DYPIOOP Chapter 10

A New Guest

The terrace was two floors up, requiring a slight lift of her chin. Unlike his usual precisely buttoned attire, Carvel was dressed simply—apparently he'd stepped out briefly before bed. A loosely open shirt, hair mildly disheveled, both stirring in the faint night air. Through the loose strands, the clean line of his jaw and the straight bridge of his nose caught the moonlight in stark, particular relief. He looked, strangely, less dangerous than usual. She'd half assumed someone so devoted to clear logic and precise order would sleep in a tied cravat—apparently he was human after all.

Even so, his upright posture and imperious gaze were entirely intact. Heavy-lidded eyes watched her with languid attention. Alone in the garden with nothing between them and that gaze fixed only on her, she could feel it on her skin.

Elonia cleared her throat and asked with a touch of awkwardness:

"Why are you staring like that? Am I too pretty in the moonlight?"

"You have enough composure for jokes. I see."

Carvel smiled with half-closed eyes.

"I suppose extending your lessons wouldn't go amiss."

"What a dreadful thing to say."

"It wasn't a joke."

He was leaning against the pillar, saying terrible things with complete serenity. The image overlapped briefly with the young Carvel from the Nymph's vision. Elonia squinted up at him.

"I thought you'd grown more brazen with age."

"You say that as though you've seen me as a child."

"At least children are a little cute. You've grown up and become insufferable."

It carried somewhat in the quiet garden. Carvel's sharp eyes narrowed. Sensing an opening while his attention was on her, Elonia answered without hesitation:

"A spirit showed it to me. You in the garden with the previous Duke."

Surely this counted as proper spirit mage evidence. No one had shown young Carvel to Elonia—it was genuinely impossible to know without a spirit's help. But Carvel let out a small, dismissive laugh.

"Very convincing. So this is what the training has been accomplishing."

"No, I actually saw it through a spirit—"

"Someone must have told you. The entire estate is overrun with maids trying to make a good impression on you."

What he was implying—the interminable 'prospective duchess with a heart vast as the ocean' chorus she'd been subjected to all day—required no further explanation. Elonia answered flatly:

"I've heard more than enough of that today, thank you. I am not particularly vast."

"I agree."

Hmm. Insufferable as ever. But she was used to it now, which took the edge off. Right—ignore it. Ignoring was the answer. When she offered nothing in return, Carvel rested his arms on the terrace railing. He leaned forward to look down at her, the moonlight carving his face into sharp light and shadow. Annoying as it was to admit, the simple clothes suited him considerably better than his usual armor of tailoring. During the day, every glance at him produced the same face, the same expression—stamped from a mold, she'd always thought, which she'd found irritating in a way she couldn't quite explain. Unlike the daytime version, his arrogant eyes now held a trace of faint amusement.

"You were quite good."

Elonia squared her shoulders with smug satisfaction. "I know. I have some talent."

"The dancing. I'm almost looking forward to the banquet."

She stopped.

Her dancing was atrocious—she'd never learned before. She didn't seem to be entirely hopeless with her body; she'd been picking things up tolerably well, and Miss Melton had declared with great enthusiasm that in no time Elonia would be overturning the social world entirely. But inexperience couldn't be concealed. Of all the subjects she'd been studying, dancing lagged behind everything else. She was improving, but nowhere near the standard that would prompt Carvel—who handed out compliments with the generosity of a man counting his last coins—to say so directly.

"...You're mocking me."

"Yes."

He answered without a pause. She exhaled slowly. Of course—she'd thought it far too easy when he praised her. Elonia looked up at him and smiled sweetly:

"Look forward to the future, then. I intend to save the first dance—pointedly away from you—to debut the secret technique Miss Melton taught me."

She'd called it an ex-lover's dance, but the repulsion principle was the same either way.

"I'll look forward to it."

Carvel appeared entirely unbothered. Her exhausted body had been running on fumes for the last hour; indignation had apparently filled the tank. So this is what people mean by motivation.

"Then I'll take my leave. I have a great deal to memorize."

Elonia turned away with deliberate flair and walked in quick, light steps toward the estate. Behind her, Carvel's quiet voice followed through the still air:

"Your hair—it's prettier down."

For a moment the crickets seemed to fall entirely silent. She turned, and Carvel was simply there against the railing—still as a painting, gray eyes meeting hers directly. The moonlight seemed to catch in them.

"Pinned up isn't bad—but if I had to choose."

He finished the sentence and straightened from the railing without ceremony. Turned his back. No further comment. Only then did she realize she'd pinned her hair during the practice session with Miss Melton. The cool night air moved over her face, and somehow—inexplicably—her face felt a degree or two warmer than it should.

One month of lessons. Elonia had decided, upon reflection, that the only way to describe herself was as a triumph of the human spirit. She held Nyx's face in both hands and announced with great solemnity, regarding her thoroughly battered, worn-through history book:

"I've been reborn, Nyx."

[Let go!]

"I'm done! I memorized everything! I did it!"

[Has she swung 180 degrees from all that memorizing?]

She'd nearly gone all the way around the bend, but had mercifully come back to herself. Elonia shook him back and forth with rattling enthusiasm; Nyx's plump cheeks quivered with affronted indignation. Sulking thoroughly, his face dissolved into the air—whoosh—and vanished.

