Page 35

Yves and Charon’s carriage trundled to the door of the House of Onyx a few hours after dawn, while most of the Pleasure District was asleep.

It wasn’t a particularly elegant carriage.

Charon had spent the better half of one afternoon chipping off its gold paint after they’d been stopped by an exhausted, woefully incompetent highwayman a few miles outside of Duciel.

Two years of picking up dust from the streets of Gerakia, Kallistos, and Thalassa had worn down the rest of its shine, and it practically groaned under the weight of all the books, clothes, and boxes of luggage they’d acquired.

Yves and Charon, however, had lost none of their luster.

Yves stepped down from the carriage in a Thalassan-style sash and short pants that left very little to the imagination, wearing his favorite Kallistoi sandals with straps that wound up his legs like a knotted rope.

Charon had let his hair grow out, which suited Yves, and he wore a fine red Kallistoi shirt and a half skirt, half trouser affair that he’d picked up in Gerakia.

Yves didn’t mind it, because it showed off his muscular thighs when the skirt flew back in the breeze.

He’d been spending most of their travel days on the driving bench with Charon just to admire the view, and now his entire body was spotted in freckles.

Still, Charon seemed to like them, so Yves hadn’t bothered to cover them up.

At least they didn’t have to slink in like fugitives in the night.

According to Laurent’s letters, it was no secret to the king that Charon had killed one of his nobles, but Sabre had convinced him that punishing Charon would likely incite another riot.

The whole affair had been discreetly brushed aside while Yves and Charon were exploring the libraries of Gerakia.

Charon hadn’t been too pleased to hear that the law had been bent in his favor, but Yves certainly wasn’t about to complain.

From the outside, the House of Onyx looked as though it had been unstuck in time. The walls were the same ominous black, the garden had the same flowers pushing through the gate and crawling up the walls of the laundry shed, and the violet curtains billowed in a light breeze.

It reminded Yves of the first time he’d brought Charon to the farm on their way out of Duciel.

They’d made it before Harriet, but it seemed as though she’d told Yves’ parents enough about Charon beforehand, as they were unsurprised to find him with Yves on their new carriage.

They’d welcomed them into their home, and Yves had sat in alarmed silence as his mother had patted his arm in approval.

“Perhaps it isn’t what I expected,” she’d said, in her usual brusque way. “But you love him, and he certainly loves you. That’s enough.”

It had been a shock to sit there at the kitchen table, surrounded by the ordinary blue wallpaper and the sounds of the farm outside, with his mother behaving like she didn’t want to bite his head off for fleeing the altar and showing up with another man.

Yves felt the same discordant wariness now as he approached the House of Onyx and knocked on the door.

A young woman with a mass of white-blond hair and a cheerful smile led them into the lounge, which also looked like it hadn’t changed since Yves and Charon left.

“Are you friends of Lord de Rue?” the woman asked, eyeing Charon with obvious interest.

“Something like that,” Yves said, and wound his arm through Charon’s.

“And here I thought we’d gotten rid of you,” a voice called out from the stairs. Laurent de Rue came down in his usual ostentatious velvet, and Charon broke free of Yves to embrace him. Laurent may have been a tall man, but he was willowy, and Charon practically engulfed him.

He gave Yves a wary look when Yves opened his arms for a hug, and Yves laughed and extended a hand instead. “You’re not still sore over the wedding, are you?”

“Only that it took you to the eleventh hour to come to your senses,” Laurent said. He turned Yves’ hand in his, and the gold ring on Yves’ finger glinted in the light. “Did you forget to invite me to something?”

“We had it done in Kallistos,” Yves said, a little too innocently. “A matching set.”

They hadn’t bothered with a proper ceremony.

They’d already been practically married for long enough, and even Yves’ penchant for pageantry wasn’t necessary.

They’d commandeered a jeweler’s forge in Kallistos, where Charon had melted down the gold coins he’d brought from Arktos.

They made simple rings, nothing glittery or ostentatious, but Yves often found himself staring at them at night, trailing his fingers over the bands.

In Arktos, the coins were supposed to be a symbol of loyalty.

Yves knew what it meant for Charon to have transformed them into wedding bands, and he prized his simple gold ring.

Laurent drew them onto the couches reserved for guests and rang for tea. Another stranger came in with drinks and food from the kitchen, and Yves stared after him as he left. “More new people?”

“We have almost ten now,” Laurent said. “Nanette and Simone retired to the harbor last year, though I can’t imagine why.”

