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Kel remembered a time when Conor’s pains and distresses could be soothed by a trip to the massive playroom in the Castel Mitat. There they had built walls out of blocks, and made a fort, and there had been toy Castelguards and dolls to staff it. They had played games with Falconet and Roverge and Antonetta until one day Falconet had made some comment about being too old for this sort of foolishness, and the next day it had all been gone, replaced by a sitting room full of elegant divans and silk pillows.
Antonetta had cried. Kel recalled holding her hand; the others had mocked her, but her grief over the vanished dolls—who had been characters, truly, with their own histories and names—was his own grief, one that her voluble sadness allowed him to keep hidden.
It was only later that he wondered if it had been wrong to let her bear the mockery for what he, too, felt. He supposed that he had been punished for it: In the end, she had been the one to tell him that it was time to grow up.
“I wondered where you were,” Conor said, “when I got back.”
Kel hesitated, but only for a moment. He had not meant to keep the night’s activities a secret, but he had no choice now.I went to see Fausten, disguised as you, and he said I would betray you. That I would take something important from you and you would hate me.
Perhaps Conor would laugh it off. In fact, it was most likely he would, but he often laughed off exactly what bothered him the most. Fausten’s words were already eating at Kel like acid. What would they do to Conor—especially now?
“I was walking around the grounds,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me into the Gallery.”
“Bensimon wouldn’t let anyone into the Gallery. Roverge triedto muscle his way in, but Jolivet had the Arrow Squadron march him out.”
“He won’t like that,” said Kel.
“Probably not.” Conor didn’t sound as if he cared one way or the other.
“Con,” Kel said softly. “Have you eaten? Had any water, at least?”
“There was food, I think,” Conor said, vaguely. “They brought us things. There was a great deal of wine, though Senex Domizio may have drunk most of it. He called me abuxiàrdo fiol d’un can,which I don’t think he would have done if he was sober. I’m fairly sure it means ‘lying fucker.’ ”
“Bastard,” Kel said, through his teeth. “You didn’t lie. You made a deal, and you stuck with the deal. They’re the liars—”
“Kellian,” Conor said. He rarely used Kel’s first name; he did it now with a sound in his voice that was like pain. “I know.”
“Is there no way out of this?” Kel asked.
“There is no way out of it. The Sarthians are firm. I agreed to marry a Princess of Aquila with the name Aimada; there is no provision that it had to be herfirstname.” Conor smiled a ghastly smile. “In the end, Anessa simply kept pointing out that this was a transaction, a marriage of kingdoms; there had never been any pretense that this was a love match. What does it matter in the end, she kept saying. And that should I accept Luisa, we would have the gratitude and alliance of Sarthe, whereas if I sent her back, we would have war.”
“They have been wanting war for some time,” said Kel. “Perhaps this is only an excuse to bring it.”
“Perhaps,” Conor said quietly. “I am not a very good prince of Castellane. I doubt I will be a good king, either. But I cannot deliberately bring war on my city. I suppose even I have my limits. Or perhaps I am only being selfish.” He rubbed at his forehead, where the crown he had worn all day had left a red mark behind. “If I had been more clever, perhaps I could have prevented what happened atthat dinner, with the Malgasi woman. But regardless, Anessa was there. She saw how far our house is from being in order.” He flicked his gaze to Kel. “If you ask me, that was the moment when Anessa hatched this plan. She did not want to give Aimada over to a household in chaos. She is their crown jewel. But Luisa—Luisa is worth less to her.”
Kel said nothing. There seemed nothing to say.
“I suppose at least there is one consolation,” said Conor. “It will be a long time before this is a real marriage of any sort. Ten years perhaps.” He smiled crookedly. “So you needn’t move out. Although I suppose if my father dies and you replace Jolivet, you could petition for your own quarters. Quite grand ones, I imagine.”
“I don’t care about my own grand quarters,” Kel said gruffly. It had been a long time since he had heard Conor sound so bleak.
He thought again of Antonetta, all those years ago. She had not wept for lost toys, he thought. She had wept for all the ways things were going to change, that she did not want to change.
He rose and went to sit by Conor, the cushions sinking under them, their shoulders bumping together. Conor hesitated a moment before leaning hard into him, letting Kel take his weight: the weight of his weariness, his despair. “The Charter Families are going to be furious,” Kel said.
He felt Conor shrug. “Let them be. They’ll learn to live with it. They know what’s good for them, in the end.”
Kel sighed. “I’d take your place in this, too, if I could.”
Conor leaned his head against Kel’s shoulder. His hair tickled the side of Kel’s neck; he was deadweight, like a sleeping child. “I know,” he said. “I know you would.”
—
The hours of Third Watch had come by the time Mayesh Bensimon returned to the Sault. Lin, sitting on her grandfather’s front porch, watched him trudge across the Kathot, head down, his hair white under the blue light of the moon.
He had not yet noticed she was there, she realized. He did not know anyone was watching him. Lin could not help but recall a night two years ago. It had been Third Watch, just as it was now, and she and Josit had been walking beside the southern wall, where it bordered the Ruta Magna and the clamor of Castellane outside. The sounds of the city had carried through the air: the rush of foot and wheel traffic on the roads, the cries of pushcart vendors, someone bellowing a drinking song.
They had both been startled to hear the creak of the iron gates—why were they opening, so late at night? They were even more startled a moment later when Mayesh strode through them, tall and thin in his gray Counselor’s robes. Lin thought that she had never seen her grandfather look so weary. His face had seemed to sink into harsh lines of grief and exhaustion as the gates closed behind him with a clamor that rang through the night.
