8. An Unwanted Re
AN UNWANTED REUNION
NOBLE
Virginia sat primly at the recently-cleared dining table and didn't acknowledge the hot tea as it was placed before her. Her dark hair was pulled back high and tight against her head, and her mask-like face had become unfamiliar to Noble in the last two months of their separation.
“Thank you,” said Noble to the maitre. “You can pack up to leave for the night. I cannot thank you enough.”
The young woman bowed her thanks and left Noble and Virginia alone in the room. Just down the hall, Aria and Kip sat waiting in the parlor, and Noble wished for nothing more than to get Virginia back out of his house.
Out of his life.
“I heard you were doing quite well for yourself out here in the city. You’ve gone as far as to employ staff,” said Virginia.
“I don't employ staff unless I've an event to put on.” He exhaled. “That's not changed.”
“Well, and you’ve an adame now. A male one, at that.”
Noble’s spine straightened. “Yes. He performs magic rituals for me at home. Since you were the one to point out how infrequently I participate in the rituals of my people.”
“Yes,” Virginia said, with emphasis. “Your people. The human nobility. Not elven peasants.”
Noble bit his tongue. Squeezed it between his teeth. For Aria’s sake. It would be unfair to ruin their ploy, to expose the lie of them being friends and not patron-adame, without his agreeing. “Adame are not peasants. They’re powerful magic users.”
“They’re also often prostitutes.”
“Aria is not my prostitute.”
“Well, he could be. That’s your right. As his employer. You do realize you pay him, yes? You cannot treat staff like they’re equal to you when they’re not. People will get the wrong idea.” She gestured down the hall. “You hired him for your reputation, correct?”
“Why are you here, Virginia?” Noble sighed. “Surely you didn’t come to discuss the ruin you’ve left me in.”
“Do you remember the Duke Ellor Abante?”
Noble had not yet perfected Aria's ability to hide his reactions, and he knew the way his nose wrinkled in distaste gave away the answer and his knowledge of his relationship to Aria.
“I'm bringing this matter to your attention not because I like to spread gossip or anything of that sort.”
Noble coughed a half-laugh of disbelief. “Shall I remind you of the papers I signed at Cafe DuLonde? The things you said, purposefully, to fan the flames of gossip?”
Virginia's mouth pinched tonight before she said, “I did what I had to do, Noble.
I knew it wouldn't hurt you in the long term.
You're a royal, for goodness' sake. You've many opportunities in life.” Noble opened his mouth to argue, but Virginia carried on, voice loud and sharp, “I mean it.
I don't want you to be hurt. That's why I bring it up at all—the Ellor thing.”
Noble had a terrible sense of foreboding arrest him by the throat. He couldn't reply, or move, or do anything other than watch Virginia sip from her tea as she collected the words.
“This elf—”
“Aria,” Noble said.
Virginia breathed in tightly through her nose, eyes closing from impatience.
“I fear that he may do to you what he did to Duke Abante.” Noble would have continued to argue, but the idea of Aria hurting Ellor was absurd, and he couldn't find anywhere to start.
“He kept Ellor from finding true love. The way their relationship went, it wasn't good.
For either of them. But they carried on at Aria's behest. His presence in Ellor's life kept Ellor from a great many things. For years.”
Virginia was a lady, or else Noble would have said, like fucking five separate people in a week, rather than four?
She carried on, her dark curls falling around her face as she spoke, softening her before Noble's eyes. “I don't want that to happen to you. I feel you don't look out for yourself well enough sometimes. Heed the warning I give to you.”
“What warning?”
“We've been separated for nearly two months. I expected, by now, that you would be courting a new lady, well on your way to your second chance at nobility.”
“I've gone out,” Noble said, oddly hurt by his inability to meet her expectations. Which was absurd. Virginia left him. Her opinion was no longer a consideration. “I've had many outings with girls.”
“But you're not courting one at the moment. And why not?” Noble shrank into his chair. “This is what happened with Ellor, Noble. You're not going to reach your full potential—you're not going to find your wife—as long as you keep him around.”
She didn't say anything Noble had not already thought. Especially over the last week, as he returned in his memory to their kiss, as he pulled Aria into his bed so that they may read their book, as he held him close during the falling snow.
Aria was incompatible with his need for a wife.