“We met them on the way,” Charon said. “Red Harbor seems to be doing well enough.” The harbor had recovered since the riots, but the navy had moved, which meant that the harbor had resorted to making deals with merchant ships to resume trade.

Someday, it might become a city to rival Duciel, and Nanette and Simone had been some of the first to see the potential.

With even Percy gone to live out his husband’s retirement, Yves wasn’t sure what to think of the House of Onyx. It looked the same, but without the courtesans he’d grown used to, it felt like biting into the skin of a peach to find an apple inside.

“Lord de Rue!” Footsteps thumped on the stairs, and a courtesan appeared in a breathless rush.

They were dressed like one of the messengers that ran through the streets of Duciel, down to the simple linen trousers, sturdy shoes, and a cap over their short, curly black hair.

They also had a familiar cat perched on their shoulders, who was fitted with a harness and leash.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, Olly,” Laurent said. “Don’t run with that cat on your shoulders.”

“He never falls,” Olly said. Yves stared at them in shock.

Without their haughty air and expensive clothes, they looked almost scruffy.

“The boys and I are going to the flower market. Do you…want…” Their voice trailed off as they caught sight of Charon and Yves.

Yves waved, and Olly gripped the edges of their hat. “I thought you were gone!”

“We’re back just for you,” Yves said. Charon nudged him with a foot in a silent warning to behave.

Olly stared at them in open-mouthed shock and outrage, then shoved their cap further over their hair and fled for the door.

“That’s new,” Yves said.

“Olly’s had a bit of a transformation lately,” Laurent said. “So have you, it seems.” He smiled at Charon and gestured to the table. “I bought your favorite tea when I received your letter. I hope travel hasn’t changed your palate too much.”

“Only broadened,” Charon said. Yves got up to serve the tea without thinking—they’d developed a system over their time on the road to make travel easier, and he’d gotten used to anticipating what Charon needed.

He’d just finished pouring when he looked up to find Laurent staring in much the same way as Olly.

“Yves obeyed an order without questioning it,” Laurent said. “An unspoken order.”

Yves lowered his voice. “No one will believe you.”

Laurent actually laughed. “No, I doubt they would. Don’t tell me you’ve managed to tame him, Charon?”

“I wouldn’t call him tame,” Charon said, stroking Yves’ hair as Yves knelt at his side. “But he knows how to be good when he needs to be.”

“Then I salute you,” Laurent said, and raised his cup in a toast, “for doing what no other dom in Staria could.”

“Excuse you,” Yves said. “I’m a picture of demure submission.”

Charon leaned in to toast Laurent with a meaningful look, and Yves rolled his eyes. Perhaps he’d never be demure, but Charon was right. He could be good when it counted, and that was what mattered.

They left Laurent with an amethyst brooch they’d received from a former pirate lord in exchange for a favor, and a leather flogger with thin metal chains woven through it for Sabre.

When they emerged from the House of Onyx at last, the sky was cloudless, and the golden tiles of the palace roof gleamed like a second sun.

“So,” Yves said, as Charon helped him onto the driver’s bench of the carriage, “what’s on the map this time? Because I have an idea.”

Charon raised his brows. Yves’ deviations from their travel plans always had a tendency of leading them in circles, but he had a good feeling about it this time.

“Why don’t we get some new clothes?” Yves asked. “Warm ones. Something with fur.”

“It’s almost summer,” Charon said, “and we’re heading for Katoikos next.”

“Yes, but…” Yves pressed close to Charon, and Charon wrapped an arm around him as he urged the horses forward. “What if we went the long way, visited the farm to drop off our things, and stopped at Lukos first?”

Charon glanced at Yves in surprise. “There won’t be any inns in Lukos.”

“I know that.”

“And you’ll have to leave your jewelry. They say it’s too cold to wear metal at night, even in summer.”

“But then we’ll be able to go to the exiles’ cave,” Yves said. “And you can see the mountains.”

Charon slowed the carriage to a stop and turned to look at Yves. “You can simply tell me that you love me, Yves. You don’t need to prove it.”

“I’ll tell you regardless,” Yves said, and wrapped his arms around Charon’s neck to kiss him. For all that had changed over the years, it still felt like every kiss was the first, bright enough to chase away the shadows. “Let’s see what Lukos has for us.”

Charon kissed him back, and when he drew away at last, his eyes shone with warmth. “All right,” he said, and tucked an errant curl behind Yves’ ear. “Let’s find out together.”