Yves smiled. “I have high standards.” He got up to fetch a pen and paper. “Iwillaccept. 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.
“Oh!” Raul was an older man, possibly in his fifties, with dark hair and a charmingly crooked nose, and he was possibly themost submissive man Yves had seen in his life. He smiled at Yves and waved him over, but when Yves moved to place a hand on his arm, Raul took a careful step back.
“Hello,” Raul said. “You look…you look well.”
And you look familiar,Yves thought, but he couldn’t quite place it. Perhaps Raul was one of Yves’ clients, an early one Yves hadn’t seen in a while. He bowed as a Kallistoi submissive would, and Raul gave him an alarmed look before bowing back. “What guild are you in? I noticed the stamp,” he added. He was an easily startled man, Yves noted.
“I’m…” Raul said. Yves hadn’t known that a man’s face could get quite so pink. “I make… I make glass.”
“In Kallistos?” Yves asked. The poor man looked terrified. “You have an accent, that’s all. Don’t worry, I won’t press if you don’t want me to.”
“Yes, I, um.” Raul looked down at his hands.
“Well, I think glassmaking is fascinating,” Yves said. “There’s a window in the palace with little bees all over it. You have to see it sometime. Maybe I’ll show you.”
“Made it,” Raul mumbled. Or Yvesthoughtthat was what he said. Raul seemed to be transforming into a timid mouse the more Yves spoke.
“Really?” Yves almost grabbed his hands in excitement, but stopped himself in time. “How did you do it?”
“Trade secret,” Raul said, and a bashful smile emerged, swift and lovely, before disappearing. “But I c-can tell you a few things in the carriage.”
Yves doubted Raul would gather the courage to say more than a sentence or two, but he gamely played along. “You like thePrince’s Playand you’re an artist?” Yves smiled back. If only Charon were there. He’d love the chance to speak to an artist from Kallistos.
Yves’ thoughts ground to a halt. What was he doing? This wasn’t about Charon. Charon was leaving Staria soon, and he’d have all the time he wanted to see the glasswork of Kallistos in person.
If Yves wanted to ask Raul about the guilds, it wasn’t because Charon had a book on guild politics in his library. It was because he was being thoughtful. He was being a fuckinggem.He wasn’t going to spend a lovely evening thinking about someone who wasn’t going to be there by the end of spring.
If he laughed a little too brightly at the play and had one too many glasses of the fizzy wine they served to the balconies, that was his prerogative. He was just getting to know one of his suitors—and posing for the others, some of whom were surely watching from the other box seats and balconies. And if he wanted to sweep in late, never mind that Laurent gave him a dressing-down for causing two clients to reschedule, that was fine—it wasn’t as though he needed to take care of his reputation anymore. He breezed past a scowling Oleander, swung open the door to his room, grabbed his robe out of the closet, and flopped onto the chaise with a book from Charon’s shelf…
From Charon’s…
Yves looked up. Charon was sitting in his chair by the window, brows raised in a rare expression of true surprise. He was in just an undershirt and sleep pants—he still dressed like an Arkoudai, without the robes and gowns favored by Starians. Yves’ favorite tattoo was visible over his collarbone. It was a tattoo of one of the hawks that spread wildfires in the mountains to scare out prey, carrying a flaming branch in its talons. Yves stared at it for a solid five seconds before he realized why Charon was there.
This wasn’t Yves’ room.
“Sorry,” Yves said, sitting up on Charon’s chaise. “I was, you know, uh.”I forgot where I was and assumed we were still talking.“I’ve been away lately.”
“You have a wedding to plan for,” Charon said, in the still, level voice that meant he was hiding something. He always spoke like that to his clients, and he hadn’t spoken to Yves in that way since Yves was new to the House of Onyx. Yves scowled at him, and Charon’s mask slipped enough for a hint of alarm to peek through.
“Yes,” Yves said, “which we haven’t talked about. Just like we haven’t talked about you leaving.”
“I’ve been planning to travel for a while,” Charon said.
“Why now?”
“Why did you decide to have a marriage contest?” Charon asked. “We’ve both been at the House of Onyx long enough. It’s natural to want something new.”
