Page 28

Nine

Yves felt unsteady on his feet as he entered the House of Onyx with Oleander, Charon, and the boy they’d found at Lord Marteau’s house.

Lord Marteau had showered Yves with attention over the years.

He had given Yves rings and tapestries from his family holdings, clothes, purses of gold, and scent for Yves to wear during his assignations.

He’d been arrogant, yes, and a little cold to others, but he hadn’t seemed like the sort of man who would torture and murder children for the sake of earning gold.

Yves sat down on the couch outside of Laurent’s office.

People were speaking around him, but he couldn’t piece together what they were saying.

All he could think of was how Lord Marteau had always spoken of piracy as a fun, harmless jaunt for nobles who lived by the shoreline, as though all he’d done was buy a ship and take a pleasure cruise to Diabolos before returning home.

After what Yves had heard through the door of Lord Marteau’s room, he was sure that old Theodore would have been more than happy to raid as many coastal towns as he wanted, if it were halfway lucrative.

I’ll let you use him however you like. Charon had become Nikos in that moment, the boy who’d been fashioned into a tool against his nature, pain bleeding out of him like an open wound as he crouched over Marteau.

Yves had been terrified—not for Marteau, who was more of a monster than Charon claimed to be—but for Charon, who had seemed to be teetering on the edge of a precipice.

“There’s no need to leave Staria,” Laurent was saying, as Yves tried to draw his mind out of that horrible room, with Charon looking dispassionately down at the man sobbing on the bed. “We can make arrangements with the king.”

“I’m not sure,” Sabre said. “Lord Marteau was from an old family. If people hear how he was killed, it could cause unrest.”

I have others. Younger ones, if you desire them . Marteau’s voice rang in Yves’ ears.

“It would be better for me to leave regardless,” Charon said. “A trial would draw too much attention.”

“There are still people in his brothels,” Yves said. His voice sounded too harsh in his own ears, sharp and caustic, like his mother’s. “Why do we care what happened to the noble who hurt them when they’re still in there? ”

Silence fell in the office behind him, and Sabre stepped out, his expression wan. “Yves. I’ve ordered soldiers to search Marteau’s holdings.”

“And what they find won’t be reason enough for unrest?” Yves snapped. “But no, no, we have to exile Charon. That’s the answer.”

“It won’t be for long,” Sabre started to say.

“Except it will.” Yves got to his feet. “When he leaves, that’s it. He isn’t coming back. He’ll go off to Lukos, or Katoikos, and he’ll fall in love with it, and I’ll—the rest of us will still be here.”

“Why does it matter?” Yves had almost forgotten that Oleander was still in the room. They were sitting in the corner, holding their cat and staring at Yves with an unflinching gaze. “You’re getting married and running off to Kallistos, aren’t you?”

Yves fell silent. He hadn’t thought of Raul once all evening. Not when he’d sought Charon out, not when he was terrified that someone would attack them in Lord Marteau’s house, not when he had knelt next to Charon and brought him back from the edge of the encroaching darkness in his eyes.

“Well?” Oleander asked. “ Aren’t you?”

Charon stood. “Yves is right. When I leave Staria, I won’t return.

” He passed Yves without looking at him.

Yves watched him go, breathing hard. He hadn’t followed Charon through everything just to let him walk away like some noble exile into the wilderness.

He raced up the stairs after him and burst through the open door.

“So this is it,” he said. Charon had his back to Yves as he folded clothes into a bag. “You’re leaving. You’re going to run away and pretend like this didn’t happen.”

“It happened.” Charon’s voice was too level, but it didn’t have the terrifying bluntness that Yves had heard while he’d tortured Lord Marteau. “I won’t deny that.”

“But you’ll deny this,” Yves said. “You didn’t take his eyes out until you heard what he was willing to do to me, Charon. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? And now you’re leaving because you think you’re some monster.”

“I cut out a man’s eyes tonight,” Charon said.

“Maybe he deserved it.”

“No.” Charon turned, and the pain in his eyes made Yves take a step back. “Don’t become someone who would say that, Yves. Stay here. Marry Raul. He would never hurt you.”

“ You wouldn’t hurt me,” Yves said. “You’re not as terrible as you think you are.”

