Autumn Celebration #2
Nic waved his friends goodbye as he shoved his way through the throng, no doubt in search of Helen.
Lekyi motioned for Uriah and the twins to follow, promising to introduce them to a few of the Daughters of Venus.
They urged Collin to join them, but he shook his head.
“No, Aries and I need to find Arion,” he said, waving them off.
“So”—Aries tugged a list from his pocket—“where should we go? Hadria asked me to find all this stuff—first on the list is...”
Collin glanced at the list. “I think I saw the apothecary near the—” He scanned the square, searching for the booth with the purple tent.
But instead of the apothecary, he spotted Arion looking lost in the crowd. He waved his arm overhead. “Arion! Over here!”
Arion pushed through the throng, his hands full—a fat red hen tucked under one arm, an envelope in the other, and a bulging satchel slung over his shoulder. “I couldn’t find you lot, but I did catch the end of the dancing.”
“Good to see you,” River said, eyeing the hen as the hen eyed him back.
“How was the trip over the pass?” Collin asked, his eyes already flicking past Arion, searching the crowd. Was she here?
“Not too bad. One of the animals gave us trouble, but we managed.” Arion shoved an envelope into Aries’s hands. “Can you give this to Hadria?”
Still no sign of her.
Collin turned slowly, scanning the fairgrounds again—rows of tents, crowds shifting, banners fluttering in the breeze—but she wasn’t there. There were too many rings, too many places she could be. He needed to find her. Not later. Now.
He nudged Arion, trying to pull his attention away from the lively debate he’d already started with River over the hen’s quality.
“What are you showing today?” Collin cut in.
“Oh... umm...” Arion glanced at his watch. “My sheep’s up first—I’ve got to get her ready.”
Collin clenched his jaw, but before he could press further, Arion was already disappearing into the crowd.
“We’ll be there to cheer you on!” Aries called after him. “River, you coming?”
River jerked his thumb behind him, scowling fiercely. “I’ll catch up later. Gotta check on my cousin—make sure those fellows aren’t getting too friendly, if you know what I mean.”
Aries chuckled, clapping River’s shoulder. “Relax, let them have their fun. It’s a celebration day!”
Collin glanced toward the clock tower, curious what had River so on edge.
Nic was deep in conversation with Helen, his attention entirely on her—that was no surprise.
But then—oh, Uriah and the twins. They were shamelessly putting their best moves on a couple of Daughters of Venus, and one of them was River’s cousin, Eunia.
Collin and Aries made their way through the crowded fair, leaving Nic, Uriah, and the twins to flirt and River to keep them in check.
On every street, vendors lined the pathways with carts, tables, tents, and booths. Collin left Aries at a stall piled with colorful cloth while he went in search of honey.
After buying two jars of honey and some beeswax from the impatient bee man, Collin wandered over to a table full of books and writing supplies.
“Are you trading, buying, or just browsing today, young man?” the merchant asked lazily from his seat behind the table.
“Browsing.” Collin scanned the titles, many of which he’d already read. New books were rare—sailors only visited once a year—but he always checked.
A stack of five or six identical books at the end of the table caught his eye. He picked one up and flipped open the olive-green leather cover. On the first page, in graceful script, it read:
Annals of a Lady
Author Unknown
Published 590
“To my dearest friend; my beloved lady.”
Collin flipped through the thick pages, lingering on the beautiful print. “Is this new?”
“Indeed! I hear it’s a bestseller in the Blue Isles. I only managed to get seven copies. Captain Hector said he’d try to bring more next season, but no promises.”
Collin plunged his hand into his pocket. “I’d better buy it now before they’re all gone.”
After paying for the book and a bottle of ink, he returned to Aries, who was still agonizing over the piles of fabric.
“What color do you think this is?” Aries asked, frowning in concentration.
Collin shrugged, barely glancing at it. “No idea. Purple?”
“No.” Aries picked up another bolt and squinted at it. “This one’s purple. That one’s... I don’t know.”
Collin shifted his weight and sighed, watching a herd of goats being shuffled toward the competition rings. His jaw tightened. “It looks purple to me. Just—another purple. Pick one and let’s move on.”
