Page 5

Two

Poetry had been a mistake.

Yves loved poetry. He had a small library of dog-eared collections in Charon’s room, and he kept some of his favorites on slips of paper in his dresser drawer.

Some came from love letters, including a truly inspired verse from a client who had gone on on to study language in Gerakia.

Yves appreciated poetry the way Charon liked the wood carvings in the museum on Haddler Street, where ancient Starians had carved images of people emerging from bits of oak and cedar.

Unfortunately, the nobles of Staria didn’t share Yves’ love for verse, because half of them had thoroughly butchered it.

“Oh, listen to this one.” Percy sprawled on Yves’ bed, wrapped in a fur jacket that cost more than most nobles’ monthly income. “ Oh, Yves, the eaves of the trees bend at the knees for the bees in the leaves. What does that mean? The trees are kneeling for bees? Are the bees a metaphor?”

“He’s trying to rhyme.” Yves collapsed on the rug. “At least he tried. Lord Gretter scratched Lady Helmand’s name off her Spring Forgiveness ballad and removed three stanzas.”

“I can’t believe you like this stuff,” Percy said, picking up another poem. He winced. “You’re the least romantic man I’ve ever met, but then you sigh over things like The King’s Ruin .”

“That one has two murders in it, actually.”

“What, really?” Percy started digging through the letters again.

“And I’m not unromantic. I’m terribly romantic.” Yves lay a hand on his chest. “This heart beats for one thing and one thing alone.”

“Financial security,” Percy said, and grinned when Yves shot him a dirty look. “I’m sorry, should I open up your options to the lower city?”

“If they know how to write in a proper meter, then go ahead.” Yves fished out The King’s Ruin and handed it to Percy, then went back to opening envelopes. “No one’s picked the best yet, though.”

“I doubt they will. Even I can’t, and I know you better than anyone.” Percy paused, the paper flopping over his fingers. “Except Charon, I suppose. I wonder if he’ll make it to the wedding. He might be gone by then.”

Yves sliced his thumb with the letter opener. He hissed in pain and grabbed a handkerchief to press to the cut. “It’s fine,” he said, when Percy sat up. “Charon’s been wanting to travel for ages. I wouldn’t want him to put his plans on hold for this.”

“Yeah,” Percy drawled. “It’s only one the wedding of one of his closest friends.”

“We’re not that close.”

The look Percy gave him could have cracked stone. “Huh. You must be pretty mad about him leaving. You haven’t practiced flirting with him in weeks.”

Yves went quiet, watching blood seep through the handkerchief. “He’s allowed to leave if he wants to.”

“Naturally,” Percy said. He picked up another paper. “Whatever you say.”

Yves looked at the wall connecting his room with Charon’s.

Charon was the one crack in Yves’ resolve.

People claimed he was from Katoikos, since they had been the same people once, before Arktos had closed their borders.

Yves hadn’t particularly cared at first. All he saw was a tall, attractive dominant—someone to tease when he wasn’t taking clients, and maybe tumble if he was lucky.

Except Charon wasn’t the kind of dom who threw submissives over his lap to spank the brat out of them.

His dominance wasn’t the braying bluntness Yves was used to at home, but a quiet thing, easing frayed nerves and smoothing over arguments before they started.

He was smart, careful, and kind, and after years of late-night visits and borrowed books, Yves couldn’t see a future that didn’t involve tea on the chaise in Charon’s room.

A few days after Tony’s visit, Yves had heard the door open through the wall. He’d waited for Charon to descend the steps, and then, when he was certain no one could hear, he had slipped out on his own.

Charon wasn’t alone downstairs. Lord Laurent de Rue was sitting on one of the long couches by the door when Yves crept down the stairs.

Laurent was always lovely, a lithe, violet-haired man with a biting dominance and a taste for high fashion.

His evening robe that night was embroidered with golden swans, and he cut a handsome picture of noble repose as Charon sat next to him.

“I would like to resign from my place in the House of Onyx,” Charon said.

Yves stiffened against the wall of the stairwell. It was as though all the air withdrew into a void inside himself with one horrendous, rattling suction of breath.

“Pardon?” Laurent sounded as winded as Yves felt.

“I’ve been here long enough.” Charon’s voice was devoid of emotion. “I paid off my debt to the house years ago, and I’ve always wanted to travel. It’s time I took that step.”