Virginia stood up from her seat and moved to the chair beside Noble.
She sat, and placed her hand atop his on the table.
“I know that you can do this. You can find someone new.
You're a good noble, Noble. Someone like him will hold you in place.
Ellor has been much better off now that they're parted. You should do the same.”
“We never even socialized with the likes of Ellor,” said Noble. “How have you come to know all of this?”
“New Hieroph is an enormous city until it's not,” Virginia said, smiling. “I'm actually quite close with Lady Quint, if you remember? I met with her earlier today, and she told me the good news, that she and—”
A loud crack rocked the house, and the scent of sulfur filled the air. Virginia and Noble were both on their feet in an instant. Noble, faster and taller by a fair margin, was the first to make it to the source of the sound. In the parlor.
Blood—
There was blood—
Aria panted heavily from the floor, against the far wall of the room.
His chest rose and fell, and his pale skin had gone gray and sweaty beneath the splattering of blood.
His blood—his shirt had torn from wrist to shoulder, into a dozen shredded pieces, and the blood poured from the wounds beneath.
But Aria didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't care, as he kept his wide, blue eyes focused pointedly upon the settee across the room.
Kip had scrambled to the far end of it, knees pulled up, and he was trembling fiercely. No blood on him.
“What’s going on here?” Virginia gasped.
Noble rushed to Aria's side and cupped his fear-paled face with both hands.
“Aria. Aria, look at me.” Aria's eyes moved, unsteady, pupils blown wide.
He was in shock. “Hey. Hey, it's alright, sweetheart. Look at me.” He stroked Aria's cheekbone with his thumb as he finally met Noble's stare.
“Breathe in. Breathe out.” Aria did so, slowing his breathing, and then winced in pain.
Noble sat back on his heels to lift his bleeding arm—slowly, afraid to disturb the wounds.
Shiny glass shards twinkled within the cuts, like glass had shattered all the way up his arm.
Noble didn't hesitate to rip the remaining scrap of sleeve off him, and Aria gasped. “Sorry. Sorry, I need to look.”
It wasn't a particularly gruesome injury, but it'd take quite a bit of time to remove each shard, and it no doubt hurt like the devil. Noble squeezed Aria's hand inside his own and said, “You're okay. Right?” Aria, shivering now from the shock, gave Noble a single nod of affirmation.
Still crouched, Noble looked over his shoulder at Kip and Virginia across the room. He only realized how intensely he spoke when they both jumped in fear.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, I—” said Kip. “I didn't know he could do that.”
Virginia stood off the settee and cleared her throat. “Noble, we really ought to go.”
“No,” Noble said, rising to his feet, and his voice had a hollow, haunted reverberation—an echo as if he cast a spell the way Aria could.
He saw more broken glass upon the floor, and a dented metal cup—no, a lid.
Some kind of lid. The smell of ozone and blood led Noble’s gaze back to Kip. “I asked: what happened?”
“I had a sleeping potion in my pocket. The draught kind that you activate. I simply placed it upon the coffee table, here, while Aria and I talked. It wouldn't have hurt anyone, I swear,” said Kip, his voice shaking. “It would have put him and you to sleep. Gently. Without harm.”
Virginia and Kip both shrank beneath Noble’s approach. He could see their racing pulses in the veins of their necks. “Why did you bring a sleeping draught to my home?” He pinned Virginia with a look. “Why have you come to me tonight, Virginia?” It wasn't to warn him about Aria, after all.
No, that was a terribly convenient excuse. A sort of blind fury took possession over Noble. He couldn't control himself, his movements, or what he said.
He didn't want to.
He'd never been this mad in his life.
“I meant it. I mean you no harm,” she said, firmly, squaring her shoulders against his slow, predator-like approach.
She raised her hands, like it may stave off some of his rage.
“I just needed to reach the safe beneath the stairs. You were going to fall asleep later tonight, when the draught activated, and I would return for it.”
“What is it?”
“They're letters of investments.” When Noble took another step closer, Virginia spoke more quickly and said, “It's money.
They're money. Unattached—I could cash them in.
You'd never miss them. And I needed them because the estate has repairs that I must do, and our divorce was settled weeks ago.
I couldn't simply ask you for more money.
But you've got plenty. Plenty. Do you not?”