Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Benedict tried to remember how to saunter with that complete nonchalance of a noble with the power of the Fae Realm at his fingertips.
That was, after all, how his father and his older brother were strolling into the marble ballroom of the king’s palace.
Both of them wore black coats cut to look like master librarian coats, although neither of them had ever progressed past the gray coat of an apprentice.
All nobles of the Court of Knowledge were required to spend a few years as apprentice librarians. A few even stuck around long enough to make assistant librarian. The handful who persevered beyond that—usually younger sons or daughters like Benedict—became master librarians.
Yet even those who didn’t stick with it liked to look like master librarians, given how revered the librarians were. Even King Theseus tended to dress in a coat cut similarly to a librarian coat. Although, as king of the librarians, he had far more right than anyone else.
Benedict had gone with a green coat rather than black. Still slightly pretentious, given he was a mere apprentice, but grasping for the next step fit the image he needed to cultivate, both for his family and for the rest of the court.
“Finally.” Father’s mouth curled as he swept a glance over the ballroom, Benedict’s mother grasping his arm. “We can be done with that horrid war and get back to parties and revelries. They are not the same without the influence of the Court of Revels.”
“Now if only the king would stop supporting the Wild Fae Primrose.” Borachio, Benedict’s brother, reached for a glass of the faerie wine already poured at the refreshment table. “This truce with the Court of Revels won’t last long if the Wild Fae Primrose isn’t brought to heel.”
Benedict plastered on a sneer of his own as he picked up a glass of faerie wine.
“The Wild Fae Primrose is the source of all the troubles of our court. He’s the reason I spent months in a fae prison, after all.
The Court of Knowledge was just fine before we started supporting humans.
” He added an extra layer of spite to his voice as he shot a glance across the room to where a group of those humans was currently clustered.
Benedict tried very hard not to let his gaze rest on Beatrice, currently a vision in frothy pink. He didn’t let his eyes linger on the wavy, golden curls of her hair or the brilliance of her smile, and he definitely didn’t feel a flip in his stomach or a tightening in his chest.
“Yes. Humans.” His father’s sneer deepened. “Human librarians are such an abomination to the court.”
His mother made an agreeing nod as she claimed a flute of wine as well. “Horrid creatures.”
“Of course.” Benedict somehow didn’t choke on the agreement. He turned toward a group of other nobles standing nearby. “Don’t you think so, Lord Cappulet?”
Lord and Lady Cappulet both had glasses of faerie wine in their hands while Lady Cappulet rested a hand on the shoulder of their youngest daughter Juliet.
At thirteen, Juliet was barely old enough to begin attending royal events like this.
The Cappulets’ oldest daughter, Helena, had married Lord Demetrius years ago.
He was now one of the most respected master librarians at the Library and likely one of the top candidates for becoming the next head librarian.
Lord Cappulet huffed and shook his head. “It is a disgrace.”
“Don’t say that too loudly where Helena will hear.” Lady Cappulet took another large gulp of her faerie wine. She’d be tipsy before the dancing even started at that rate. “She believes one of them is her friend.”
Benedict refused to flinch at the venom in Lady Cappulet’s voice nor let his smirk slip even a fraction.
Beside him, Borachio bobbed his head in agreement and downed another swig of wine. He’d be as tipsy as Lady Cappulet before too long. Mother wasn’t far behind the two of them.
Benedict had once agreed with every prejudicial word, back when he’d been a young boy and a family of humans first moved into the court, and he’d found an easy target in the youngest daughter. The pride on his father’s face every time Benedict tormented her had goaded him to do it again and again.
Then he’d begun growing up. He’d started to see her as a person and not just a target. Then he’d spent months in a dungeon being tormented himself, and he’d realized just how awful he’d been back then.
But he could never say any of that in front of his parents or anyone in the court. Not if he wanted to pull off his plan.
His gaze found Beatrice across the room yet again, and it took everything in him to keep his expression at a sneer rather than letting it soften. “I should go over there and remind the humans about their place.”
Leaving his father and brother to their wine and supercilious conversations, Benedict set aside his wine glass, which he had only pretended to sip, and made his way across the room.
Beatrice had wandered away from her family and was now speaking with a group of the other apprentice librarians around their age, including Rosaline, a daughter of nobles from the Court of Revels. She’d left that Court to become a librarian.
Tybalt, another apprentice librarian and the son of one of the other noble families in the Court of Knowledge, gestured toward where Benedict had entered with his family. “It will be good to have everyone returned from the war. Court functions have been dull without Benedict.”
Standing with her back to Benedict as she was, Beatrice snorted and gestured broadly. “Don’t you mean that court functions will be quite dull with him? He has, after all, only a half measure of wit.”
