Chapter Eleven #6
How frail he looks, Scarlett noted, once she could see the butler in the light of the chandelier. A wraith of the young man we took in years ago.
“Madame.”
Silvio’s velvet voice called her to attention.
She stepped closer and smoothed her palm over the fabric of her dress, waiting.
She had assumed that the visit would be brief, having left her chambers without changing out of her simple silk dress in Tyrian purple.
Scarlett liked the feel of it and the few flowers embroidered along the front.
Ingenuar had bought it to her not long ago—it had been his favourite among the many in her wardrobe, and Scarlett carried fond memories wearing it.
The silk sash that helped keep the dress tightly wrapped around her waist, now suffocated and irritated her despite the lightness of the fabric.
The hem was too long; it restricted her movements.
“Over the centuries, your maker summoned me to this Coven by letter, to do his bidding: retrieve things for him, or keep him company. He is no longer here to return the favour.”
Silvio smoothed a piece of parchment and lifted a stick of wax above the candle flame. The wax dripped, forming a pool across the letter. Out of his pocket he pulled a signet ring and pressed it into the hot wax.
“Kyrillos tells me there are ways to track my consort. To his precise location. Emerick has left a trail even a human could trace, charting his movements across the globe in minute detail, one purchase at a time.”
The butler hurried forward to hand Scarlett a folder—a collection of pages filled with numbers and descriptions she barely understood: purchase orders, deeds to a house, certificates, passport issues, and black-and-white photographs.
“It seems my consort has been enjoying himself in Bulgaria. The same place I had found his beloved sister years ago.” Silvio ran his tongue over his teeth in agitation. “I would like you to retrieve him. Deliver this summons on my behalf, Madame.”
Silvio extended his hand, a bare hand reaching towards her gloved fingers, and the sealed parchment burned her eyes. The sigil Silvio used was the same one Ingenuar had stamped upon his letters. The same sigil he had used to issue invitations to the Regents.
“What if he does not wish to return?” Scarlett asked, accepting the letter.
It felt hot in her hand, burning through the lace of her gloves where her fingers brushed the hardened wax.
Reluctantly, she tore her eyes from the sigil in Silvio’s hand.
For a moment she worried that he meant to put the ring on, but she had never seen him wear rings or jewellery.
It would be a sign of arrogance, a vile misuse of power, if he meant to begin now and in front of her like this.
“He is the consort of the Coven Master. His place is beside me.”
I will have what is mine, Silvio whispered in her mind; Scarlett took a sharp breath in. The more power he gained through the Coven, the less control he seemed to have over his emotions, and his desires.
“No letters for the other Regents?” she ventured instead, desperate to shake the echo of his voice from her mind. If Silvio summoned the sultanate, Mihaela could come home. She missed her blood-daughter and the silence from the eastern territories unnerved her.
Silvio regarded her in silence, unblinking.
“When you ascended, you appointed me your councillor, Silvio,” Scarlett reminded him.
“Nhalme insisted on keeping the other Regents at a distance, fearing they might usurp the throne. Even after you were made Master, they were kept at bay. Why? They have yet to swear fealty to you. Extend an invitation to their consorts or form a new council of your choosing. Summon all the Regents to the Coven. Do not make this only about Emerick,” she pleaded.
“It cannot always be about him. Your responsibility extends to the whole Coven—to all of us.”
Accepting the role of Marquis, and later Master, Silvio had always done it for Emerick.
His lover was a chip he bargained with, time and time again.
That is why it had taken so long to find him; Silvio had never planned for such an incident.
He had spent all his immortal life with Emerick right there, by his side, but he had failed to foresee and make arrangements for a time when his lover would no longer be within reach.
And this simple oversight had driven him to lunacy.
“I have no need for the other Regents,” Silvio dismissed her. He set the signet ring aside and flipped through the paperwork scattered across the desk.
As if sensing her exasperation, Kyrillos stepped forward and inclined his head in a bow.
“Perhaps the Marquis should be allowed to weigh in on this matter, master. Furthermore, he has not appointed a Comte in the French territories. Without either of its sovereigns, that territory lies unstable.”
Not a triumvirate but a diarchy, Scarlett remembered Silvio had proclaimed the night they made him Master.
A promise and a threat. He meant for the Coven to be ruled by both him and Emerick.
