Rey smiled. “That’s just a sign of a reasonable person. Horses are amazing. Oh, look. There’s an open-air play this weekend, nobles love that kind of thing.”
“I used to like plays, actually,” Eli said. He wondered if any of the friends he used to go to plays with would recognize him now. He had kept most of them at arm’s length, too occupied with his mother’s plans to make the kind of intense friendships the rest of them had, but they’d been nice enough. It was a shame, really, that he couldn’t think of anyone he actually wanted to reconnect with.
“This one’s calledBlessing of the Katoikos,so I’ve no idea what that’s about. Let’s do it. Maybe I can braid a ribbon in your hair or something, make you look festive.”
“Hired swords who moonlight as manservants don’t dress festively,” Eli said.
“Shows what you know.” Rey tossed his hair.
They spent the next day or two preparing themselves for what Rey called “courting Sabre.” Eli had to stand in the drawing room and pretend that Rey was his brother, which usually led to Eli speaking in such a wooden, flat tone that Rey told him it would be better not to speak to Sabre at all, and just to stand at Rey’s back like a surly shadow. For his part, Rey bought new clothes for both of them at yet another secondhand shop, and even came in one night with a surprise—a little orange cake with chocolate truffles, which they ate on the floor of the bedroom in their nightclothes. It was still nothing like the life Eli used to have before, but it was pleasant, and Eli didn’t miss the tripsto the tailors or the endless posturing that came with being a dominant noble at court.
“You’re just a hired sword,” Rey reminded him as they dressed for the theater at last, standing by the window of their little bedroom. “Don’t think of yourself as a de Valois. Think of yourself as Arthur Barrow—or Artie,” he added, with a wink, “a swordsman who grew up down the street from me. We’re old friends, and I’ve hired you on to help out your dear old grandma with extra coin. Sabre de Valois is just another stuck-up noble.”
“Right. Sure.” Eli didn’t tell Rey that he’d already retched into the toilet once that afternoon at the thought of possibly seeing Sabre in person. Instead, he focused on fitting his sword belt on properly and checking the hilt for signs of wear. His green cloak was still fine enough to wear out, and it was a comforting weight on his shoulders as they stepped out the door.
They left Unicorn where she was, since the play was taking place in a park nearby, and walked through the pleasure district. The sun was still out, but the pleasure houses were preparing for the evening already, sweeping the sidewalks and setting up lights and banners to entice customers. Eli wondered if Sabre liked living there—if staying at home was too painful, where the last of his family had planned to betray him.
“Quit staring,” Rey whispered. “If he’s attending the play, he probably left already.”
“Yes, very comforting,” Eli whispered back.
The theater was set up in the middle of a rose garden, with sparse set design and a curtain to hide the actors while they prepared. Nobles and commoners sat on benches and jockeyed for space in the grass, and Eli reached for Rey as he searched the crowd. Rey took Eli’s hand, squeezing it behind the folds of Eli’s cloak, before letting go.
“There he is,” Rey said, and Eli’s heart jumped to his throat as he turned to follow Rey’s gaze.
Sabre de Valois sat in the grass a few yards away, dressed in a simple white silk shirt and black trousers, with his blue-lined jacket spread on the grass beneath him. Laurent de Rue sat on a crowded bench, looking down at Sabre with a wry smile, and his pale fingers slid through Sabre’s hair. It was longer now than it was the last time Eli had seen him, and Sabre had a collar on his neck, just visible through the fall of his hair. When he smiled up at Laurent, his eyes crinkled in the way that they used to when he wanted to laugh.
“He’s happy,” Eli whispered.
“Try not to stare,” Rey said, twitching Eli’s cloak.
Rey might as well have been speaking in tongues. The curtain opened, and someone spoke on stage, but then Sabre said something that made Laurent laugh. What was it? Who was Laurent, for Sabre to stare at him with such devotion? Where did Sabre get the silver bracelet around his wrist? Who wove the white ribbon in his hair? Was it Laurent? Eli tried to picture them, Sabre kneeling, Laurent threading the ribbon in Sabre’s red-brown hair, laughing with each other.
They turned to watch the play. Laurent seemed invested in it—Sabre leaned against Laurent’s thigh, and Laurent almost idly stroked Sabre’s arm. Everything about them was calm and quiet, nothing like the raucous friends Sabre used to have.
Sabre’s eyes went bright, and Eli turned to look at the play, where a young woman was sending a would-be lover out the door.
“What happened?” Eli whispered. What would move Sabre to tears? What had Eli missed?
“She thinks he killed her brother,” Rey whispered back. “Try watching the play. Look natural.”
Eli tried. He bore through an entire scene of the exiled lover struggling to prove his worth to a series of disbelieving nobles, and when he died protecting the heroine from the true killer, Elisaw movement in the corner of his eye and looked back to Sabre, who was standing to applaud with most of the others. Eli stood at the last minute, clapping awkwardly, and Rey sighed.
“That’s the end of the play, I’m afraid.”
“We should see them before they leave,” Eli said, grabbing Rey by the arm. But he didn’t need to worry about that. Sabre and Laurent weren’t even bending down to pick up Sabre’s jacket, and they remained standing even after several other members of the crowd started peeling away to form little groups in the grass or walk toward the bars.
“All right, now we go,” Rey said, at last. They stepped forward, but just before they came within a reasonable distance, someone called out Sabre’s name.
“Sabre! Laurie, you came!” The actress who played the heroine came rushing over, holding her dress up out of the grass. She was about Eli’s age, with dark skin and curly black hair, and she stopped to open her arms to Sabre for an embrace. He picked her up off the ground, and she squeaked.
“You were lovely, Rose,” Sabre said. The young man who played the hero walked up after her, his eyes black like a Mislian mage, rubbing a makeup rag over the fake scar below his eye. “You, too, Hektor. I’m shocked you managed to narrow it all down and still have it make sense.”
“It was like surgery,” Rose said.
“Flick said he saw a cart of books,” Hektor said. “So I might need to stop him before he starts an incident.”
Sabre waved Hektor off as he ran toward the edge of the grass.
