"Another month or so," said Lucas. "Auggie's got more business to finish up on the continent, but he's also heartily tired of it all, so he'll be back to his snakes here soon enough."
"Does he have many others?" asked Alex, genuinely curious. He'd always liked snakes, but life with fairy cats wasn't likely to work well with a pet snake, too, so he'd given that dream up with few regrets when the cats arrived at the cottage.
"Oh, there's four more in the east wing where he's got a full suite," said Lucas. "None of those are deadly, thankfully, or the servants might have refused to deal with it. As it is, I'm the one who feeds this one." He nodded toward the beautiful viper lounging along its branch.
"I'll have to write to him about them," said Alex. "I'd love a visit to view them all, once he's back."
"He'd love that," said Lucas, excited and genuine in the way he'd always been, full of smiles and good cheer. "Hardly anyone actually likes them, but he's always adored his pets."
"I'll tell Nat to remind me," said Alex, pulling out his phone to text. Unlike a group of Alex's usual friends, the peerage weren't constantly on their phones, preferring to do their posturing in person.
Alex wasn't sure how he felt about it, but he did put his phone back away once he'd sent the text off.
Now that Lucas himself was in their little conversation group, more people made their way back over to them, rather than the brief stops and subtle shunning they'd had up until now.
Margot and Sylvia Knapweed drifted over, both of them in lovely afternoon frocks that contrasted subtly in pattern and colour, as they were dark and light contrast to one another. The married couple had a baronetcy, Snowdrop, and were known to be somewhat wild when given the opportunity, in the way of the peerage. Despite their feminine looks, they had very masculine hobbies, and would definitely hunt if the weather let up enough for one.
Alex would not.
"My dearest Baronets," said Lucas cheerfully. "How are you enjoying my fête?"
"It's a little quiet for our tastes," said Margot, the dark one with the sharp grin.
"I'm sure you knew that, though," said Sylvia, blonde and sultry with an amused air about her wry little smile.
"Well, this is just the opener," said Lucas. "But I do admit, my plans are more to my tastes than yours. There's going to be an artist to draw caricatures, and an illusionist to do some tricks later."
"No hunting?" asked Margot, looking sharper now.
Lucas glanced at the covered windows. "Weather is not really cooperating for that, I'm afraid, though there's some games and such to make up for it."
"Oh, games!" said Sylvia, somehow managing not to sound snarky about it. "Well, you always had good taste in card partners."
Her eyes cut to Geoff with a sly little look, but then the sunshine smile was back on her tastefully pink lips.
"There's always the option of sneaking back to our rooms," said Alex, tone full of suggestion for what one might do alone in one's rooms.
"We just have to remember that Lucas doesn't have magical overflow wards," said Julian, feigning innocence.
"Aren't you naughty," purred Sylvia. "Making magic in your rooms, hm?"
Alex had a brief moment of worry they'd mistaken his joke for a proposition, but then Sylvia's hand slid around her wife's waist and he relaxed. "Well, if one is otherwise unoccupied, why not?"
A server came by with a tray then, and the conversation paused for everyone to get canapés. Alex was already feeling hungry, this far from the Source and with his magical senses pinging uselessly off of the personal magics of a room full of people with the money for magical everything. He shamelessly took a handful of the treats, and Julian as well.
"I always forget how you can pack it away," said Whitby with a chuckle. "The two of you are both so lean now, it seems a contradiction."
The women looked interested, but Alex just shrugged. "Magic takes energy," he said, popping some kind of spinach puff in his mouth.
"Food gives energy," added Julian, nibbling a little more politely at his own treats.
"Enviable but unable to be copied," said Grover, who was gorgeously soft, just the right sort of sweet thing for a master-husband to care for, in Alex's opinion, anyway.
"You're fine as you are," said Alex.
"I agree," said Whitby, only a little sharp. "I like my darling consort a little soft around the edges."
"Alex finally has a little meat on his bones, now that we're out by the Way," said Julian, clearly talking just to his friends now.
