A servant from Earl Grey’s household had just finished assisting Yvette’s attendants with her luggage when another footman stepped forward. Without a word, he retrieved a silver box from his tray and presented it to her.
Copying the other guests, Yvette accepted it with a polite nod. Every attendee seemed to hold one. No doubt Ulysses will explain later, she thought.
She spotted him across the room, engrossed in conversation—until the Duke of Lancaster sidled up to her.
“Daydreaming, Yves?”
“Your Grace! I was merely… admiring how impeccably trained the servants are here.” Her tone strained to mask discomfort.
“Ah.” The Duke’s smile widened as he flicked open her silver box. Inside lay cerulean paper scraps. Plucking one, he drawled, “Pray visit my estate someday. My servants rival these—and my brother shares my esteem for you.”
“Your… brother?” Since when does he have a brother who knows me?
The Duke offered no answer. With a foxlike smirk, he retreated up the staircase, footsteps light with mischief.
Once he vanished, Ulysses joined her, palm outstretched. “Hand it over.”
Baffled, Yvette complied. He swapped her box for his own, which she opened to reveal crimson confetti.
“Avoiding carmine, Sir?” She suppressed a grin. Such a masculine hue.
Ulysses groaned. “Three hundred rooms. Forty guests. Scores of servants. Need I spell it out?”
At her blank stare, he relented. “Once, a libertine mistook a lord’s chamber for his paramour’s. He leapt into bed—and grabbed a hairy calf belonging to a gouty marquess. The scandal exiled him to the Continent. Hence”—he shook the box—“color-coded paper trails. The Duke memorized your shade. Use mine now, and never reveal yours again.”
Yvette blinked.
The mansion’s maze of corridors justified the precaution. Her guide took ages to locate her room—unlocked, like all inner doors. Privacy, it seemed, remained a novel luxury.
Later, she tiptoed into the hall to sprinkle crimson scraps. But a cerulean trail snaked past her door, vanishing into the adjacent room.
She knocked on the shared wall. “Sir Ulysses?”
Fabric rustled on the other side before his voice cut through: “Ah, my neighbor. Afternoons are yours to idle—but dress formally for dinner.”
Of course. Nobility demanded a wardrobe for every hour: promenades demanded walking dresses, tea required visiting gowns… Yvette opted for a brief stroll to avoid whispers of penury.
Near the shrubbery, hunters returned with game. One rider clutched a live fox by the nape—oddly docile, its tail a slack banner.
“A bold catch!” Yvette called. “Did it charge your net?”
“It offered itself,” a man replied. “Tame as a pup, reeking aside.”
The creature’s passivity unnerved her.
Dinner introduced Earl Grey: a vibrant man in his prime, save for the bandaged stump of his left arm. Guests showered him with condolences, but he waved them off, jesting about his “hunting trophy.”
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“Yet my finest quarry came not from land, but sea.” His gaze lingered on the Duke of Lancaster. “Last week, I sampled caviar transcendent—Kiev’s ‘black gold’ pales to sawdust in comparison.”
The Earl excused himself after dessert.
Yvette endured parlor debates until weariness reclaimed her.
That night, furtive footsteps halted outside Ulysses’ door. A knob creaked—
Shiiiing. Steel rang out next door.
“Your Grace,” Ulysses deadpanned, “to think you’d skulk into my chambers like some back-alley degenerate.”
“Misunderstanding!” the Duke yelped. “By our friendship—!”
Scuffles followed. Yvette pictured Ulysses herding him backward, blade leveled.
“My honor demands reparation. We duel at dawn.”
“A glove! Don’t toss the glove! Look into my aggrieved eyes—!”
The Duke’s pleas faded as he bolted downstairs, grief evidently no hindrance to haste.
Yvette muffled laughter. Ulysses could comedy-pair with a lamppost.
Yet the Duke’s brother—who was he?
Life at the manor drifted by like molasses. Though mere days had passed, Yvette felt suspended in amber.
When Earl Gray failed to appear at the second day’s banquet, guests amused themselves with hunts and cards, while statesmen murmured in parlors. Their discussions reeked of patrician arrogance.
"Humanity divides itself—superior intellect and virtue elevate the elite. Nature’s design," declared one.
"Pastures overgrazed starve the flock," another drawled. "Likewise, the poor proliferate beyond their meager rations. Let charity cease, and hunger shall curb their breeding."
Teatime interrupted these philosophies. A servant presented finger food—dainty cakes above, suspicious sandwiches below. The Gray chef’s creation disturbed tradition: shredded crimson meat, more butcher’s scraps than noble fare.
A guest inspected his sandwich dubiously.
"Venison, sir!" The servant urged. "Minced to savor the broth—a culinary marvel!"
Yvette examined her portion. Though shredded, the meat glistened succulently.
A neighbor took a bite and froze, eyes widening. "Astounding... unlike any venison—"
"Juvenile game, perhaps? Richer marbling..."
As praise circulated, Yvette reached for one—
"Yves. Attend me." Ulysses stood framed in the doorway.
"Coming, Uncle."
The servant persisted: "Dinner’s hours distant! At least take a sandwich—"
Oddly pushy, Yvette thought. "No thank you. My stomach rebels."
Escaping the servant’s wounded look, she followed Ulysses to a gilded chamber where Winslow and the Duke of Lancaster waited.
"Ulysses! Darling rogue!" The Duke flourished. "And Yves—has Cupid guided you to my door?"
"Enough theater," Ulysses said. "The sandwiches are tainted."
"What?" Yvette stared. The others betrayed no surprise. "You all knew?"
Winslow nodded. "His Grace enlightened me posthaste."
But he’s no adept! Without Ulysses’ intervention, she’d have eaten.
"Poison? Shouldn’t we warn—"
"Not poison. The meat itself... is problematic." Ulysses’ tone forbade inquiry.
Why shut me out? Resentment prickled.
"Your Grace—how would you discern this?"
The Duke’s vulpine grin sharpened. "Though giftless, I’m curse-touched. I see... reflections. Earl Gray—a pallid wretch with a lamprey’s maw. His shadow crawls with grasping hands, devoured by goat-shaped specters."
"His forebears enclosed commons for pasture, beggaring tenants. My visions mirror their sins."
Yvette recalled textbooks: Enclosure Acts starving peasants for profit...
"My brother’s your ‘Spindle.’"
The Tower’s Fateweaver! Ulysses’ calm confirmed prior knowledge.
"The sandwiches, then—?"
The Duke’s smile turned black. "Lambs caper in shadows, feasting on limb-studded ore."
Yvette blanched. Earl Gray’s own curse—could it mean...
"Hollow visions?" she whispered.
"Ulysses confirmed: that meat wasn’t deer..."
"Enough," Ulysses warned.
"Ah, but he tasted its truth!" The Duke’s eyes glittered.
He ate it? Yvette recoiled, recalling Ulysses biting cursed stone. Gods—the revulsion...
"Uncle—are you—? Your Grace, stop baiting him!"
The room gaped.
The Duke chuckled. "Sweet child—Ulysses has swallowed fouler things. He spares you the horror."
Ulysses redirected. "Earl Gray’s fate is uncertain. Perpetrator unknown—mundane or occult. This reeks of ritual. Time bleeds away, but guests here hold power. His Grace departs immediately."
"Yves should escort him," Winslow suggested.
"No. You both go."
"No," they chorused.
"Too dangerous alone," Yvette protested.
"Assign Yves to me?" The Duke fluttered lashes.
Ulysses’ pause stretched.
"Beloved comrade~?"
"...Winslow accompanies you."
The Duke wailed betrayal.