“I’ll cover for you. I can’t go back inside yet. If I have to suffer through one more conversation about how Father and his family died or why Thad is too young to take the throne, I’m going to forget how to be diplomatic.” Ari took another bite of crepe.
“I doubt Thad would like that very much,” Cleo said as she set her tray of wine down and stretched her back.
“What wouldn’t I like?” Thad had left the ballroom and joined them. His black cravat was still perfectly tied, his dress coat impeccably smooth, but he looked haggard. As though a bone-deep weariness was consuming him. Maybe this was what being king did to a person.
Or maybe, like Ari, his night had been filled with people speculating about his ability to rule Súndraille and the possibility that the royal family’s death had been a convenient way for Thad to come into power.
“I was saying that you wouldn’t like Ari to forget how to be diplomatic, Your Highness.” Cleo lifted her hair from the back of her neck and turned toward the sea breeze.
“You don’t have to start calling me Your Highness simply because I’m king now.” Thad pressed his fingers to his forehead as if he had a headache and then looked at his sister. “And we really do need you to keep being diplomatic, though I’d love a front-row seat to you putting a few people in their place.”
“Point me in the right direction,” Ari said, and was rewarded with a weary smile.
“Things will settle.” Thad sounded cautious. “Once people see that I can work with the Assembly and that I can take a strong stand against the violence and crime that seem to be spreading out of the slums and into the city proper.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” A short, immaculately dressed man with pale skin, auburn hair, and unnerving golden eyes stepped out of the garden and into the light of the lanterns.
Thad sucked in a sharp breath. His voice shook as he asked, “What are you doing here? You weren’t invited.”
The man smiled, slow and cruel, and Ari shivered.
In a voice like polished marble, he said, “Come now, dear boy. Did you really think something as inconsequential as a guest list could keep me away?”
Ari stared at the man, and then looked up at Thad’s face.
Her brother’s lips were set in a thin line, and anger—for the first time since the night their mother had been killed by the queen’s hunter—lit his eyes. Without looking at her, he said quietly, “Ari, Cleo, go back to the ballroom.”
“I don’t think I should.” Ari moved to stand by Thad while Cleo took a tiny step back toward the ballroom door, torn between obeying her king and staying with her best friend.
The princess faced the man in front of them. He barely came up to her shoulder, and his clothing suggested nobility of some kind; but the cold, calculating look in his eyes reminded Ari of the man she’d once seen the palace guards haul into her father’s throne room on charges of attempting to assassinate the queen.
“Go.” Thad spoke through gritted teeth.
Right. Because ordering his sister to do something she didn’t want to do had worked so well for him in the past. Besides, she was done with Thad’s subjects questioning his abilities and his right to the throne.
She met the man’s gaze. “You aren’t on the guest list. Leave at once, or I will call the guards to deal with you.”
The man cocked his head to stare at her, and Ari clenched her fists to control the tremble that shuddered through her. She felt like a helpless mouse pinned beneath the claws of a ravenous cat.
“She’s of no interest to you,” Thad said sharply. “And you have no reason to be here.”
“Ah, but I do like to check in on my debtors.” The man turned his gaze back to Thad. “Especially when he owes me so much.”
Thad was the king of Súndraille. He didn’t owe anyone, and Ari had had enough of this man with his cold eyes and his creepy smile.
“Guards!” she called sharply.
Two uniformed guards who were standing just inside the ballroom door pivoted toward her voice. The man in front of her snapped his fingers, and the door separating the garden from the ballroom slammed shut. The guards pounded on the door, but it refused to open.
“What have you done?” She meant her words to sound commanding, but there was a tremor in her voice. Cleo mumbled prayers to the stars and hugged her arms across her body as Thad stepped in front of the girls, his broad shoulders nearly eclipsing Ari’s view of the man.
What kind of man could shut a door with the snap of his fingers? He couldn’t be from Morcant, because only the females of royal lineage had magic there. He couldn’t be from Vallé de Lumé, because it was a sorceress, not a wizard, who controlled the land.
That meant he had to be fae.
And that meant Thad was in way over his head.
Thad took another step toward the man. “Open that door and leave us be. We’ve settled our terms. I owe you nothing for the next nine years and eleven months.”
Ari stared at Thad, her mind racing to make sense of his words and coming up empty. The panic she’d felt in the ballroom earlier snaked through her veins again, sending her heart racing. What was going on?
The man smiled. “Didn’t read the fine print, did you?”
Thad froze.
“Why do you think I wanted a king in my debt?”
Thad glanced at Ari, his gaze haunted.
The man closed the distance between them. “The fine print, my boy, says that you are to do nothing to impede my business in your kingdom. You cannot interfere with my activities. This is simply a courtesy visit to let you know that there will be a little trouble at the docks tomorrow morning, and that you are to order the city guard to stand down. In fact, stand them down in the merchant district as well. Not just tomorrow, but for the foreseeable future.”
Ari glared at the man while her heart pounded. She didn’t know what kind of business he had in Súndraille, but if he didn’t want Thad’s interference, it was likely he was part of the growing wave of crime and violence Thad’s new subjects desperately wanted him to end.
“And if I don’t?” Thad’s voice was full of the kind of bravado he used when he knew he’d been beaten but was refusing to admit it.
The man’s smile winked out. “Then you will pay your debt in full. Immediately. And nobody survives that.”
Thad’s shoulders bowed, and the man snapped his fingers again. The door flew open, and the guards tumbled out, but the man turned and disappeared into the darkness.
“We should go back inside,” Thad said quietly. “People must be looking for us by now.”
Ari dug in her heels and pulled him to a stop when he tried to move toward the ballroom. “That’s it? No explanation for the creepy little man with the debt he’s holding over your head?”
“No.”