9. The Inspections （A Montage of Horrors） #2
Then Gerald sinks his teeth into the soft flesh between Brant's thumb and forefinger, hard enough that I see blood.
Brant screams, a high, undignified shriek that echoes through the hall, and flings Gerald across the room. My ferret twists midair, lands on a chandelier, and hangs there hissing like a very small, very furry gargoyle of judgment.
That's my boy.
"The ferret has spoken," I say calmly. "You may leave without dropping your trousers. I've already heard enough about your... equipment... from the milkmaids."
Brant's face goes purple. "What did the milkmaids say?"
"Nothing you want repeated in front of the court. Next. Garrick. Your turn."
Garrick approaches with significantly less confidence. He's witnessed the ear attack at the proclamation. He's witnessed the hand attack just now. He's rethinking his entire existence.
Good.
Boot: too small.
"But I didn't even."
"Your brother's foot was on the edge of fitting. Yours is clearly smaller." I let my gaze drift downward again. "Is everything smaller on you, Garrick, or just the extremities?"
His face goes purple.
"I'll take that as a yes. You may leave. Tell your father I said hello and that I remember what he looks like naked and I'm still recovering from the visual."
Baron Grimwald makes a sound like a dying seal and flees the hall, his sons scrambling after him.
Behind me, Mira adds to her tally:
Grimwald sons humiliated: 2 Worth it: YES
I'm inclined to agree.
HOUR TWELVE: MIDNIGHT APPROACHES
The candles have burned low. The crowd has thinned. My ass went numb three hours ago and I'm fairly certain I'll never feel joy again.
Two hundred and forty-seven men.
Two hundred and forty-seven disappointments.
Not a single cock that makes me feel even a fraction of what I felt that night.
Gerald is asleep in my lap again, twitching with ferret dreams. I stroke his fur absently, letting myself wallow in defeat.
Where are they?
My masked strangers. My three perfect disasters. They ruined me, actually ruined me, not just physically but mentally, and then they vanished into the night in a disintegrating carriage like some kind of fever dream.
Maybe they aren't real. Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe the wine was poisoned and I invented three perfect men and the best sex of my life.
No.
Gerald is real. The boot is real. The glove is real.
They're out there. Somewhere.
"Tomorrow," I say, sitting up straighter. "We expand the search."
Mira looks at me with the hollow eyes of a woman who has seen too much. "My lady?"
"Every village. Every farm. Every man from here to the mountains." I scratch behind Gerald's ears and feel him purr, a tiny, violent sound of approval. "The boot was well-worn. That's a working man's boot. The glove had dirt under the fingernails. And this ferret?"
Gerald wakes up, yawns, and attempts to steal my ring.
"This ferret is feral in a way that suggests a rural upbringing. They're not nobility. They're not city dwellers." A slow smile crosses my face. "They're somewhere in the countryside. And I'm going to find them if I have to inspect every cock from here to the mountains."
Mira writes something on her tally sheet.
I catch a glimpse:
Cinder: fully unhinged
Search: continuing tomorrow
Wine supply: dangerously low
Ferret: still a menace
Mysterious strangers: still at large
Likelihood of Cinder burning down kingdom to find them: high
She's not wrong.
DAY TWO: THE SCOPE EXPANDS
I take the search on the road.
The royal carriage, a proper one, not a hay wagon held together by spite and ferret magic, becomes my war room. Gerald rides on my shoulder like the tiny general he is. The boot and glove sit on velvet cushions, guarded by Mira, who has graduated from wine bottles to a small personal cask.
I respect her coping mechanisms.
Village after village. Farm after farm. Every man between eighteen and sixty dragged out for inspection.
In the village of Millbrook, I find a man whose foot fits the boot.
His cock curves downward.
"That's not a curve," I say, staring at it with a mixture of fascination and horror. "That's a droop. That's geometrically the opposite of what I'm looking for."
"My wife has never complained."
"Your wife is either lying or has never experienced anything better. Next."
In the village of Thornfield, I find a man whose hand fits the glove perfectly.
Gerald bites him so hard the man passes out cold.
I step over his unconscious body. "Still not him. Next."
In the village of Ashwick, I find a man who claims to have a refractory period of ninety seconds.
My heart actually skips.
"Prove it," I demand.
He blanches. "...here? In the village square?"
"Do you want to be a prince consort or don't you?"
He tries.
He cannot, in fact, prove it.
"Performance anxiety," he stammers.
"Performance lying," I correct. "Next."
DAY THREE: MORALE IS LOW
Eight hundred and forty-seven.
That's how many men I've inspected. Eight hundred and forty-seven disappointments, documented in Mira's increasingly unhinged tally:
Boot fits: 89
Glove fits: 34
Both fit: 12
Ferret approved: 0
Cock matched description: 0
Cinder’s patience remaining: nonexistent
Villages searched: 23
Farms searched: 156
Barns personally stormed by Cinder: 7
Livestock disturbed: countless
Gerald's bite count: 94
Marriage proposals from desperate candidates: 412
Marriage proposals accepted: 0
Mira's sobriety: theoretical
Gerald now wears a tiny collar with a tag that reads "PROPERTY OF THE CROWN. BITE AT YOUR OWN RISK."
He bites people anyway.
I'm starting to lose hope.
Days of endless disappointment, of wrong curves and wrong sizes and men who couldn't find a clitoris if I drew them a map with detailed instructions and a starting point.
Where are they?
DAY FOUR: A LEAD
We're passing through a particularly muddy stretch of road when Gerald goes rigid on my shoulder.
Not aggressive. Not bitey. Just... alert.
His tiny nose twitches. His beady eyes fix on something in the distance with an intensity I've never seen before.
"What is it?" I ask.
Gerald chitters, a different sound than his usual chaotic screaming. Almost... hopeful. Almost... recognition.
Something in my chest clenches.
Mira leans out the carriage window, squinting at the road sign we're approaching.
"Grimwald Acres," she reads. "Two miles ahead."
Grimwald.
The same Grimwald whose sons I've humiliated. The same Grimwald whose naked form still haunts my nightmares. The same Grimwald who runs a farm at the edge of the kingdom...
A farm with workers.
Working men.
Men who might have well-worn boots and dirt under their fingernails and ferrets named Gerald.
"Stop the carriage," I say softly.
"My lady?"
"Stop the carriage."
I'm already moving, throwing open the door before we've fully stopped. Gerald scrambles to keep his perch, tail bottle-brushing with an excitement that matches my own.
They're here.
I don't know how I know, but I know.
My masked strangers. My three perfect disasters. They're here, three miles from my castle, and they've been here the whole time.
"We're going to that farm," I announce, striding down the road with murder and lust burning equally in my chest. "Right now. And Mira?"
"Yes, my lady?"
"Bring the boot, the glove, and extra restraints." I let my smile turn feral. "I have a feeling we're about to find exactly what we're looking for."
And when I do?
They're going to pay for making me wait.