Page 58 of Prince of Masks
His jaw ticks before he cuts me a side-glance.
I asked quiet enough that Father won’t hear me over Harold’s humming murmur, and that Mother won’t perk up now that’s she’s whispering—definitely gossiping—with Amelia. Probably about me.
Oliver hesitates. He lowers the spoon a little, then looks over my head.
I trace his stare to Dray.
His eyes are on us, listening, as he reaches for a side plate, then sets it down beside me.
His gaze drops to me, shavings of diamonds. “Which side do you want?”
“Huh?” I glance down at the small plate, then at his dessert, and I understand. He means to cut me a slice of his chocolate cake.
I turn my cheek. “I’m stuffed.”
It doesn’t stop him. He still prepares me a small plate of the dessert I wanted.
Amelia notices, but she says nothing. Father, too.
Mother purses her mouth.
But no one intervenes.
So I steal a spoon, and I taste a little.
“Would you?” I look at Oliver. “Let Serena come?”
Beside me, Dray pours me a healthy serve of dom to go with the cake.
“I wouldn’t,” Oliver says, “and maybe that’s why she’s not speaking to me right now.”
“Because you won’t let her come to the casino?”
“Because there will come a time,” he says with a gentle breath, “where I will have to make those decisions—and that changes things between us. Dynamics will shift, and that includes ours.”
That silences me. And I stay silent for the rest of the meal.
It isn’t long before the men leave for the casino.
I go to bed.
12
In the dozens of times we have visited Monaco, we have seen and done it all.
These days, no one bothers with the museum, no one mentions the cathedral or the palace, and instead, we escape the very city we travelled to.
We escape on a yacht.
I’m tucked into the nook of a narrow walkway far at the back of the boat. My bare feet are flat on the foot-tall wall of the under cabin that both Dray and Oliver lounge on top of, and my back is pressed against the cushioned bench.
Behind me, the waves crash on the side of the boat. A mist of foamy water sprays me every so often, and it’s a lovely relief from the heat.
Monaco, and the surrounding seas, are not seasonally this warm. But with unknown elemental witches lurking in the city, clearing the clouds and luring out the sun’s heat, thrown in with Mr Younge’s heat bubble over the yacht, it’s a day that feels something like a sauna on the sea.
Rays of sunshine dance over me.
The pocketbook of modern compositions is parted on my lap. I turn the page of the score, now onto the introduction of Alexandra, a modern composer.
