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Chapter Thirty-Six

Oskar

To put it bluntly, Oskar was having the worst day of his life.

He had spent most of it inspecting the mansion and its grounds.

With Wensleydale’s blessing, he’d briefed Therault, the captain of the guard, on everything he knew about the surviving mercenaries—which wasn’t much, and certainly would amount to even less if Bharash and Selene were to call upon reinforcements whom he’d never encountered before.

But the captain had assured Oskar that he and his men were prepared for any eventuality.

That, as the security force of one of the richest nobles on the Menagerie Coast, they were old hands at fending off burglars, and what were mercenaries, good sir, but burglars in uniform?

It was rather more complicated than that, in Oskar’s opinion, but he had to admit that Wensleydale’s guards were well armed, knew how to establish and maintain a watchful perimeter, and were in possession of the kind of keen alertness most often found in people who were being paid very, very well to do their job.

Several of them also had magical abilities.

You couldn’t ask for a group better suited to taking on the Spider’s Web and their mysterious client, who was, apparently, little more than a sore loser.

It couldn’t be denied that Guinevere was safer with them than she’d ever be with just Oskar for protection.

And it also couldn’t be denied that her betrothed was wealthy on a scale that Oskar couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

The white four-story mansion and its sprawling fields and gardens and gazebos and hedge maze and follies were like a slap to the face of every wretched soul crammed into the Dustbellows tenement where he had grown up.

How could a single family have amassed enough land and wealth to last a hundred generations?

How could Oskar even dare think of asking Guinevere to give any of it up?

He had entertained the notion in his more unguarded moments—several times during last night’s supper, as a matter of fact. He’d fantasized about tearing off the stupid, too-tight formal coat, hefting her over his shoulder, and running from the room.

Let’s go, princess, he’d dreamed of saying. Your parents suck, and your betrothed is a ponce. Let’s get the hells out of here.

Yes, Oskar, she’d replied in the fevered depths of his imagination. Take me away from all this. Let’s be impoverished vagabonds together.

But even those relatively harmless flights of fancy had died a swift death when Wensleydale and Illiard took him around the estate and he saw for himself just how comfortable Guinevere’s life was going tobe.

And now he was in a crowded, overly warm ballroom, stuffed into another one of Wensleydale’s jackets, worn over his most presentable shirt, which had been starched to within an inch of its life, and a pair of formal trousers that had been purloined from one of the bulkier footmen.

He was an impostor lurking within a sea of lords and ladies.

He had absolutely no idea what had possessed him to agree to this.

A kindly if somewhat clueless elderly couple had taken Oskar under their velvet-clad wing.

The Stannishes were halflings, and Dwendalian—from Zadash, specifically—but they spent the colder months here on the Menagerie Coast, at an estate that had been bequeathed by Lord Stannish’s distant cousin in the absence of direct heirs.

There was no damn reason for somebody to have two estates, but Oskar kept that thought to himself, lest the horde of nobles tear him limb from limb for such sacrilege.

“Stormfang, eh?” Lord Stannish was peering up at Oskar through a diamond quizzing glass. “Would that be the Trostenwald Stormfangs? Fine old family.”

“No,” Oskar grunted.

Lord Stannish blinked, looking scandalized. “They’re not fine?”

“I’m not one of them,” Oskar clarified.

As her husband floundered, Lady Stannish bravely waded in to salvage the situation. “And how do you know Lord Wensleydale and his bride?” she asked Oskar.

Gods, it hurt.

“I’m a friend” was all Oskar said.

“We’d despaired of that boy ever settling down!” boomed Lord Stannish, visibly relieved to have been led back onto solid conversational ground. “But I told my wife—didn’t I tell you, Elaine—that he was only waiting for the right one.”

“The right woman or the right dowry?” a nearby elven socialite airily remarked to her friends, who all tittered.

Oskar turned to the group, giving their ringleader a cold stare. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you that it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

The elf’s powdered face turned pink. She dropped her gaze from his, and she and her friends shuffled away.

Lady Stannish patted Oskar’s elbow. “Good lad,” she said softly.

Oskar fidgeted, not knowing how to respond.

But it turned out that he didn’t have to.

The lilting strains of plucked strings cut through the low roar of a hundred different conversations, silencing them with a melody like gold and glass.

The Opal of the Ocean had begun playing on her marble dais.

She was a beautiful, ruby-skinned infernal, with small pearlescent horns and glossy black hair decorated with chains of the eponymous gemstones.

Her slender fingers wove through an ivory harp, and soon her pure, crystal-clear voice soared up into the rafters, singing a melancholy ballad.

It wasn’t long before a rash of whispers broke out and people were tugging at one another’s sleeves.

Heads swiveled in the direction of the staircase, and Oskar’s automatically swiveled right along with them.

Wensleydale was descending the wide marble steps, and on his arm…

On his arm was a goddess.

It was Guinevere as Oskar had never seen her before, a vision in yards and yards of embroidered silk.

Her hair cascaded down to her waist in silver waves, and the shimmering lilac hues of her gown brought out the deep violet of her eyes.

A small smile graced that amazing face; it was shy, but its sweetness shone through, as her sweetness always would.

She was lovely and ethereal, and she belonged in this world of marble pillars and burning chandeliers so utterly, more than she had ever belonged to the wilderness and all its hardships.

More than she had ever belonged to Oskar.

He understood, at last, why he had attended this ball. It was so he could have one more glimpse of her. And now that he had, he also understood, overwhelmingly and irrevocably, that it was time for him to go.