Chapter Twelve
USUALLY A LONG relaxing session in the baths could guarantee Archie’s good mood for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, when he got back, Charlie was in their quarters, lounging in the drawing room where Archie had planned to try and read more of those demonology books.
If they’d been at home, he would have taken himself to the second parlor or his father’s small study instead, but they only had the one drawing room here.
Of course, if they’d been at home, Charlie wouldn’t have bothered to be around at all.
It was only the prestige and convenience of the palace being near his various fashionable haunts that had him back, Archie surmised.
“You’ll make yourself scarce this eve, won’t you?” asked Charlie, glancing up momentarily. “I’ve got some of the boys coming over for cards.”
Estelle and Ollie would have at least extended an invitation for him to stay and join them, even if they didn’t expect him to take them up on it, thought Archie sourly.
“How did you know I didn’t have plans to host friends here tonight?” asked Archie mulishly. He didn’t, obviously, but he could have.
“Do you have friends?” asked Charlie with surprise. The worst part was that Archie knew he meant it genuinely. Sure, Charlie could be mean and malicious, but the idea that Archie had people who liked and spent time with him voluntarily was simply baffling to him.
Archie scowled and banged his way back to his room, which wasn’t even his room, it was Oliver’s.
He sat on the bed, his heart and his body suddenly heavy.
That offhand comment had cut deeper than he’d realized, even though Charlie couldn’t have known that Archie had been contemplating how few people spent time with him just because they liked to.
Even Damaris, who lived in his very mind, was only here because of a transactional deal Archie had made with him.
Speaking of whom, Damaris was awake again. He’d been sluggish for a while after the bath, but Archie could tell he was fully cognizant of the conversation that had just happened. It was somehow even more humiliating that he’d witnessed that.
I am not the only demon in your mind. Damaris said it without judgment, and that was somehow worse.
There were three letters awaiting Archie on the small desk that he must have missed the arrival of.
One from Jeremy, confirming that they could take the box at the theater and that his wife would invite some interested friends.
It felt strange reading that now Damaris was here, it felt so long ago, but it would safely get his mother off his back.
The second was from Seth, an old family friend.
Their fathers were good friends but Seth had been the heir when Archie had been the youngest-born.
The note was quite apologetic, indicating that his duties had led him to quite neglect other things such as friends, and invited Archie around post-haste.
Archie remembered belatedly that their estate had been caught by the hurricane last season and there was likely a number of repairs and emergency planning administration for him to be embroiled in recently.
The final note was from Estelle’s fiancé, asking if he might be interested in a luncheon or afternoon at the club to get to know him better ‘as Estelle is very fond of you and I expect you will be entreated to spend summers with us at the family house’.
He read it over several times, bemused. He’d only seen Caleb a couple of times, mostly from afar.
He poked his head out of the door when he heard his sister’s voice outside.
Estelle was speaking in clipped tones with Charlie, as she had done more frequently the moment she knew she only had to put up with him until the summer and then she never had to live in the same house as him ever again.
It appeared from Archie’s eavesdropping that she’d also invited a group here for the evening and Charlie was pulling rank over her.
Archie waited until she stomped away, and waved her down.
“Blasted Charlie,” whispered Estelle as she slid into his room. “Why is he bringing people here anyway, he hates hosting!”
“To remind his friends how close to the king we are,” said Archie. “You know how he is. I’ll bet he hasn’t even warned any of the servants to have extra drink on hand.”
Estelle made a most unladylike harrumph. “It’s a good thing I came back to change my gloves, or I wouldn’t have found out until my lot started arriving. Gods, how embarrassing. Anyway, what did you want?”
“Have you read this?” Archie produced the note from her fiancé.
“Oh, already? That was fast, I only mentioned it this morning. Good man.” She looked pleased.
Archie frowned slightly. “So you put him up to it?”
