He garnered some interest on the dance floor, though, and since he found someone who wasnota Mage Warrior, he decided to let them take him home for the night. That was not what he wanted, but it would do for the moment.
Better than sleeping outside, he reminded himself. It would give him energy, and he needed energy to come back here and make sure Arvus was all right.
Trill returned the next night and didn’t see either of them, but he reminded himself that was normal and they didn’t come every night. He went to another pub and went home with someone else.
The next night was the same, but the one after, thank goodness, they were back, and Trill could relax again. They even went out on the dance floor together! It didn’t look like anything was wrong. And it meant that Trill could follow them there. He just had to be careful when he approached them. They weren’t dancing strenuously. It was more like standing and swaying, really, but Arvus had his hand on the pretty man’s hips, was carefully cradling him and clearly supporting him, looking like he was ready to ward anyone off.
But they were dancing, and when Trill did a careful loop around them, he could see that the pretty man had his eyes closed and was resting his head on Arvus’s shoulder. His expression was… happiness mixed with pain. Trill was pretty sure this was a pain he couldn’t touch, because the man’s body was loose.
Trill sniffed and had to look away. They were all right. He could keep coming back. He didn’t have to worry about getting into the castle just yet; there wasn’t a deadline to see his uncle. It hadn’t happened yet, and maybe it wouldn’t happen at all. He found that now that he was here and he’d found the pretty man and his partner, it seemed more important to focus on them.
If he healed the man a tiny bit each time he saw them, then they wouldn’t realize anything out of the ordinary had happened, right? Yannoma had been very clear that if he committed any extraordinary healings, he was going to get caught and would probably be killed. But like everything, she didn’t actually forbid him to do it. She’d always told him he was free to make his own choices, even dumb ones.
Trill watched the pretty man and his partner out on the dance floor. It was clearly a bit painful to be out there again. (Was it the first time since whatever had injured him?) But even though there was some pain, there was happiness as well. It was clear they loved to dance. He could feel the desire and affection running through them, and that was a beautiful thing to witness.
Trill brushed up against the pretty man a few more times, which was probably not a great idea when he was trying to be careful, but it was a crowded dance floor. Plus, the man had his eyes shut, which meant Trill was able to do it once from behind Arvus’s back, just touching the other man’s arm, so he could be sure that Arvus didn’t see him either. He’d managed it once with his back to them, like he’d been dancing and happened to pressbriefly into them. He thought he’d done a pretty good job of being casual.
They were swaying a little, and it was entirely possible that would loosen up the muscle and his leg would feel better on its own, right?
That was what Trill told himself, anyway. He was pretty sure Yannoma would have an opinion on the matter that didn’t agree with his own, but she wasn’t here.
Trill felt like these two might be worth making a mess over.
And then he watched with huge eyes as the two of them pulled a third into their little dance, watched as the pretty man got to be the sandwich in the middle with two men dancing pressed up against him, moving carefully but oh, so obviously bringing one another pleasure.
Trill blinked, mesmerized. Wasthatan option?
Because Trill was always very careful about this. He was happy to join more than one person if more than one person was happy to join him. Buteveryonehad to be interested. He’d made the mistake just once, soon after he’d started living with Yannoma, when he hadn’t known the importance of checking. He’d made people unhappy, and he never meant to do that! He knew people could lie, that they could come alone and say they were alone when they really weren’t, but for the most part, Trill could tell about that. Sometimes, it was like they had a bit of a feeling of someone else’s energy clinging to them, and then Trill would steer clear. Or it would be clear that they felt guilty, an expression or a feeling, and then Trill knew to stay away from them, too.
If there was an obvious partner, then Trill’s assumption was always that these people were off-limits. There were people who were interested in more, but they had to demonstrate it. Back home, he’d seen someone assume that just because three people were together, they must automatically want more. Despitethe possible risk, Trill had felt no compunction about tugging enough energy out of the man who’d been bothering the triad that he faltered and had to go sit down. Not enough to kill, of course, but certainly enough to make him feel ill.
It wasn’t the sort of desire that Trill was particularly satisfied by, but it had been worth it to see the three partners go back to enjoying themselves. And now he was watching three people all clearly into this, and that meant that maybe another option had opened up to him. Oh, not right now, of course. That third man pressed up against the pretty man was the one they’d chosen today. No dirty tricks for Trill; he would have to wait and see if he had a chance another day.
He watched with avid eyes as they left the dance floor together and it became clear they were leaving. Yes! Even better than sexy dancing, it looked like they sometimes took peoplehome. The fact that home was the castle caused Trill a momentary hesitation, but he ignored it. He both very much wanted to get into the castle and knew that getting into the castle would probably not give him what he wanted. And there was a small chance that it was exactly the excuse that he needed. If he succeeded, he would prioritize the pretty man and his partner without question, but perhaps before he left, he could figure out how to see his uncle?
But first, they had to play with their partner for today, and then they had to come back, and then they had to pick Trill. But now that Trill knew that it was all right to play, he was reasonably confident that he could catch their interest.
Trill could usually catch the interest of anyone he wanted. But sometimes their tastes didn’t seem to be compatible with Trill. Yannoma insisted that there should be no qualifier, that he should be able to attract anyone if he put his mind to it.
Trill wasn’t entirely convinced that it worked that way for him. Yannoma seemed to think that he just wasn’t trying hard enough.
But he’d never been this motivated before.
Chapter Six
Cormal
If Cormal had to come up with one word to describe his life, “frustrating” just might be it. He felt, in fact, like it described hiswholelife, and he could list a variety of examples from childhood through to now that could perfectly exemplify this. But it felt like thetypeof frustration had changed, and for perhaps the first time ever, it wasn’t about him. Well, hewas frustrated for himself, sure. There was everything from a Princess who wouldn’t speak to him to a title that everyone managed to pronounce like “asshole” to a Secundus who seemed to be mere moments away from drenching him in water and laughing in his face, but that wasn’t what frustrated himmost.
No, what frustrated him most was that they couldn’t solve this problem for the Prince. Cormal felt the emotion on behalf of someone else in a way that he didn’t think had ever happened before. And he was acutely aware of how much worse the situation was for the Prince.
He’d been trapped in an invisible prison for seven years, and while the cage had been considerably loosened, it was still there. Yes, they were progressing through the books. They were eliminating books that didn’t have answers. But with each book that they read and found nothing, the percentage of books that might have a solution decreased.
Cormal didn’t like those odds.
He liked it even less when, along with the next wave of reports, he received a brief letter from the Head Mage telling him that they hadn’t found anything that would be useful in this particular situation.
Able to tell that he was going to lose his temper over this, he handed the letter to Molun—he was pretty sure that he even managed to say, “Excuse me”—and then he headed straight for his father’s work room. As soon as the door was closed, he lobbed fireball after fireball and screamed his fury at the world.
