DYPIOOP Chapter 3

Actually, It's Fake

"For now, absolutely not."

Baron Cordon Devney's flat refusal drew a patient smile from Greythur as he tried again.

"Might I ask the reason?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?"

The baron leaned back against a threadbare sofa with practiced arrogance, lifting his chin as he spoke.

"Regrettably, our family lacks the means to provide a dowry."

"The House of Haelton has indicated they would assume all such costs."

"No, that's not quite the point."

Baron Devney shook his head with a put-upon air. At this, the baroness spoke in a tone of exquisite suffering.

"As you know, everyone in the Devney barony lives hand-to-mouth. Without Elonia, we simply have no one to replace her."

"Quite right. Our only son is at the academy—if he were to take over, he'd need at least five more years before graduating."

"And what's more, we've only just now learned she's a spirit mage. We simply cannot allow a marriage until then, at the very least."

Greythur's beleaguered gaze drifted briefly toward Elonia. He hadn't expected them to release her easily, but her parents were operating on an entirely different level of audacity. Even Nyx was floored.

[Wow. Do they actually want to pull this with their own daughter?]

Five years? She was already well past marriageable age. The notion that they couldn't possibly part with a daughter who'd long since had her coming-of-age ceremony—for five years—was quite beyond comprehension. Watching Greythur visibly depleted after three hours of this particular battle of wills, Elonia felt something uncomfortably close to shame creeping up her throat.

She was a person who knew what shame felt like. She'd never sold her pride, even when money was scarce—but with every word that tumbled from her parents' mouths, she found herself sinking lower and lower, unable to lift her head.

Beside her, Nyx, who had been listening in quiet indignation, scrunched his soft little cheek with a disgruntled look.

[What's the matter with you. Are you sick?]

She didn't have the mental space to answer him. After hovering around her with growing concern, Nyx scratched the back of his head and muttered, apparently deciding she was pitiful enough to warrant action.

[Ugh, now I'm going to worry about it.]

He hesitated, then reached out with one small hand and tapped the top of her head. His characteristic cool energy unfurled slowly through her entire body.

In the next moment, a scene began to take shape in her mind's eye.

She saw the faces of Baron and Baroness Devney, seated in this very room—but at a different time. They were reading the marriage proposal sent from the House of Haelton. Their conversation rang through her head, a little rough at the edges, like a distant echo.

"This looks like Haelton's asking for a marriage the moment she walks out of Metika."

"Is she actually a genuine spirit mage? Heavens, dear. What did you say spirit mage salaries were?"

Baron Devney's eyes gleamed with barely-contained avarice. His voice rang with pure glee.

"At least ten thousand gold, surely? The first spirit mage in how many years—she ought to command at least that much!"

"We can't wait. I need new dresses commissioned immediately. The imperial court will be calling for us constantly from now on."

"Ha! Let's do that! That snob Viscount Mosen was just sneering at us a few days ago because he'd made a bit of money in trade. Oh, won't he be green with envy!"

"Let me do the calculations, dear. First, we should buy a proper townhouse near the capital..."

In all of this, there was not a single word about Elonia's actual marriage. They hadn't even received official recognition yet, and already her parents were calculating her salary and precisely how they intended to spend it. To their minds, Elonia's money was their money—naturally theirs, to do with as they pleased.

She'd thought, at minimum, they might express some flicker of concern about the suddenness of it all. Or at least offer some hollow congratulations.

That, too, had been nothing but a fantasy on her part.

Right. They were never family.

Gradually, their joyful voices faded from her mind.

Elonia raised her head. Nyx's small face filled her vision. He said, with characteristic bluntness:

[I only showed you because I felt sorry for you. Don't read anything into it.]

So this was the power of a spirit mage she'd only ever heard about. After all the grief he'd put her through. She felt a faint, grudging warmth. But gratitude could wait.

Elonia looked at the baron and baroness—still shamelessly stalling in front of a visibly exhausted Greythur—and stood up. The conversation that had been carrying along perfectly well came to an abrupt halt. Her parents turned to her with serene expectation, as though she'd simply moved out of turn at a card table.

"The girl is like this, you see," the baroness said breezily. "She hasn't finished learning proper etiquette—if we sent her to the House of Haelton now, imagine the embarrassment in front of the servants."

"Quite right. We'd need to finish her bridal education here first!"

Whatever excuse presented itself. Elonia kept her voice soft and conversational.

"Father. I'm not actually a spirit mage."

"What?"

Both pairs of parental eyes snapped to her at once. Elonia continued, perfectly calm.

"I lied so I could be released from prison."

A silence settled over the Devney barony's shabby sitting room.

Then Baron Devney curved his lips into a crooked smirk.

"Elonia. You have quite a long way to go before you can fool your own father."

The baroness let out a short derisive laugh and gestured toward Greythur.

"And do you think the House of Haelton would bring you here—without verifying anything—and then proceed to marry you? That's simply not how they operate."

Click.

The door swung open before the words had even finished leaving her mouth.

Then a firm, decisive voice cut through the charged atmosphere, "It seems you're quite well-informed."

Elonia looked up. Carvel was striding in, expression set like stone. Greythur rose and dipped his head; Carvel lifted a hand to wave it off and walked directly to stand before Elonia.

"I wondered why the conversation was taking so long. Apparently some unnecessary wear and tear was being inflicted."

His cool gaze swept over Baron and Baroness Devney. Beside Elonia, Nyx dissolved silently into the air to hide—and Nyx had never voluntarily hidden from anyone. Carvel looked down at Baron Devney with an expression of magnificent condescension.

"So. How much."