Hiding on the stair, Yves only saw a glimpse of Laurent as he leaned toward Charon. “You know I can’t stop you. But I always thought…when I pass the House of Onyx on…”

“I’m sure you will find someone suitable to run it,” Charon said.

Yves bit his knuckle to silence himself. He’d known that Charon longed to travel. Half the books in his room were full of histories of other countries in Iperios. He just hadn’t thought it would happen so soon.

“And you’ll be doing this alone?” Laurent’s voice was careful, as though he were trying to beckon a startled animal. “You and Yves have always been close. Attachments do form, here.”

Yves pressed his free hand over his heart. Why did his own heartbeat feel so loud?

“An attachment with Yves would be impossible,” Charon said, and for once, Yves felt Charon’s dominance strike him with all the bluntness of a hammer-blow.

Impossible. He couldn’t hear the rest of Charon and Laurent’s conversation over the ringing of that word in his mind.

Impossible. He staggered back to his bedroom in a daze.

He stared at his jewels and silks, and he thought of his mother and father holding hands under the dinner table, his mother’s disdainful look when Yves had announced his intention to travel to Duciel, and the first time a client had kissed him with no promise of enduring affection.

He thought of Charon, smiling warmly as Yves ate cookies on his chaise after a long night.

Charon’s voice, low and flat. Impossible .

Impossible bore him through the next few days, while Yves stared at the lavish decorations on his own walls.

Impossible brought him to the calligrapher’s office, then to Laurent, who heard his plan to retire in style with a small, tight expression that Yves couldn’t quite translate.

Impossible brought Yves here, with Percy sifting through poetry that didn’t matter while Yves’ thumb throbbed with pain like a beating heart.

“Here’s an odd one,” Percy said, holding up an envelope. “It’s tickets to the theater. The Prince’s Play ? What’s that about?”

Yves looked up, startled. “What? Let me see.”

He took the tickets from Percy. This couldn’t be right.

How could anyone know? Maybe it was a lucky guess.

The play was wildly clever, and despite the crude humor, Yves adored it.

He’d seen it four times—once with Charon, then with Nanette, then two times on his own.

“It says it’s from Raul Vitrier. I don’t think he’s one of my clients. ”

“No title?” Percy asked.

“None.” Yves flipped the card around. “The stamp is from Kallistos, though. Charon taught me—artisans paint their seals with different colors to show their guild…” He trailed off at Percy’s blank expression. “What? It’s interesting.”

“So he’s from Kallistos,” Percy said. “You’re sure you haven’t seen him before?”

“Not unless he’s using a different name. There’s an address. Do you think I should say yes?”

“That’s your favorite poem, a ticket?”

“The play,” Yves said. “Yes. I wonder how he guessed it.”

“No one else would. You could have set a less challenging task, Yves.”

Yves smiled. “I have high standards.” He got up to fetch a pen and paper. “I will accept. He won the first challenge fair and square, and if he’s a wretch, I can always throw him over and hope someone else wins the next one.”

“That’s the spirit,” Percy said, beaming at him. “You opportunistic little brat.”

Yves winked. “You bet I am.”

He let Percy run off with an armful of amateur poetry and paid for a messenger to deliver a response to Raul Vitrier’s house in the city.

Yves spent the next few days discussing plans for future contests with Laurent.

The more pageantry they employed, the more clients were drawn to the House of Onyx, and some of Laurent’s resulting suggestions were almost too dramatic.

After being consumed by thoughts of mazes, ballroom acquisitions, swans, and an inordinate number of hired musicians, Yves was grateful for a distracting night at the theater.

As he laid out his clothes for the play, Yves wondered what Raul was like.

Why had he chosen the play instead of a traditional poem?

It was written in iambic pentameter, so that could be part of it.

If he’d seen Yves attending the play, that might imply he was following him—not an ideal suitor, to be sure.

How old was he? He would probably expect Yves to sit on his lap during the play.

Most of Yves’ clients were convinced that Yves had a notorious daddy kink, but Yves had figured when he’d signed up at the House of Onyx that it would be better to create a persona separate from his private kinks.

Pretending to be a brat at a play he enjoyed was bound to be tedious.

Raul’s lodgings were on the street reserved for rented homes of visiting dignitaries, huddled next to the noble district like a flock of colorful birds.

His house was painted pale blue with white shutters, and a servant with dark red hair and a suit in the Kallistoi style greeted him at the door.

The servant openly stared when he took Yves’ coat, and Yves felt the gaze on his back as he entered the drawing room.