Aries raked a hand through his hair. “Hadria told me to get purple cloth, but how am I supposed to know which purple she meant? Is there really a difference between purple, violet, lavender, berry—”
Collin let out a sharp groan, his arms flinging up in defeat. “For heaven’s sake! They’re all very lovely! Every last one is aggressively purple! I’m sure Hadria will survive whichever royal shade you bless her with—can we please just choose and leave?”
Aries still looked torn, eyes scanning the fabric table like it held state secrets. Collin pinched the bridge of his nose as Aries flagged down the vendor. “Excuse me, can you help me?”
Collin waved vaguely. “I’ll be somewhere in the market, pretending I have better friends.”
Collin smiled politely to passersby, shaking his head at vendors who called to him with baskets of handmade goods, dried fruits, beans, and spiced meats.
Some were tolerable, but others bordered on aggressive.
One woman followed him for nearly a hundred feet, thrusting cologne samples under his nose until his eyes watered from the assault.
Another, draped in beads, shoved charms into his hands, insisting he needed protection from evil spirits.
Finally nearing the end of vendor row, he quickened his pace, the jars of honey clinking in his bag.
He paused. He thought he heard someone call his name, but with the crowd’s noise, he might have misheard. He glanced around—oh, god. Why had he stopped?
Stella rushed through the crowd, batting aside a man selling beaded necklaces. “Wait, Collin!”
Collin forced a polite smile. Maybe he should have bought one of those amulets to ward off evil spirits.
Stella stopped a foot in front of him, her smile dazzling and dangerous, lashes fluttering like she was trying to summon a storm with sheer effort. “Did you like the performance?”
“I did,” he said, forcing his mouth into something that passed for polite. “It was very nice.”
“Oh, good! I’m so glad you liked it.” Her voice dripped syrup, thick enough to choke. She batted her lashes again and let her fingers trail down a strand of impossibly red hair, like she was playing a harp no one asked to hear. Then she stepped in.
“Do you want to walk through the fair with me?”
Collin shifted back—just enough to breathe. She was close enough now that he could see the fine etching on her earrings and catch the thick perfume curling off her skin. Florals and conquest. The way she looked at him made his skin crawl, like he’d wandered into a dragon’s den wearing a bell.
He raked a nervous hand through his hair, scrambling for a polite way out. “Umm—” was all he managed before a voice boomed from the left.
“Young man! Buy a refreshing drink for your lovely lady?”
God—no. Collin didn’t have time to answer before Stella gasped and gave a delighted little hop, pressing her hands to her chest like someone had just proposed marriage. Her gold bangles jingled like victory bells.
“How about it, Collin? I’m parched!”
There was no escaping the fire-breathing dragon now. No ally in sight. No excuse that wouldn’t sound rude or suspicious. His upbringing had betrayed him again. Smiling with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to the gallows, he handed over a few coins and accepted two mugs of spiced honey mead.
Stella plucked one from his hand, beaming as if he’d won her a crown. Then, to his horror, she looped her arm through his.
She sipped delicately, licking her lips with a flourish. “This is just wonderful!”
Collin’s jaw locked so hard he was fairly certain one of his molars cracked. “It certainly is...”
“Have you been shopping already? What did you buy?” she asked, still clinging to his arm like ivy.
“Just some honey,” he said, keeping his tone as bland as possible. It took all the discipline he had not to flinch.
How did this happen? One blink, and she’d latched on like they were courting.
Her perfume thickened the air between them, her dress pressed against his side, and not even the autumn breeze could cool the heat crawling up his neck.
Something was wrong with him. Deeply wrong.
Because her boldness didn’t intrigue him—it repelled him.
Surely she could tell. Or maybe that was the worst part—maybe she did know, and didn’t care.
Stella had been lingering after lessons for weeks now—ostensibly to collect her sisters, though somehow she always found a reason to hang around once the other children had gone.
At first, Collin assumed she was just invested in their progress.
Thoughtful. Dutiful. But then came the questions: what he did for fun, who his friends were, and an alarming stream of gossip about people he barely remembered.
He kept things polite. Friendly. But careful. Always careful.
There was nothing wrong with Stella, not on paper.
She was everything a Daughter of Venus was supposed to be—poised, beautiful, well-bred.
Her father was a senior steward in Chroma, her mother sat on the Daughters’ council.
She was the kind of woman who showed up in silk at White Villa dinners and never scuffed her shoes.
Which made it all the more baffling that she’d set her sights on him.