Innes did up his shirt and cravat, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I am expected elsewhere, but I am certain I’ll hear your guests’ prayers tonight.”
Eimarille and Terilyn curtsied as Innes left, while Kote held a salute with straight-shouldered precision. The door clicked shut behind the Twilight Star, and Eimarille let out a slow breath, the heavy presence of a star god fading from the room. Terilyn touched a hand to her elbow, and Eimarille glanced at her lover.
“Come, let us prepare for tonight,” Terilyn said.
Kote left with a quiet goodbye, leaving them in the care of the servants who had traveled with them over the last week. Eimarille didn’t mind, for Terilyn stayed by her side, and she would never tire of such company.
Three
MELVIN
Melvin Khaur, a member of the Khaur bloodline, albeit a cadet branch, strode down the ground-floor hallway in the eastern wing of his family’s Istal estate. Servants darted about, tending to the last-minute decorating and setup that always occurred when a ball was held in his bloodline’s estate. Occasionally, he was stopped on his way to the stairs at the end of the hallway, and Melvin made himself available to whatever servant needed guidance. Guests were set to arrive shortly, and Melvin well knew how frantic his chamberlain and servants got at a time like this.
The Istal estate was his and his husband’s home, given to them by his uncle. They oversaw those in the bloodline who worked out of the frontier city, which weren’t all that many. Most of his prominent cousins resided in New Haven or Helia, working in politics or for the bloodline’s many casinos. The rest were scattered across Daijal, calling the major cities and larger towns home, creating a web of information that was easily explained away by familial presence and visits.
Their bloodline’s wealth came from gambling, which made keeping up so many properties possible. They paid their taxes on time and in full, and despite their own personal misgivings, those with a seat in the Daijal parliament voted with the majority most of the time unless it directly affected their bottom line. They tried to never use debt slaves if they could help it, but sometimes such horror was required to keep up the façade of a loyal bloodline.
In all, the Khaur bloodline was a bloodline in good standing through exceptional effort.
Istal allowed no casinos within its walls, but his husband’s wind-up toy company was a perfect excuse for them to stay in the city. That it also doubled as a means to aid debt slaves through the Clockwork Brigade was a secondary perk. While his uncle might be Lord Khaur and head of the bloodline, Melvin had held the title of Marshal within the Clockwork Brigade for almost two decades, overseeing chains of cogs for Fulcrum.
The Khaur bloodline had distant ties to the Auclair bloodline, a connection he prayed to the North Star that Queen Eimarille Rourke would never uncover. When Daijal had split from Ashion after the civil war, the Star Order’s genealogies had also been cleaved. Daijal records might no longer indicate his bloodline’s distant past, but there was no guarantee the Ashion records had done the same.
Still, the Khaur bloodline had made a point of aligning itself with the Daijal court, even as it undermined the old Iverson bloodline’s power over the years. These days, with Eimarille wearing the crown, Melvin couldn’t find it in himself to be pleased that a Rourke ruled once again, not when the result was a grinding war out east that threatened everyone across the continent, whether they wanted to believe so or not.
Melvin let such thoughts slide away as he took the stairs up to the second floor of the estate and then the third. The rooms on that floor were private, meant for the family’s use alone, and none of the decorations from below had made their way above. The walls only held portraits of his ancestors and artwork of distant cities, and the private office Melvin favored only held his husband.
Ezra looked up at his arrival, the gas lamps burning brightly on the desk and wall sconces casting a shine to his blond hair. He smiled at Melvin’s arrival, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. Even after all these years, Melvin never got tired of being greeted with a kiss from his husband.
“You look harried,” Ezra murmured against his lips.
“I am glad no one else in the family could make it in time for the ball,” Melvin admitted.
A strong arm wrapped around his waist, pulling him close against his husband’s side. Ezra set the telegram he’d been reading down on the desk to hold him more tightly. Melvin glanced at it, noting that the missive was from his uncle and completely innocuous. It wasn’t even in code, merely plain language, giving them authority to act in his place when the queen was present.
Ezra pressed his lips against the shell of Melvin’s ear, voice barely louder than a whisper. “Have faith, my love. We will see the dawn.”
Melvin closed his eyes, taking in a steadying breath. It was a risk to speak of such things in a home where Blades walked. The Star Order’s never-acknowledged assassins had shown up midweek with soldiers wearing uniforms of the guards typically on duty at the palace in New Haven. Melvin had no recourse but to allow them entry and give them the run of the estate.
He and Ezra kept no security—magical or otherwise—in the office they shared save for a regular lock. To have anything more than that within the estate was to invite questions they could ill afford. Most of their communications with the cogs in the chains they were responsible for came through dead drops and veiled conversation out in public. If Melvin had learned anything from his uncle since taking up the mantle of Marshal, it was how to keep secrets.
They had a reputation as indulgent nobility, with a philanthropic focus on mechanical engineers and a business that focused on children. He and Ezra made it a point to be as careful as possible with how they acted in public to shield themselves and the rest of the bloodline from the actions they took on behalf of the Clockwork Brigade. But for all their carefulness, everyone’s secrets were being found out.
The death of Lord Felipe Beltre in Haighmoor had spread like wildfire in the nobility’s private parlors and public broadsheets across two countries within the span of a day. The accusations levied against him—of being a cog, of colluding with the Clockwork Brigade and the Ashion rebellion—had been a guilty verdict issued by Eimarille and not a court, the execution rumored to have been carried out by the only lady-in-waiting to never leave her side.
However Eimarille had come into possession of the identities of cogs, a full cascade failure of the entire Clockwork Brigade had yet to occur. Melvin and Fulcrum had worked fanatically to pick apart the chains at issue, trying to salvage who they could amidst the growing war. But Eimarille’s actions of late proved they couldn’t shield everyone.
Perhaps not even themselves.
It was why, as soon as the courier had arrived with their military escort and the queen’s expectations and a list of invitees, Melvin had only ever been agreeable to everything requested. He’d put on a show of calm pride despite the logistical nightmare of throwing a ball worthy of the Daijalan queen with only a few days’ notice.
That had been enough of a reason to call his uncle, and if, in the course of the conversation, he slipped in a code for the rest of the family tostay away, well, no one would know. He hoped, if asked, that Eimarille would accept the excuse of being greeted not by Lord Khaur himself but by a favored nephew and not consider it a slight.
Ezra pulled back a little, letting his hands move to grip Melvin’s waist. The expensive blue fabric of his evening coattails brought out the color of his eyes, the fondness in his gaze as familiar as breathing. “Let’s get downstairs before the guests arrive. If we aren’t in the receiving line before the first knock, we’ll never live it down.”
Melvin snorted. “Of course not.”
Tonight’s ball had most certainly not been on their schedule, neither their public nor private ones. It had necessitated pushing back several business meetings and one very important clandestine one dealing with the abhorrent prisoners of war camp that had cropped up a mile away beyond Istal’s outer wall.
