“Melville.”
“Ouch, yeah, you just missed your noble cousin a week ago. We get plenty of Melvilles, though. You need to send a social calendar around just to keep up.” They closed the book and shoved it next to them in the chair. “So here’s the thing. Formal audiences are embarrassing for everyone. With King Emile, it was fine. He’d just wave at you and get your name wrong, and you’d leave. King Adrien’s going to want to get off the throne and shake your hand, ask how the kids are, all that, but he won’t be allowed to, so it’ll be bad news, okay? Informal’s the way to go.”
“How long has King Adrien been crowned again?” Rey whispered. Surely protocol couldn’t change that quickly.
“Only a month or two. He’s great, though, really.” The clerk grinned. They had teardrop earrings that matched their dress, and they glittered distractingly when they moved. “If you want an informal meeting, you can catch him in three places without too much of a crowd: in the stables this afternoon because he can’t get over the fact that he might see a baby horse run around soon, in the library tonight, or…well, he should be out in the training circle with old Sabre right now, but they’re thick as thieves and that can be just as awkward to interrupt.”
“Old Sabre?” If Rey were a fox, his ears would have perked. Not Eli’s Sabre, surely?
“Oh, that’s what the servants call him. Sabre de Valois.”
Rey glanced at the entrance where Eli was waiting. By all accounts, he should speak to Eli first, but part of him wanted to see if Sabre really was as upright and good as Eli claimed. “Where would the training circle be?”
“Public way is past that hallway, take two lefts. Don’t go through any doors. It’s an open archway to the practice yards, all right? You can go in through the gap in the barracks outside, too.”
“Understood.” Rey slipped a silver piece to the clerk, who grinned and pocketed it. “Thank you for not just turning me away.”
“I like Melvilles,” the clerk said, flashing the coin in their fingers before it disappeared again. “You’re usually more fun that the typical nobles we get here.”
“Try not to be too bored while I’m gone, then,” Rey said, winking, and the clerk gave him a sly smile.
“Name’s Raph if you’re asking.”
“James.” Rey could feel Raph eyeing his bum as he left. Well, that was one contact he could probably rely on.
His heartbeat quickened as he turned left down the hall, then left again. This was the part of a trick he liked best—when hewas just starting to weave his story together, finding the pieces he could use and discovering the shape of the game board he had to navigate. If Sabre was anything like Eli, he was probably an unwashed urchin with a temper and a strict sense of justice. Rey imagined two Elis, short and muscular and furious, dueling each other in a practice circle while a prince in silks watched at the sidelines.
“I can’t believe I got a point in,” he heard, as he reached the entrance to the practice yards. The voice outside was cultured and smooth. “Either you distracted him too thoroughly this morning, or I’m improving.”
“I’ll mark it down as a distraction,” another voice said, sounding like he was on the verge of a laugh. “You couldn’t possibly take Izzy on a good day.”
“Thank you ever so much for your vote of confidence, Asa.”
Rey stepped through the archway. The practice yards were in an open courtyard, just a few practice circles with blunted weapons on racks at the entrance and benches for sightseers. In the closest circle, two men leaned on the fence surrounding it. One was a slight fellow with blond hair that had just the slightest hint of gold, and the other was taller and broader, with long red-brown hair tied back with a ribbon. His face was a bit longer and less thin with hunger, and he was a good foot taller at least, but Rey recognized enough of Eli in him to know that this had to be Sabre de Valois.
Both men turned to look at him, and Rey bowed. “I was told his majesty was here?”
“Oh, yes,” said the man who had to be King Adrien. He took off his right glove and strode forward, hand extended. “Pleased to meet you. No need to kneel, I’m Adrien.”
“James Melville,” Rey said, taking Adrien’s hand with no small amount of surprise. It was protocol for the king to keep his gloves on when speaking to anyone below a duke or earl in rank.To take his glove off for a complete stranger was more radical than Rey would have expected.
Adrien’s eyes lit up. “Another one! Sabre, that’s twelve since last month.”
“There are about thirty more in the country,” Rey said. “At least.”
“Yes, we have to keep expanding your family tree to account for unexpected branches. Not to worry, my own is just as complicated. That one,” he gestured to Sabre, “is technically my cousin twice over.”
Sabre sighed with the weariness of someone who’d heard that line at least fifty times before. He came over to shake Rey’s hand as well. “Sabre de Rue.”
“And de Valois,” Adrien said. “He has two titles.”
“Rue?” Where had Rey heard the name Rue before? “A pleasure. I didn’t want to take too much of your time, of course, I just felt awful for missing the coronation.”
“Oh, you didn’t miss much.” Adrien gave Sabre a look that must have meant something, because Sabre gave him a warning look back. It was the same skeptical look Eli gave Rey sometimes when one of Rey’s jokes didn’t land right. “Just the usual pomp. Are you here for long, James?”
First names? King Adrien truly was something new. “I hope so. I just came back from studying in Gerakia, you see—artifact recovery, it’s probably exceedingly dull to anyone else—and there are one or two places of interest in Staria. I thought I’d stay here while I gathered my notes.”
“That might be more Sabre’s realm than mine, then,” Adrien said. “He’s the one who started the first public school in Duciel.”
