“I will have a glass.”
She squeezed his hand. “Let me see what I can do so Mother doesn’t pester you too much.”
Aramia left to fetch the punch herself. By the time she returned, Alectus and Lady Callista had found Titus. Aramia, true to her word, drew her mother away on the pretense of something that needed the latter’s attention.
Alectus by himself was easier to take. With the enthusiasm of an overgrown child, he recounted the epic quest that had been his search for a new overrobe, entailing five emergency fittings in the past two days.
Titus listened to him prattle as he pretended to drink Aramia’s ice-cold punch. He did not distrust Aramia, but one never knew what Lady Callista might be up to.
“Have a glass of Aramia’s punch,” he said to Alectus. “It will quite restore you.”
“Ah, you like it then?” said Alectus.
“I do. And why do you look so surprised?”
Alectus laughed awkwardly. “Well, it is just that Your Highness does not like very many things.”
“Yes, the burden of having been born with exquisite taste.”
“I believe that is indeed the c—”
“Stop that! No, not you, Alectus, you may carry on. I am speaking to my bird.”
Fairfax had been acting strange. Pecking on his shoulders, chirping directly into his ears, and just now, taking a sharp snip at his neck.
“Perhaps Miss Buttercup is hungry?” Alectus suggested.
It had been a while since Fairfax ate, and there was a great deal of food being passed around. Titus took out a wrapped biscuit from inside his robe—he did not trust Lady Callista’s food either—and held it up to Fairfax.
She pecked his hand—hard enough to hurt.
“What the—”
“Oh dear, I do believe that is the Inquisitor arriving,” said Alectus breathlessly. “She said she might make an appearance, but I had not quite believed it. She socializes so rarely, Madam Inquisitor.”
Titus turned cold. He had thought he would have a little more time.
The Inquisitor’s chariot was plain black, unadorned except for the whirlpool emblem of Atlantis. The Inquisitor herself was also in black, her hair sleeked back into a knot at the top of her head.
She looked like death walking.
“If you will excuse me, Your Highness,” said Alectus, and rushed off to personally welcome the Inquisitor.
Aramia came back to his side. “I shouldn’t say this, but she gives me the jitters.”
“I am surprised your mother tolerates her. She would have disowned you if you went anywhere in such an ugly overrobe.”
Aramia chuckled softly. “Unfortunately, Uncle Alectus is very fond of the Inquisitor. Mother says the Inquisitor is the one woman Uncle Alectus would choose over her, so she has no choice but to be very convivial.”
Indeed Lady Callista smiled most graciously as she greeted the Inquisitor. As the Inquisitor began to walk up the steps from the landing platform, Alectus hovered about her, like a child stalking an unopened present, entirely unashamed of his devotion.
The Inquisitor came directly at Titus, cutting a swath through the assembly. Nearly half of the guests bowed.
Aramia frowned. “Don’t they know what they are doing? They are bowing down to a foreign power.”
“It is practical,” said Titus. “In their shoes, I might do the same.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She had such a rosy view of him; it almost made him want to be a better person.
The Inquisitor was now before him. She bowed stiffly. Titus returned an equally rigid nod.
“Madam Inquisitor.”
“Good evening, Your Highness.”
“Have you met Miss Aramia Tiberius?”
“I have already had that pleasure. Now, Miss Tiberius, I would like a word with His Highness.”
“Of course, Madam Inquisitor. May I offer you a drink before I go?”
“That will be quite unnecessary.”
Aramia pursed her lips and left.
For a supposed diplomat, your talent for diplomacy is abysmal, Madam Inquisitor.
Titus did not give in to the impulse: right before a private interview was no time to antagonize the Inquisitor.
“Lady Callista has arranged a room here where we may have privacy,” said the Inquisitor.
“Good. We shall need it when we return.”
“Return?”
“Was it not you yourself who said that representatives of my government are welcome to inspect my subjects currently held at the Inquisitory?”
“Surely that can be arranged l—”
“I am a perfectly adequate representative of my government. And I am ready to see them now.”
Behind the Inquisitor, Alectus all but trembled at Titus’s interruption. The Inquisitor said coldly, “Now is not quite the time.”
Before the menace in her eyes, Titus wanted to quail as Alectus did. “Any time, you said,” he forced himself to speak. “And you have already inconvenienced me greatly with your demands upon my time.”
“You are young and headstrong, Your Highness, and your demands ill-considered. Let us have no more of this foolishness.”
Any sane person would have backed away. But he had no choice. The blood oath bound him to do his utmost. And utmost, of course, was synonymous with suicidal.
“I see I should have expected someone of your particular . . . background to display such untrustworthiness.” The Inquisitor’s teeth clenched at Titus’s reference to her forger parents. “I have correspondingly changed my mind about speaking to you in private.”
He walked away and approached a trio of young beauty witches. “I see all the most beautiful women present tonight are already acquainted with one another.”
The three beauty witches exchanged looks among themselves. The apparent leader of the group smiled at Titus. “You are a very handsome stranger, sir. But we really are after the prince.”
“That conceited prick? You are lucky he is too full of himself to notice you. Can you imagine the absolute bore he would be?”
“I wouldn’t know about that, but you, Your H—I mean, sir, are anything but a bore.”
He lifted a curl of her dark hair, feeling nothing of its texture, aware only of the force of the Inquisitor’s anger, like needles upon his back. “Let me guess, your name is Aphrodite, after the goddess of love.”
She laughed softly. “Excellent guess, sir, but it’s Alcyone.”
“A celestial nymph, I like that.” He turned to one of her friends. “And you must be a Helen, the one mortal woman as beautiful as any goddess.”
“Alas, I’m only a Rhea.”
“Daughter of Earth and Sky, even better. And you,” he said to the third beauty witch, “a Persephone who so overwhelms a god with desire that he is driven to abduction.”
All the girls laughed. “That is indeed her name,” said Alcyone. “Well done, sir.”
“I am never wrong in these matters.”
“May I ask, sir,” ventured Persephone, “why do you have a canary with you?”
“Miss Buttercup? She is an exceptional judge of character. Has she made a peep since you welcomed me into your group?”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“Then you have her approval. Ah, I see from Miss Alcyone’s expression that she sees a gorgon. Now watch, Miss Buttercup is turning around. She will lay eyes on the gorgon, and she will express her disapproval.”
Fairfax issued a series of furious peeps. Was she warning him that he had gone too far?
“Your Highness,” said the Inquisitor directly behind him.
Her tone. His stomach roiled—she was livid.
The beauty witches all curtsied. He did not turn around. “I trust you can see I am busy, Madam Inquisitor.”
“I have changed my mind. Shall we to the Inquisitory?”
It was the last place he wanted to go. He hoped Fairfax was happy.
“My apologies, ladies,” he said to the beauty witches. “I must desert you for a short time. I hope you are not leaving immediately.”
He did not hear what they said in return.
It was time for his first Inquisition.
CHAPTER
BEING A BIRD GAVE IOLANTHE the freedom to look anywhere she liked. What she found out was that everyone watched them. Him.