, then—but the door didn’t close, and so Charon turned. “I said?—”

Yves knelt in the doorway, blinking hard, one hand on the frame. “That was dirty, Charon.”

“Why are you here?” Charon asked. He could hear the harshness in his voice, but he couldn’t manage to soften it. It felt as though all the gentility he’d tried to acquire since coming to Staria had died in the Crescent Garden. “You should be planning your wedding.”

“Laurent told you already?” Yves stared at the partly empty room, and his face paled. “What are you doing? I thought you weren’t leaving until the summer.”

“Plans have changed.” Charon dropped a stack of books in one of the rubbish boxes, and Yves winced.

“But that’s A History of Doves, ” Yves said. “It’s one of your favorites.”

“I can’t take it with me to Gerakia. You may keep it if you like.

” Charon forced himself to take a deep breath.

He didn’t need to punish Yves for his own foolishness.

“I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ve been here too long already, and it isn’t your concern.

You should focus on your wedding. I’m sure it will be a good one.

Raul…” Charon could taste the bitterness of jealousy on the back of his tongue, and he swallowed it. “He is a kind man.”

“Do you disapprove?” Yves hadn’t risen from his knees. “Because half my family does. It would be nice to have someone on my side when it happens.”

“I know,” Charon said. “But I can’t.”

“Can you at least help us with Olly?” Yves asked. “I mean, Oleander. They haven’t come back since last night.”

“Many people overindulged at the ball, Yves. They may be recovering.”

“Yes, but they haven’t fed their cat.” Yves looked down.

“I think it might be my fault. They overheard Raul propose to me last night, and they said some things that worry me, now that they haven’t come back.

I think someone’s been making them an offer.

A noble, Charon. I didn’t think it meant anything until now. ”

Charon frowned. The boy who’d set the fire at the House of Silver had spoken of a noble making promises. “You don’t think Olly was lured by the man who tortured that child?”

“I don’t know,” Yves said. “I just know they wouldn’t go anywhere without their cat. They love that ugly, old thing.”

Charon’s skin went cold as he remembered seeing Olly’s face in a carriage outside the House of Onyx. “I saw them last night, outside. They were in a carriage, but I thought they were going to a client’s overnight.”

“In their first year as a courtesan? Laurent wouldn’t allow that.” Charon mentally kicked himself as Yves’ words struck home. He should have noticed. He’d been too giddy at the memory of dancing with Yves to consider that something had been wrong. “Was there a crest on the carriage?”

“I didn’t see it.” Charon set down the rest of his books. “But Johan was at the door. He might have.”

Yves tried to get to his feet, and Charon gently pulled him up by the arm.

Yves glanced up at him, and his eyes were so full of confusion and worry that Charon had to step away, unsure if he could trust himself not to tell him the true reason he was leaving so soon.

But that could wait. If Olly had been taken by the man setting up illegal brothels near the harbor, then they didn’t have long to find them.

Johan was downstairs, sitting by himself while Laurent and Sabre spoke in their office. He jumped when he saw Charon’s expression, but Yves swept in before he could bolt, easing him back down to his chair.

“Johan,” Yves said, with all the smooth charm of the best courtesan in Staria, “did you see a carriage stop by the House before Charon came home last night?”

Johan raised his brows. “I don’t know. Wait.

Yes. It was a big black one, with an owl on the side.

I remember because it almost ran me over the other day when I was going out for more soap.

Why? Does it have something to do with Olly?

” He looked like he was on the verge of tears.

Johan and Olly had never been particularly close, but Johan was an emotional young man.

“Maybe,” Yves said. He glanced at Charon.

“That was Lord Marteau’s coach. He always has owls on everything.

It’s part of his family heraldry. But that doesn’t make sense.

Lord Marteau is one of my suitors. He couldn’t be doing something like that if he’s planning to marry me. I’d be bound to notice.”

“He couldn’t be doing something like what?” Johan asked.

Charon looked at Yves. Yves was the highest-paid courtesan since Laurent, and he’d thrown the nobility into chaos just for the chance of having his hand in marriage—a step up from being a kept pet, because marriage meant a share of a lord’s title and holdings.

His retirement from the Pleasure District would create a vacuum, one that other courtesans would struggle to fill.