Page 20 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

“I feel as though we missed something,” the lady said, as Sabre headed back up the stairs with the wine bottle.

“Oh, it’s always like this,” Nanette drawled.

Laurent was still at the desk when Sabre slunk in, looking no less irritated than before, and Sabre got to his knees before he could give the order.

“Kneel at my side, Sabre,” Laurent said, and watched as Sabre crawled to his side. He passed Laurent the bottle, but Laurent just set it down on the desk and turned to face Sabre, his expression grim.

“Tomorrow,” he said, tipping Sabre’s chin up with a finger, “you and I will have Crystelle the Magnificent brought to the de Valois suites in the palace for an official assignation. As it’s short notice, it will cost nearly a third more than an hour with them in the House of Gold, which will raise Crystelle’s esteem to the court.” Sabre opened his mouth to object, and Laurent slipped two fingers over his tongue. Sabre closed his mouth around them, well aware how sullen he looked. “You’re still on voice restrictions, I recall.”

Laurent started fucking Sabre’s mouth with his fingers, pressing down on his tongue and teasing his gag reflex. It was making it hard for Sabre to focus, and he caught himself rocking his hips forward before he snapped back to attention.

Laurent smiled. He withdrew his fingers and wiped them on Sabre’s cheek. “One thing you should know about Crystelle is that they don’t make offers of sex to the nobility, and they certainly don’t offer it for free. If they wanted you alone, it was for another reason. You’re Adrien’s left hand, Sabre. What reason, do you think, would someone feign interest in another person to get them alone? You may answer.”

“To kill them, I suppose,” Sabre said, “or to get information. But I don’t see why they didn’t just say that?—”

“Voice restrictions unless I say otherwise, Sabre. Of course they didn’t say why. We’ll find that out tomorrow. But Crystelle isn’t just a courtesan, and they aren’t just their…dramatics, either. If I’m wrong, I will gladly eat my hat, brim and all, and you can hold it against me as long as you like. If you’re wrong, you can make up this headache of an evening to me when Crystelle has had their say. Do you agree?”

Sabre nodded.

“Do you believe me?”

Sabre shrugged a shoulder, and Laurent rolled his eyes. “We’ll see. And you should prepare yourself for tomorrow. If Crystelle is going to the palace, no doubt they’ll insist on making an entrance.”

That, at least, was absolutely correct. When Sabre had dragged himself through his duties at the palace and had stiffly followed Laurent into his suites, dressed in his formal clothes with his hands fisted in his lap, a page came running to bang on his door as though a cyclone were whirling through the palace.

“Someone delivered a giant egg to the palace,” the page said, breathless and wild-eyed. “Except it was made of like, paper? And it cracked? And this person came out and it was their highness and they recognized me and they wanted me to tell you that they’re coming and you should be sorry.”

Sabre took a moment to translate the child’s excitable babbling. “Their highness?”

“That’s what we call them, your grace.” The page was grinning. “All the kids in the lower city, I mean. They’re always so pretty and they act like a queen anyway, and they, you know, do stuff.”

“Stuff like…”

The page shrugged. “They call it holding court. They sit on the fountain and all the grandmas come up and tell them what’s been happening since they’ve been gone, and then next thing you know, someone’s fixed the roof that’s always leaking or the kids in the Park Street gang have new shoes or—they’re here, oh, gosh. Hi!” The page turned away from Sabre altogether and started waving frantically at someone down the hall, and Sabre turned to find Laurent quietly drinking tea in the smuggest manner Sabre had ever seen.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” Sabre said, and Laurent smiled into his teacup.

“I think I’ll enjoy myself immensely when this is done,” Laurent said, just as the page swung the door open again.

Crystelle did, to their credit, live up to their name. They were in a cape stitched with bits of mirror and glass, casting spots of light all over the wall and floor at their back, and they wore a semi-transparent bodysuit studded with crystals. Their heels looked like glass, but it was probably an illusion—no one actually walked around in glass shoes—and their hair was also studded with bits of diamond and crystal.

They handed a coin to the page, who blushed and bowed before closing the door. Then they looked imperiously at Sabre.

“Well? Take my cloak and tell me how beautiful I am.”

Sabre bit down a sigh and helped unpin Crystelle’s mirrored cloak. “You do look nice.”

Crystelle narrowed their eyes at Laurent. “I assume his appeal is in his honesty.”

“He also cries quite well,” Laurent said, and Sabre, despite his irritation, shivered. Laurent knew exactly what it did to Sabre when he started talking about him like he wasn’t there. “And he has other skills.”

“Mm.” Crystelle shook out their hair, which glittered. “Anything else? Stand in the middle of the room, boy, I don’t like to strain my neck.”

Sabre gave them a sharp look—something about their tone had shifted, and he could see that Laurent had noticed, too. He made his way to the middle of the room, and Crystelle circled him like a panther, brows lowered.

“De Rue. If I asked you to leave the room, would you listen through keyholes like the enterprising little scorpion you are?”

“Oh, assuredly,” Laurent said. “Tea?”

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