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“Just lunch, huh?” I said.
But I acquiesced, looking forward to getting out of the manor. After finishing up our breakfast, we made our way toward the library.
“Let’s work on the veranda,” I suggested.
Luke took a moment to consider my proposal, no doubt thinking about how hot it was outside in the summer in Vlaise.
“Come on, Luke! It’s too nice to sit inside all day,” I pleaded.
He gave in, and we headed toward the veranda that looked over the garden. It was hot.And humid. I missed the breeze from back home. In Vlaise it was just hot, with no breeze and no escape.
“Alarie, I’m sweating my fucking face off. Can’t we go inside?” Luke complained after just ten minutes of sitting outside.
“Well, maybe if you were seasonably dressed like me, you wouldn’t be so hot,” I teased, pointing out the contrast of my casual white skirt and tank to the full suit he wore. “I think it feels amazing out here,” I retorted, turning my face toward the sun and basking in its warmth.
Luke stared at me, eyebrows raised, unconvinced. With the back of my hand, I nonchalantly patted at the light sheen of sweat forming on my neck and chest, pretending like I was unfazed by the warm weather.
Giving in, Luke said, “Beats the hell out of being cold.”
He rolled his sleeves up and unbuttoned the first several buttons of his shirt, accepting his fate and getting comfortable. He spent his time next to me reviewing correspondence and taking notes. When he finished with that, he took a book out of his bag and began reading.
“All right, enough of that,” Luke declared after a couple of hours. “Lunch!” he said, lithely popping up to his feet.
“Ok, let’s go!” I said, enthusiastically shutting the book before me.
“We can head down to Bar Louie. You like beer and pretzels, right?” he asked.
“Is that a serious question?” I asked.
We made our way out of town, away from the High Court. The High Court was all tall spires and ancient alabaster buildings interspersed with ivy-clad walls and gardens that went on for miles. But outside of its perimeter, just a quick walk away, there was a town of a vastly different character. Town probably wasn’t the most accurate word to describe Vlaise. Harborview, where I grew up, was a town. We had a few places to go back home, but the town of Harborview mainly centered around the beach. Vlaise, on the other hand, was a city. Shops, restaurants, and bars lined the city’s streets, almost overlapping one another. Occasionally, a thin vertical townhome was squeezed in between two businesses. People with their hands full of groceries or, in some instances, tankards of lager, filled the streets.
“So, what am I supposed to do when I’m not studying?” I asked, turning to Luke.
I’d heard that a liaison’s first year at the High Court could be grueling. Some liaisons were treated little better than house servants. Others were assigned menial research tasks or else shipped off entirely from the High Court and placed in the court of some remote House.
“For now, just have fun. And keep your eyes and ears open,” Luke replied.
I couldn’t believe it. I went from going to school and studying all day and working all night to “just have fun?”
“Really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in disbelief. “That’s it?”
“Knowledge and connections, Al. That’s the currency here at the High Court,” Luke explained. “Not silver. Not gold. Anyone can be rich.”
That was easy for Luke to say. The Silver Court was second in wealth only to the Crown itself.
“But very few people actually know what’s going on at the High Court,” he said. “So, yeah, make some connections, build some relationships, listen, and report back.”
The structures in Vlaise were not as big or tall or as spread apart as those at the High Court. But there were still nice places to be found in Vlaise. Bar Louie was not one of them.
The bar was a small building wedged between two larger establishments. A simple wooden sign reading “Bar Louie” hung outside its austere door. It appeared that there were living quarters above the bar, perhaps where the proprietor resided. Inside of the bar, I was pleased to find that it was clean. Simple but clean. Dart boards covered the wall to the immediate right of the door; a polished wood bar sat in the far back, and a couple of pool tables were off to the left. It looked like there was a patio off the back that led to a larger, outside area.
“Look who it is!” Luke barked the minute we walked through the door. “Rhett, you ugly bastard, what are you doing at a bar in the middle of the day?”
I laughed. I’d only known Luke for a few days, but when I was around him, I laughed more than I’d ever laughed and about nothing in particular.
Rhett was far from ugly, I thought, taking in the tall high fae. He had smooth, golden hair, robins’ eggs for eyes, and hands the size of saucer plates. If anything, he was almosttoohandsome. He was dressed as immaculately as Luke usually was, except he wore a blood-red tailored suit where Luke wore blue.
“Is everyone at the High Court just ridiculously good looking, then?” I asked bewildered, voicing the thought I’d had thought several times since coming to the High Court.