“No, silly, Caleb’s been trying to figure out a way to get to know you for weeks, but you’ve spent this whole season being hauled off by mother to some garden party or other.
He never gets invited to those. I told him just to send you a note directly, it doesn’t matter you’ve not been introduced when you’re practically family already. ”
“And what’s this bit about summering at his family house? Isn’t his estate all the way on the south coast?”
Estelle looked taken aback. “Aren’t you going to visit me once I’m married? It’s only a day by coach.”
“Oh.” It was Archie’s turn to be off-kilter.
“I mean, yes of course. If you want me there. I just—” hadn’t realized you wanted to spend time with me.
He didn’t say it, because he felt foolish enough already, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop himself thinking it.
“I just assumed you’d be busy. Spending time with your new husband and all that. ”
“Archie!” Estelle’s face pinkened, and she swatted at him with her unmatching gloves. “I mean after the honeymoon of course.”
“Of course,” he said, and let himself smile. He hadn’t done that around her for a while, he realized. Not since she’d successfully gotten engaged and he was still stuck with their mother’s matchmaking efforts, even though it was hardly Estelle’s fault. She grinned back.
Archie penned his replies as soon as she left.
There, he thought rather viciously at a non-existent Charlie, I have friends.
Or half-wilted seedlings of friendship that were coming back to life after being neglected, at least. It was a start.
He grabbed his books and headed out, not wanting to be stuck here when Charlie’s guests started arriving, and made sure to tip Nell off that a large group would be descending on the servants shortly.
The palace libraries were scarcely populated at this time of year.
In the spring and summer, the large windows would be thrown open and people might gather under the flowering trees with a view of the rose gardens, but in the winter it was dark early and cold aside from the few chairs huddled around the fireplace.
Archie claimed one and set to work on his books.
He’d never really been a keen scholar, always more interested in his daydreams and the pulpy fiction novels that were passed around among his friends rather than the histories or philosophies.
But perhaps it was the way the demonology books were written, like the diaries of an adventurer exploring a new world, that he managed to engross himself in them.
It was difficult to tell how much time had passed when the sun set in the afternoon these days, but at some point Archie found himself turning and shifting on the armchair, trying to find a comfortable position.
Everything felt slightly uncomfortable, a bloated ache similar to the feeling of overeating.
Everything felt swollen and slightly too large for his skin, and he grimaced as he realized he also had an unexpected reaction between his legs.
The library was still empty, so he discreetly moved his book up his lap and reached down to adjust himself. It happened often enough when he was an adolescent, sometimes with a stray thought or a sudden change in temperature, but much less frequently now.
What are you doing? Archie thought out of his mental tower at Damaris when he finally realized it wasn’t coming from him.
Now he was aware of it, the demon’s presence in his mind felt too large, as if he were pushing up against the back of Archie’s eyeballs.
A disgusting visual, and one he quickly tried to dismiss.
Feeding. Damaris sent Archie a thought. Not an image, but an impression of colors and energy and weight.
Archie’s mind struggling to make sense of it.
This must have been that extra sense of magic that Damaris talked about, that demons had and humans did not, overlaid on his own vision.
The tickle of it on his skin made the hairs on his arm prickle.
Is this what you see all the time? asked Archie, fascinated.
The fire was energy, a crackling buzzing thing in the side of his vision, but he could somehow differentiate it from magic.
When he looked down, there was an aura surrounding himself flickering from blue-black to the bright blue of a gas flame, which must be what Prince Ixthan could see of Damaris.
And there was another sense of energy, muffled.
Archie squinted, following it until he hit the wall.
Apparently brick was no barrier for magic, because whatever he could sense came from the other side of the wall, in whichever room backed up against the library.
This moved, and then he realized it was two separate energies, intertwining until they often appeared as one.
Archie gasped when he finally realized what it must be, recoiling and closing his eyes.
Except he’d forgotten it wasn't sight, it was this other sense entirely and Archie could still see it inside his head.