Benedict softened his steps, giving a slight shake of his head as Tybalt’s eyes widened. When he stood just behind Beatrice, he leaned close before he spoke. “And what does it say about you that you spend so much of your wit on me?”
Beatrice yelped and spun to face him, her pale skin flushing bright red. Her blue eyes flashed as she glared up at him. “Don’t sneak up on people like that! It isn’t polite.”
“Perhaps I have only a half measure of politeness to match my half measure of wit.” Benedict grinned. There had always been something so satisfactory about seeing that flush on her cheeks from her rising ire.
Not that he wanted to turn into the Benedict of old who tormented her. But maybe light teasing would still be all right.
The first strains of music flowed through the ballroom, lilting over the cacophony of voices filling the space.
Still grinning, Benedict held out his hand to Beatrice. “May I have this first dance?”
He couldn’t help the note of challenge that filled his voice or the edge that tilted his grin.
All the better to disguise the way his heart beat harder, his chest tightening, at the sight of her in that pink dress, her cheeks nearly the same color.
Beatrice glared at the smirking, blond-haired, far-too-handsome fae man, telling herself that her heart was pounding because of her anger and not because of the way he was looking at her.
How dare Benedict return from prison and promptly request her first dance?
This was her first court event since she’d come of age.
It was supposed to be a triumph. A time to mingle with the court before joining the Library Revel in a few hours.
Not that dancing with Benedict would hurt any of that. His parents were powerful, after all.
But it would look like Benedict favored her and that she favored him. Which wasn’t the case. At all. They loathed each other and always would.
She should refuse. She really should.
Yet with the way he was annoyingly grinning at her, his hand stretched toward her, she found herself placing her hand in his, her chin going up as she glared back. “Very well.”
She couldn’t back down from him. To do so would make her weak in this little game the two of them had been playing since she’d been a ten-year-old human, newly come to the Fae Realm, and he’d been the twelve-year-old son of nobility allowed to run wild through the Library.
Perhaps neither of them had truly grown up past those early days.
Other fae couples joined them in the center of the black-and-white marble floor as the music built.
Unlike human dances, there weren’t set steps for each dance.
Instead, each couple endeavored to match the music as they saw fit.
It made for a wild, chaotic dance that was as much a competition—both between couples and within couples—as it was a dance.
A competition suited Beatrice just fine. She certainly wasn’t here for a romantic dance with Benedict, no matter how that smirk created heart-fluttering dimples in his cheeks or his golden hair draped across his forehead in a finger-tempting manner.
He swept her between the other couples, keeping his movements long and graceful rather than mimicking some of the wilder gyrations of the others.
Beatrice matched him step for step, not giving an inch even if she let him lead.
Perhaps it was passive of her, letting him lead the dance rather than taking control herself.
But she had always preferred to bide her time and let him make the first move rather than go on the offensive herself right away.
All the better to lure him into making a mistake.
After a few seconds of dancing, Benedict’s bright blue eyes met hers, his gaze strangely searching. “Will you be participating in the Library Revel tonight?”
“Of course. But don’t get any ideas.” Beatrice scowled. “You would be the last man I’d bind myself to.”
That was the good part about the Revel. If it worked as it was supposed to, the Library and the magic of the Court and of Midsummer would funnel two people together who could potentially be a match. But each person had the right to refuse the binding.
Benedict snorted. “As if I’d marry you, even if the Library brings us together tonight. Besides, you’re assuming I’m even going to participate.”
“Aren’t you?” Beatrice raised her eyebrows at him before she spun, adding a few extra twirls before she ended back in his arms. Yes, she’d been hoping he wouldn’t. But now that he’d challenged her, she couldn’t help but challenge him in return. “Missing a Revel of any kind seems unlike you.”
Something dark and shadowed crossed his face for a moment as his grin faded into something more pensive.
The look remained only a moment before it vanished back into his normal smirk, gone so completely she had probably imagined the whole thing.
She certainly had never seen such an emotionally intelligent expression on his face before.
Benedict, after all, had the emotional depth of a puddle in the Court of Sand.
“You’re right, of course. I wouldn’t miss the Revel for anything.
” Benedict spun her again, barely missing another couple that twirled past. When she was back in his arms, he leaned close, so close that his mouth was only inches from her ear and his warm breath stirred her hair. “Perhaps I’ll see you there.”
“Not likely.” Beatrice lurched away from him, putting as much distance between them as she could while still in his arms. She had to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at him the way she’d done when she’d been a child.
For some reason, she also had to resist the temptation to give in to the pleasant chills that had gone down her back at having him so close.
Thankfully, this particular song was reaching its final crescendo. She couldn’t get away from Benedict fast enough.