“I am.” Charon met Yves’ gaze and held it, his expression hard. “I knew what I was doing.”

Yves felt like he was slipping off the edge of a cliff in the rain, unable to grasp a ledge as a yawning emptiness opened before him. “What if I don’t care?”

Charon turned away. “You should. If you marry Raul, perhaps you’ll become someone who always cares, no matter what darkness you see in others. He’ll treat you with nothing but kindness.”

“But he won’t love me like you do,” Yves said. Charon froze. “You do, don’t you? What you said to Laurent about us being impossible, you were talking about Nikos, about what you’d done in Arktos. You weren’t talking about me.”

He knew it was true as soon as he said it.

Charon loved him. He’d loved him for years.

Every late night they’d spent together, every time they’d taken up the kitchen while the other courtesans rolled their eyes, every sidelong glance and unspoken word, it was all there between them, as obvious as the fact that Charon was running from it.

“You heard what I said to Laurent,” Charon said.

“And it’s bullshit.” Yves took a step forward. “An attachment is impossible? Well, consider me attached, Charon. Nikos. I’m attached to both of you. Do you think I’d have gone into that room for someone I didn’t love?”

Charon held his bag over one shoulder, staring down at Yves as though his heart might shatter. Yves moved closer.

“Tell me that you don’t love me, Charon.” He grabbed the strap of Charon’s bag. “Tell me you haven’t loved me all this time.”

Charon took a slow, deliberate step toward Yves. Yves could feel the heat of his body, and as Charon stooped closer, he remembered that same warmth the night of the ball, comforting and familiar. It was his dominance, always present but never oppressive, like a fire burning in a hearth.

“Tell me that wasn’t you who kissed me at the ball last night,” Yves said.

Charon raised a hand, then hesitated. The blood on his fingers had gone dark like flakes of rust, and it lay thick under his thumbnail. Charon dropped his hand.

“Goodbye, Yves.”

The air left Yves’ lungs as though he’d been struck in the chest. He turned stiffly as Charon left the half-empty room, and tried to force himself to follow.

He wasn’t a man who simply let things happen.

He’d left his village for Duciel despite the protests of his entire family, he’d built a reputation for being the best brat in the Pleasure District, and he even convinced Laurent to plan his wedding.

He didn’t give up. He didn’t break. He bent—prettily, with his hair tossed artfully and a glitter of mischief in his demure expression.

He wasn’t the kind of man to sob like a child in the room of the man he loved.

He wasn’t someone who would sit down in the middle of the floor and let Charon walk away.

It was Olly who found him there. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in the growing dark, nursing the pain that felt like something had cracked in his chest, but when he looked up into Olly’s face, he realized that the only light came from the hall outside.

“I don’t want to see you right now, Olly,” Yves said. His voice sounded thick and miserable.

Olly crossed the threshold into Charon’s room. They were still holding their cat, and they reached out wordlessly to take one of Yves’ hands. Yves stared at them curiously, but Olly just placed Yves’ hand on the cat’s soft fur.

“It helps, sometimes,” they said.

Yves let out a soft, hiccoughing sob and stroked the cat. He rumbled in pleasure, and that was enough to bring the tears rushing back, ugly and weak, his whole body shaking with the force of them.

“If he doesn’t love you enough to stick around, we can set fire to his things in the garden,” Olly said.

Yves was almost startled out of his misery by that. He looked up into Olly’s big, dark eyes. “I can’t do that.”

“All right,” Olly said, and returned to petting their cat. “But the offer stands.”

Yves stood in the middle of King Adrien’s private ballroom and tried to feel something.

“It was very kind of him to offer,” Raul said.

He’d been treating Yves like a delicate soap bubble ever since Charon had left Duciel.

Yves knew he was being unfair. Charon had been right: Raul was kind.

He was thoughtful. Yves quite liked him, even when he was so meek and nervous that he tried to shrink into the wallpaper.

They could have been good friends, if Yves weren’t so deep into melancholy that he couldn’t even be excited about using the king’s own ballroom for the wedding.

King Adrien was supposed to be in attendance, a rare appearance for a wedding that featured a courtesan and a Kallistoi.