It was less a question than a formality. The baron and baroness lit up like men who'd been waiting their whole lives for precisely this.

"How very in keeping with the duke's reputation—decisive! Though we really can't imagine why the girl would try to hide the fact that she's a genuine spirit mage. We've done our calculations: a spirit mage's annual salary comes to roughly ten thousand gold."

Five years at that rate meant fifty thousand gold at minimum—enough to purchase an estate considerably grander than the current Devney barony in the capital and still have funds left over.

But her parents, naturally, were not finished. The baroness's voice emerged without a trace of embarrassment.

"Fifty thousand for five years, then another fifty on top, since she'll be such an enormous help to Your Grace going forward. That should just about cover it."

"Done."

Elonia stared.

She had never once been ashamed of leaving without a dowry. She'd always assumed that was simply how it would go. But this—watching her parents haggle over her projected salary with cheerful precision, as though she were livestock at a particularly well-organized fair—was somehow more humiliating than anything she'd endured at her trial.

She drew a long breath and grabbed Carvel's arm.

"Carvel, please don't waste money on this. The fact that I'm a fake spirit mage is going to come out eventually."

"That sounds more like nonsense to me."

"That's quite enough, my sweet little honeybee."

The familiarity in her tone produced a barely-perceptible twitch across Carvel's face. He looked at her slowly.

"...Honeybee?"

If he wasn't going to take the hint, she'd need to be more direct. He had been the one to make her look abandoned, after all. Keeping her grip firmly on his arm, Elonia smiled apologetically at her parents.

"The thing is—he loves me so much that covering up my crimes wasn't enough, and now he's throwing unnecessary money at things too, and I simply cannot stand by and watch anymore. Father, Mother. I am, in fact, a fake."

The moment she finished speaking, the glow of barely-suppressed delight—and the faint fever of anticipated wealth—drained from her parents' faces with startling speed. Baron Devney's expression twisted into something unpleasant as he raised his voice.

"I always knew you had no manners, but to deceive us like this! Your mother was already telling me—you've been hiding money? What were you saving it for?"

"That was intended to be my dowry."

"The House of Haelton will be hearing about this. Here we all are, barely scraping by with one meal a day, and you thought it appropriate to squirrel money away? A girl with no loyalty to her family, and they want to make her a duchess? The dogs in the street would laugh!"

"I suppose..." Elonia looked up at Carvel with an expression of forlorn resignation. "I really am someone who doesn't belong at the House of Haelton?"

His face remained expressionless, looking down at her with steady neutrality.

It would be nice if he'd play along even a little. Unimaginative man. She nudged him in the side with her elbow and murmured:

"Nothing to be done about it, then. I suppose I'll simply be in a relationship with him instead of marrying."

"Wha—what?!"

Elonia smoothed the front of his impeccably pressed jacket with one hand and continued breezily.

"I mean, think about it. Leaving without a dowry already feels awkward, and if someone as difficult as me ends up harming the ducal house—what then? And if it ever comes out that I'm a fake, Carvel will be in an impossible position too."

She watched her parents' faces go gray and allowed herself a small, private cheer.

If Elonia were ever formally unmasked as a fraud while still bearing the Devney name, everyone who shared that name became complicit by association. Her parents knew this perfectly well. The color returned to neither face. They glanced at Carvel—still standing there in absolute silence—trying to gauge whether any of this was true.

She was beginning to feel mildly awkward, pressed against a man who was contributing precisely nothing to this theatre, and was about to step away when a firm grip caught her.

"That won't happen, Elonia."

Before she'd even registered the voice, a solid arm had wrapped around her waist and pulled her in, holding as though it had no intention of letting go.

"Marriage is merely a formality. I only need you."

She hadn't known he could use that voice.

Low, warm, settling against her face like something soft. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath. The arm at her waist was a firm and impossible-to-ignore presence, and where his hand rested, her skin prickled with something that was absolutely not a chill.

From across the room, Baron Devney's voice cut into the moment.

"So you're really telling us... that you're a fake spirit mage?"

Elonia pressed both hands against Carvel's chest and pushed. She rubbed the goosebumps off her arm with a brisk hand and turned to face her parents.

"Yes. I think Father was right, actually. If I'm going to be a liability to the ducal house, it would be better to call off the marriage entirely."

"A fake! Then how on earth did you get out of prison?"

"As the duke's fiancée. The House of Haelton provided the surety. Thanks to that, I've been officially recognized as a genuine spirit mage—but if anyone found out the truth..."

There'd be no avoiding a life sentence.

She let it trail off with deliberate softness.

If it ever emerged that Elonia had secured her fraudulent release while still bearing the Devney name, every person carrying that name became a criminal by association. Her parents were not unaware of this. The fire in their eyes dimmed slowly as they worked through the arithmetic.

Elonia let her voice go gentle and tired.

"Since it'll inevitably come to light that I'm a fake—I suppose at that point it would only be right for Father and Mother, and Erics at the academy, to come to Metika Prison together. As a family. It would be terribly cozy."

"The whole... family..."

"Yes. Together, just like you always wanted."

Baron Devney's eyes shifted back and forth for a moment as he weighed his options. Then he cleared his throat with great dignity and straightened in his chair.

"Ahem. Well. That isn't quite what I meant. Elonia, I was only worried about how people might look at you—"

"Oh, it's fine. If we're just going to be together rather than married—"

"What are you talking about! If I'd known you two were so devoted to each other, I'd have agreed immediately. Wouldn't I, dear?"

He turned to the baroness with a warm and utterly seamless smile before Elonia had even finished speaking. From her mother came precisely the answer she'd anticipated.