“Ahh. To be fair, it was heart-stoppingly delicious cake.”
“Wasn’t it? I think we should have a smaller one made for our anniversary every year.”
“Absolutely agreed. Come to think of it, we had a great deal of food left over. What happens with it?”
“Staff,” Edwin answered succinctly. “If there’s any leftovers after they’re done, I ordered them to be packed up and given to the poor.”
“Splendid. I want nothing going to waste. The thought occurred to me today while speaking with our guests that we’ll actually save money. Victor alone was a huge drain on finances because of his many screwups and vices, but Beatrice and all her many, many parties ate up a lot of the budget as well. With the two of them gone, we’ll be able to have a healthy budget that isn’t being spent on vanities.”
“Sounds excellent to me. We’ll have to revise the budget once we figure out how much.” He sank farther into the sofa. “Later. I have no brain power or will right now.”
“I share the feeling. It’s almost midnight, you know. We could go to bed?”
“I’ll finish my tea first—”
There was a firm knock on the door.
Both of us turned our heads to glare at the offending knock. How dare it. We had earned our respite, dammit.
I sat up and groused, “This had better be good. Enter!”
Destin, head of the royal spies, promptly entered, looking rather fit to be tied. On his heels was Stedman, who should have been home already after today’s events. I didn’t like seeing them together like this. It did not bode well.
Groaning, I let my head flop forward, feeling a new level of exhaustion hit. “Bad news first.”
“It’s all bad,” Stedman answered with a wince. “Frankly, I don’t know which is worse. Destin, you go first.”
Destin sucked in a breath. He was a thin man, reedy really, and he looked ready to let a wind carry him away so he didn’t have to deal with anything else tonight. “Your Majesties. Victor has gone missing.”
I stared at the man for a long second, rather hoping my ears had chosen this moment to not work properly. Unfortunately, they were in proper working order, as I heard Edwin mutter a weary curse.
“How does he go missing off a ship?” Edwin demanded. “I saw him board it!”
“He did board it, and reached his destination, but he’s not been seen since arriving at the house. I suspected he had immediately headed for some gambling hall or pub, because we all know what he’s like, but…I can’t find him. We spent two full days trying to locate him on foot and failed. I finally called in a local mage to do a seeking spell and even they couldn’t find him. He’s outside the search radius.”
The yawning pit of unease in my stomach started churning, and I almost swiped a gulp of Edwin’s tea. Victor was not a man of common sense, true, but he was also a creature of comfort and habit. He wouldn’t leave an area he knew his money was tied to, nor would he disappear without someone being the wiser. He wasn’t one to go quietly anywhere. “Are your people still looking?”
“They are, in an ever-broadening search.”
“Good, keep going until you find him. Hopefully he’s just sleeping in a ditch somewhere. Stedman, what’s your equally bad news?”
“Princess Valentina is also missing,” he admitted, grimacing. “We just received word from Ascor, asking when the princess was supposed to arrive. I messaged Lenville first, but he hasn’t been able to see the monarchs at all.”
“Still? It’s been a week already. With their own child missing, surely they’d be more eager for news! Also, how the hell did Valentina get lost when it’s a straight shot south? That’s not possible…” Logistics whirled in my head. Ascor wasn’t very far from us. It didn’t take a solid week via ship to arrive at their capital. I looked to Edwin.
“She boarded that ship,” he swore.
“Then she must have gotten off it, somehow.” I turned back to Stedman. “Did you confirm her ship’s arrival?”
“We’re in the process of that now. I say process because our initial inquiries were met with confusion.”
“So there’s odds it made a stop somewhere, for whatever reason, causing her delay in arriving?” A very brief light of hope flickered somewhere in the distance. Very brief, because the logistics started overlapping.
Victor was traveling south, his destination a city along the coastline.
Valentina was traveling south, along our coastline, to reach her country.
Granted, they were on two different ships, but…