Perhaps summoning Emerick was an attempt to restore order, a shimmer of lucidity.
Surely whatever he was doing in Bulgaria could be set aside, or even cast away.
Silvio frowned at Kyrillos, eyes narrowed in contempt. His voice, when he spoke, was hard.
“I shall not tolerate my household plotting against me. If you choose to conspire with your mistress, then by all means assist in her travels, but seek no admittance to my chambers until her return.”
Kyrillos paled and opened his mouth to protest but Silvio waved him away, dismissing him like a bothersome fly.
“I trust you can find quarters for yourself among the other servants. Present yourself only when summoned, and not a moment sooner. Any correspondence or chores you need to pass along, have them delivered by a hall boy.”
It is for the best, Scarlett felt sorry for the mortal. Sooner or later he would have fallen out of favour with his master. Best to have it done before the Marquis returns.
RAFFAELLE, 2017
The last meeting of the Council had dissolved into chaos and disgruntlement, but watching his sisters and brothers quarrel had given Raffaelle an idea.
“Can you shift into Gülsün?” he asked.
When Tabes arched an eyebrow at the unfamiliar name, Raffaelle elaborated: “The Sultana?”
The demon mulled over the words, riffling through a mental catalogue of bodies and faces.
“Do you know what she looks like?” Raffaelle pressed when his servant remained silent, chewing his lip.
“You don’t know what she looks like.” Tabes shrugged, having scraped everything he could on the mistress from Raffaelle’s mind. “At least not the actual woman. You have an idea of her, a fantasy. But that could just as easily be any woman from Istanbul.”
“And if Betül asked you to shift into the Sultana, can you do it?”
“Has Betül seen her? Without the veil, I mean?”
Raffaelle grunted. This was not going as he had hoped. Tabes was a shapeshifter, but his abilities were bound to the knowledge of the one who commanded him. He could not transform into a person his master had never seen. It was frustrating.
“Why the sudden request—are you in the mood for a woman? Tired of the Comte and the Marquis?” Tabes made a poor attempt at hiding his glee.
“I shall be seeing plenty of the Marquis without having his double in my bed. No. It is time we changed allegiances.”
At the time, Raffaelle had thought Emerick would spend his nights at the Coven, seeing to matters on behalf of his maker, irritating Raffaelle with his presence.
Oh, how wrong he had been. The new Marquis had vanished as soon as he was made Regent, and everyone suffered in his wake.
There were times when Raffaelle entertained the thought of asking Tabes to shift into the man and have him haunt Silvio, like a spectre from a gothic novella.
Instead, he had Tabes remain as Silvio, so he could order the double around, make him bend and stand on his knees.
Or better yet, crawl, and thank Raffaelle that his voice had helped this vile ascension.
But Tabes made for a poor submissive Silvio—he was too eager, too willing.
He enjoyed scurrying on the floor and grovelling suited him, the fantasy nurtured his demonic appetites.
The Council, for what it was worth, was gone. Betül made no secret of her plans to rejoin her mistress in the East, but only after she had gathered enough intelligence on their new Master and received a summons from the Sultana.
Silvio might have disbanded them, yet they continued to gather among themselves, talking and sharing their observations of the ruin they had helped build.
“He is going room by room, even got rid of the butler and appointed another human in his stead.” Nhalme found it insulting, all their father’s work and legacy demolished in less than a night.
A servant… And Silvio keeps him in his bed, Raffaelle bit his tongue. He had come upon this little bit of scandal from Tabes. His pet demon had taken note of Kyrillos’s sudden change in routine, and lent an ear to the staff’s whispers about it. Kyrillos’s new position seemed to elate the demon.
“He is ripe with desperation,” Tabes chirped. “When I grow tired of you, I will replace you with the human…if Silvio leaves enough of him for a meal.”
Raffaelle chose to ignore the jibe about his replicability and focused instead on the matter at hand.
He wanted the specifics of what their master intended to do with Kyrillos, but Tabes’ lips puckered in a devilish smile as he tried to suppress a volley of giggles.
Raffaelle huffed and changed the subject. The imp owed him no loyalty.
A change he had not foreseen, and one that suited him just fine, was Dulior’s absence from court. Neither she nor her husband had shown their faces since the ascension.
“Shunned from the thresholds of Béziers, and now Berlin,” Penelope tsked.