One
Yves woke earlythe day the invitations went out.
For the capital city of Staria, Duciel was ugly in the morning. Yves admired it from the window of his second floor room in the House of Onyx, one of the tall, ornate houses that lined the Pleasure District. Smoke from kitchen fires choked the air, and a gray, washed-out light revealed water stains on the towering noble houses in the distance. Above it all, the gold roof on the Starian palace gleamed like a cracked egg at the top of the hill. The street cleaners were working the palace paths, and detritus skittered over the cobbles as people emerged from their houses and hunched their shoulders in the cold wind.
Most of the house was in bed by now. Courtesans worked late, and Yves had seen his last client only three hours before, but he was too restless to sleep. He watched sunlight creep over the city with his elbows on the windowsill, his blond hair tousled by the breeze.
“Hey!”
Yves tucked a curl behind his ear and sighed.
“Hey! Darr!”
Yves’ smile faded. Only a handful of people called him Darr—short forDarling,the name his all-too-sentimental parents had given him. Yves had left that name behind in the country, but the country clearly had a difficult time letting go of him. He peered into the side garden below his window, where his brother Peter—short forPatience—was hefting a rock in his left hand.
“If you throw that at the window, I’m shoving your head in a well and leaving you there,” Yves said. “Why are you here?”
“This card says you’re getting married.” Like their mother, the natural dominance in Peter’s voice came out like a charging bull, with no finesse or care. Most dominants knew how to control their influence, but Yves’ mother was never very good at teaching, and so the ones in Yves’ family tended to run wild. As a submissive, Yves had felt like he’d been living with a gaggle of honking geese for eighteen years.
A pair of shutters a few rooms down popped open, and Nanette, one of the other courtesans, leaned out of her window.
“Who’s gettingwhat?” she asked.
“I had those invitations sent last night,” Yves said to Peter. “How did you find one?”
“Find who?” Simone, another courtesan, squeezed into the window next to Nanette. She was a dominant like Peter, but her voice only held a touch of command.
“Someone’s getting married,” Nanette said.
Peter went pink. Nanette and Simone were nude, and a flashy gold necklace dangled between Simone’s breasts. Peter seemed determined not to look at them. “Aunt Josie said Layla’s oldest spoke to Lord Fuller’s son, whose cousin knows a countess from Duciel who gave him this.” Peter held a card up like a magician about to set a handkerchief on fire. “Sayingyou’regetting married this summer.”
Yves had to admit he was impressed. If the king’s spymaster employed the power of a country village rumor mill, he’d know everyone’s business in a fortnight.
“And you rode all the way here?” Yves asked.
“Wait,” Nanette said, “you’re actually getting married? To whom?”
A pair of shutters slammed above them, and Percy, Yves’ best friend, blurted out, “but I thought the invitations went out this morning!”
“He’s not marryingyou?” Nanette asked, twisting to look up at Percy.
“No,” Yves and Percy said at the same time.
“I’m happily married, thank you,” Percy said.
“Darr ain’t saying,” Peter said, shaking the card in his hand, “because no one’s written on the invitation!”
“Some of us are trying tosleep!” Oleander, the newest courtesan from Katoikos, slapped open their shutters just so they could glare at the chaos unfolding below. Nearly all the courtesans in the House of Onyx were standing at a window now, looking from Yves to his younger brother.
Yves tried not to look at the closed pair of shutters to his right as he gestured to Peter. “I’ll let you in through the garden.”
“Guests aren’t allowed without permission,” Oleander said.
Percy chucked something at Oleander’s window, prompting a shriek of dismay. “Shut up, Oleander!”
Yves left them to bicker. He hurried down the stairs outside his room and opened the door to the garden, where Peter stood with his back hunched and his face red as a beet. While Yves took after their mother with her curly hair and big eyes, Peter was the spitting image of their father. He had a round, splotchy face and yellow hair that hung straight down like a curtain, and he was broad and ungainly in his secondhand traveling clothes. Thefamily farm wasn’t exactly failing—they were one of the biggest in Staria—but everyone had a chest of hand-me-downs.
“Well?” Yves asked. “Get in.”
