Page 53 of Peculiar Engagements

He should have felt something. He should have been anxious or elated. He would have even settled for melancholy, but all Yves felt when he saw the suit was the same distant, faraway nothingness he felt when he listened to the rain.

Charon was only a few miles from Duciel when his legs gave out.

He’d been running for hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten or slept. He’d drunk handfuls of rain as he ran through the muddy street heading for Duciel, but now he couldonly lean against a road marker and try to will his legs to stop shaking.

He’d made it from Arktos to Staria on less. But the man who’d crossed the desert had been young, and Charon could feel the creeping weight of age pulling at his bones as he held himself up by his arms alone. Duciel lay before him, a city on a hill half-hidden by the rain, taunting him with its nearness.

“You can walk,” he told himself, and forced all his dominance into his voice. He took a few steps away from the road marker and swayed dangerously. “You aren’t hungry. You aren’t tired. You can walk.”

He staggered forward. Shapes formed in the downpour, carriages and covered carts, people walking with cloaks held over their colorful clothes. They watched Charon as he passed, and one of them, a pale man with a hood shielding his angular face from the rain, made his way toward him.

“You look dead on your feet,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Have to get to Duciel,” Charon said. A man with brown hair darkened by the rain steadied Charon by the arm, but Charon shook him off and kept trudging forward. “There’s a wedding.”

“Oh! That’s where Cillian and I are going.” The man in the hood smiled brightly. “But we got held up by the rain. Miserable stuff, but the mud is an interesting texture.”

“Astra, don’t,” Cillian said. “We’re performing at the wedding, if we can get there in time. Are you a guest?” His gaze rose from Charon’s muddy boots to his unbound hair, which fell over his face in dark curtains.

“No. How long before the wedding? Where is it being held?”

The men glanced at each other warily. “It’s at the palace,” Astra said. “Right before sunset, which isn’t fair, in my opinion. I’m going to catch a cold at this rate.”

“No, you won’t,” Cillian said.

Charon looked up at the palace at the top of the hill. He wouldn’t make it in time if he kept this slow, plodding pace. The others in the parade of performers were already starting to pass them, though a few paused to give Cillian inquisitive looks.

“Why are you going to the wedding if you aren’t a guest?” Astra asked. He walked easily alongside Charon, occasionally kicking up mud like a bored child. Cillian gave him a warning look, but Astra had the air of a born brat, and proved Charon’s estimation right by stepping solidly into the middle of a mud puddle.

“I have to stop the wedding,” Charon said. He was beyond false pretense now. He had no energy left for anything but the truth, and it spilled from his lips with the hot, painful pull and push of his lungs. “I have to tell Yves that I love him. Properly, this time. Before it’s too late.”

“You’re in love with the groom?” Astra asked, loud enough that most of the people around them slowed to listen.

“One of them,” Cillian said, when a young woman whispered in his ear. “I think he means the courtesan.”

“Yes. Yves.” Charon pushed himself forward. “He told me that he loved me, but I couldn’t—couldn’t admit it yet. I have to tell him. Let him know. Even if he doesn’t want it any longer.”

Astra and Cillian exchanged another look, and Astra moved closer to place a slender, pale hand on Charon’s arm.

“You must love him a great deal to do this,” he said.

“More than I can say.”

Astra paused as though carefully choosing his words, then squeezed Charon’s arm. “Then we’ll get you there,” he said. “You just need to go a little farther, then you can rest.”

Charon nodded. Astra’s voice held no dominance, but there was something in it that rang true in Charon’s mind, and as he took another step toward Duciel, he felt a rush of energy surge through him. Exhaustion lingered at the edges of his awareness,but he felt oddly free of its control. The city was so close that he could make out the roof of the palace—he couldn’t afford to fall by the wayside.

Charon strode into the rain. The crowd of performers followed, and trees bent in the wind before him as though heralding his return.

Thunder echoed over the palace, and Yves jumped, nearly spilling a glass of champagne on his wedding suit.

“Someone’s anxious,” Harriet said. She and Percy had commandeered Yves’ dressing room when the steward reluctantly announced that the dance troupe had yet to arrive, and Harriet was delicately weaving flowers around the gold diadem in his hair. She glanced at Yves in the mirror, but Yves couldn’t meet her eyes.

“I can’t imagine why,” Percy said. “You’re finally getting everything you’ve ever wanted. You’ll be richer than the king after this.”

“Of course,” Yves said.

Harriet gave Yves another meaningful look and ducked her head down to whisper in his ear. “He’s not a very perceptive man, is he?”

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