did hope this wouldn’t affect our relationship. I did hope he could pull through his misgivings. Things would be so awful—so awfully boring—without him. “I plan on using this,” I continued, and held up a particularly sharp hairpin.
“Sometimes…” Alcibiades muttered, but he didn’t finish his sentence.
We met Josette and Temur in the gardens the next morning, at what was still left of the menagerie that had once been the greatest in the land.
“… so you see,” Temur was explaining to Josette, “that when the one raid came that close to the palace, the glass was shattered, and there was chaos in the streets as the rarest white tigers, lions long caged, elephants tossed into a frenzy of fear for their young, and even peacocks desperate to escape the flames, ran out into the streets.”
“I hear that the younger prince was caught in that terrible tragedy,” Josette said, ever the perfect diplomat.
“Ah,” Lord Temur replied, with a reticence I understood. Then, noticing me and my companion, he turned and bowed stiffly in greeting. “I see that we are blessed with company.”
“You know him,” Alcibiades grunted out. “Always has to be where the party is.”
“I just love peacocks,” I added, playing along. At least, that was what I thought I was doing. One could never tell when Alcibiades was being ingenious or merely surly.
“There are many here who, given the opportunity, would gladly donate a peacock to your cause,” Lord Temur said. He was always so flattering—a real gentleman. It was a pity that I did have to use subterfuge on a man so honorable, but I was not as tangled in my morals as some. Much like those peacocks, I did not enjoy being kept in a cage when the fire was near. Much like those peacocks, I would have done anything within my ostentatious nature to escape with my life.
“Oh dear,” I said, the hairpin spilling from my sleeve and clattering upon the blue-tiled walkway beneath me. “I seem to have dropped my—Oh, that is most kind of you, Lord Temur, you really shouldn’t!”
It was the sharpest hairpin I could find, sharpened yet further. Personally, I was quite proud of my handiwork, and I was certain that even Lord Temur could have appreciated the time and effort I’d put into the piece. He leaned down deftly, with all the honor bound up tight as coils within him, to retrieve my bauble, and when he pricked his thumb, I didn’t even see him flinch.
Ke-Han warriors were a fascinating study. I wished that I could spend the rest of my life among them—but then, Alcibiades would never have approved of that. All he wanted to do was go home to dear, sweet Yana. To each his own, no matter how banal.
“Oh my,” I said, as the pin was returned to me. “You seem to have pricked yourself. I do feel awful about that.” My fingers, small and white, slipped against his, which were long and dark and callused from a lifetime of the sword. The Ke-Han army was also comprised of skilled archers, madmen with the longbow, and Lord Temur was no peacock himself—not an ornamental piece, like so many at Thremedon or the surrounding countryside, but the real blade, meant for combat. “Come here, Josette,” I continued, as Alcibiades loomed like a disapproving shadow just beside me, curious despite himself. “You must come help me with Lord Temur’s wound!”
I did hope I wouldn’t let anyone down.
“It is nothing, Lord Greylace,” Lord Temur said, and I could tell that he was amused at the fuss I was making. Yes, I wished to agree, the diplomats from Volstov are so very particular when it comes to the little things, like an accidental scratch, or being kept prisoner. “You make a mountain out of a—what is your phrase?”
“Molehill,” Alcibiades supplied softly.
Temur’s blood, a mere drop, stained my fingertips. It was all the closeness I needed to begin, and when I caught his eyes, they stilled immediately. They were a very deep brown, and not black at all, as I first assumed.
Somewhere deep in the menagerie a bird cawed. Animals always knew more than men when something was not right.
“Lord Temur,” I said softly. “I have a few simple questions to ask of you.”
Temur blinked once, twice, three times, sensing danger himself, but every movement was as slow as if it had been first passed through a jar of honey. “Greylace,” he said, slowly.
“Is that it?” I heard Alcibiades hiss to Josette, and then, “Ow,”