Nothing, however, could touch Elonia's joy. It had been a difficult journey. She smoothed her hair back with deep, unironic satisfaction:

"Truly, when I picture that infuriating face, even passion I didn't have comes rushing—"

"That's not me, I'd hope."

"...?!"

Elonia whipped around. Carvel was standing in the doorway, watching her—she had absolutely no idea when he'd come in.

"Congratulations. I'm honored to be the first to hear the glad tidings of your completion."

"To be precise, you were eavesdropping."

"Once the reports come in, we'd end up here anyway."

Carvel strolled in without particular concern. His eyes slid briefly toward the corner of Elonia's room, where a remarkable quantity of gifts had accumulated. She didn't know how word had gotten out, but recently presents had been arriving in her name with increasing frequency—most from people whose faces she'd never seen, and since they clearly didn't know her name either, addressed simply to the prospective Duchess of Haelton. Amy's reaction every single time was predictably effusive:

"Everyone has clearly heard of the mistress! How could anyone encounter someone of such perfect character, disposition, and dignity and simply carry on as before!"

Her objectivity had departed some time ago. Uncomfortable with the sheer volume of it, Elonia had left the majority unopened. Carvel picked one up without ceremony and tore into it. A velvet-lined case emerged. Inside: a necklace that looked expensive by any reasonable measure.

"Someone went to considerable trouble."

He observed this with complete indifference, then held it out to her.

"Do you like it?"

"Well—it's not unpleasant."

"Throw it away."

Click—he snapped the case shut and tossed it onto the wrapping heap. Elonia stared at him in open dismay. She couldn't begin to guess what something like that would fetch if sold. And he wanted to simply discard it?

As she looked between him and the discarded case in silent outrage, Carvel produced another small case from his jacket.

'That looks familiar somehow...'

She was still puzzling over it when the lid opened—click—and then she understood.

"This is the ring you proposed with at Metika Prison."

"That's right. If you don't like it, I'll have a new one made."

"It looks expensive enough."

"At least more expensive than that necklace."

It was considerably smaller-looking, making the value impossible to gauge by appearance—until the thick-set diamond made its own position unmistakably clear. Carvel tilted the case toward her once more in quiet suggestion. When Elonia reluctantly accepted the ring, he said:

"The palace will be sending word soon."

"Already?"

"It's not early—it's long overdue."

Fair enough—how long had it been since she'd left Metika Prison? There was only so much mileage left in the health excuse. Carvel slid the ring onto her finger.

"This is the betrothal ring."

"Meaning—this is the ring exchanged when we pledged ourselves a year ago. Yes?"

"That's right."

The fabricated past was familiar territory by now. Satisfied with the answer, he smiled with practiced ease and continued:

"A guest is coming today. Conduct yourself appropriately."

So that's why he came to give it in person. One month—it had been exactly that long since she'd first arrived at Haelton Grand Estate. In all that time, she hadn't received a single visitor. Elonia thought of the suffocating Lyatico perfume and asked:

"Could this possibly be the person who visited on the day I arrived?"

"No. Someone else."

His mouth held its steady, pleasant curve as he said it. Evidently not a guest he was particularly welcoming.

Elonia crept through the garden carrying a plate of chocolate cake, glancing in every direction. She checked the dish left on the ground, confirmed no one was watching, and made the swap. The dish that had been sitting there held half-eaten cake.

"Not fond of fruit cake, it seems."

She'd been leaving cake out for the Nymph every day. Elonia herself had tired of chocolate cake weeks ago, so she occasionally varied it—strawberry tart, walnut pie—only to find these received with much less enthusiasm.

"Surprisingly particular tastes."

It had begun to feel remarkably like keeping a secret pet. Careful not to be discovered by the gardeners or other servants, she tucked the fresh plate behind a screen of branches and flowers, then quick-stepped out of the garden keeping her eyes open for witnesses. She'd been quietly diverting cake from the kitchen, which made getting caught inconvenient. The sorrows of a spirit mage who could not explain she was feeding her spirits were beyond verbal expression.

Exactly as at this very moment—the prospective duchess slipping out of a window while she'd sent Amy away on the pretense of wanting a nap, climbing down a rope. Elonia shook her head with mild disapproval at herself and made her way to the back of the estate where the rope hung.

"Nyx. Nyx."

Silence. In the quiet air, Elonia grumbled as she'd known she would and rolled her sleeves up.

"I can't exactly thrash something that small."

On occasion, when Nyx was in a cooperative mood, he'd pull the rope, which made climbing considerably easier. Today was evidently not that sort of day. She gripped the rope firmly, planted her feet against the carved stone wall, and began. Fortunately, the estate had numerous decorative patterns and motifs carved into its facade—enough footholds that with a bit of force she could essentially walk up the surface. Three floors was quite manageable. She was perhaps halfway up.

An inexplicable chill prickled at her back. Unable to resist, she stole a glance over her shoulder—

—and met a pair of blue eyes.

Brilliant platinum-blonde hair that caught the sunlight sharply enough to sting. A beautiful face—pretty felt more accurate than handsome. Yet beneath the beauty ran a faint, stubborn quality that reminded her, briefly, of someone she knew. Before she could finish the thought—

"Who might you be, climbing the walls of someone else's estate?"