When Junot glanced over his shoulder at her, she smiled beatifically at him.
Junot reached for her hand. Delicately, she placed hers in his.
“The castle is…” Terencia glanced around the hall, noting the creeping shadows lurking in every corner, slithering across the walls, and dangling from the buttressed ceiling like vines, if vines were to writhe on occasion.
“Well, it’s truly abysmal, isn’t it?”
She chuckled at her reference to the castle’s original name, the Abysmal Fortress. Every one of the aristos at her back joined in immediately.
Of Baz’s friends, Félix was the shrewdest political strategist, but he lacked the duplicity to fake much of anything. Aziza, however, had no problem faking whatever needed faking. She laughed loudest.
“So true, Consort Empress,” Zi said on an appreciative laugh that sounded true enough to Baz’s ears, except for that Baz—and all the Bazrian Seven—knew how much Terencia detested being referred to as “consort.”
Terencia’s lips, stained a dark berry, widened to reveal the tips of her fangs.
Baz hurried to speak: “The castle is temperamental and causes us significant problems.”
“Is that so?” Junot asked. “I had heard the stories, of course. They claimed the castle, then the ‘fortress,’ had a personality of its own. So it’s true, then?”
“It’s true. The castle makes living here all but unbearable.”
Junot smiled—like a mean dragon, Baz thought. “Ah, but for tried and tested warriors like yourselves”—he looked at Baz’s friends, alighting for a moment on the parvnit—“it should feel like a vacation.”
It doesn’t, Baz wanted to say. A vacation would be freedom from him and his wife.
Junot glanced around. The hall might have been grand, opulent even, with its darkness dispelled. But the dozens of lumoons didn’t breach the shadows, and the shadows concealed most of the castle’s ornamentation behind their persistent gloom.
“Compared to a battlefield, it’s downright pleasant.”
Baz felt Lev go rigid. Of all the battlefields upon which the Bazrian Seven had spilled blood, Junot hadn’t made an appearance at a single one. Lev was actually biting his lip so as not to release whatever well-deserved quip he was holding back.
“I’m glad to know that … Father,” Baz eventually said. “I would like you to enjoy your stay with us. How long will that be?”
“Oh, hm? I don’t know quite yet. It depends.”
“On what?”
Junot’s head jerked in his direction so sharply that his crown slid. He tipped it back with his signet finger.
“You question your emperor?”
Baz wanted to scream. Instead, he dipped his head. “Of course not, Father. Would you care for some refreshments? Or would you like to retire to your rooms?”
Baz had no idea if Mauldrene had rooms prepared for the emperor and empress. If his sire provided them with five-minutes warning, then he’d get what he’d get.
Terencia sniffed the air another time. “What is that other scent?”
Baz stiffened. “What other scent, Stepmother?”
“On you, your skin. The scent of another woman.”
Another woman?
Baz blinked at her while his thoughts raced several stories below them to the dungeons. To Velle, still collared and chained to the bed with no way to protect herself.
“You know how Baz is, Empress,” Lev said, turning on the charm and omitting the “consort” jab. “He does love his whores.”
Baz glared at him. How did Lev manage to not help even when he was helping?
