Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wylan hides in his mother’s armoire. Knees tucked up to his chin, he drowns himself in the familiarity of her black mercher dresses and the more colorful skirts and blouses she wore in the summers to paint in the garden. Mama’s scent lingers on the fabric. He cries silently even though there’s no one to hear him. His voice has been stolen from him just like his mother. 

He has never been a particularly loud child. Nor an energetic one. Wylan knows better than to run, jump, or cause a fuss, even in the privacy of his own home, but he still cried the day Father told him Mama died. Tears poured down his cheeks and his breath hitched in gasps until his father grabbed his arm right above his elbow, squeezing until Wylan cried out in pain, and told him to quit acting hysterical. 

So he muffles his sobs into his bruised arm like a good boy. Presses his face into the furniture until there’s no sound at all. Wylan hides under the covers of his bed until the sheets are damp, behind the thick red drapery on the upper floors where no one finds him. He tucks himself under the beds in the spare rooms on the third floor, beneath the garden hedges, and once in the pantry until the cook threw him out. 

He likes fitting himself into tight spaces, feeling small and safe when nothing makes sense. 

Now no one hears him sob, scream, or throw a childish tantrum. Not his father, the nanny, or the servants.

In the back of the armoire he imagines yelling, shouting himself hoarse until Mama herself comes back from the dead, pushes her clothes aside, and tells him to quiet down. 

A silly fantasy—only his nanny would come running. The staff pretend not to hear. They always turn away. If his father heard he would glare, grab Wylan too tight again, and hiss his disappointment under his breath.

Wylan wipes his wet cheeks again. He likes the idea that he can summon his mother just because he wants her back. He wants and wants and wants. Wants to demand where she went. Wants to stomp his feet until she understands how much he hurts without her. Wants to know why she left him behind. And most importantly, he wants to beg her to come back. 

Because now Wylan feels so very, very alone hiding in the back of her closet to cry.

The door opens abruptly and sunlight pours into the dark space. Wylan jumps, blinded by the daylight. His nanny hauls him out and to his feet. 

“Your father wants you, Master Wylan. Come.”

She starts leading him to his father’s office on the second floor before he slowly processes her words. He’s always been soft-headed, stupid. Feet freezing in place, Wylan shakes his head. He doesn’t want to go back to that room where he learned Mama died, the one where his father scowls at him. Strikes him across the cheek. 

But his nanny’s fingers lock around his wrist and she pulls him behind her like a stubborn animal. A dog resisting its leash. 

“Stop,” she hisses. A command, a warning. Then they are standing in front of his father’s imposing office door. A familiar wetness that hasn’t stopped all week pricks at the corner of Wylan’s eyes. The hallway begins to blur. He doesn’t want to go inside. Nothing good ever happens in that office. 

To his surprise, his nanny doesn’t knock on the door immediately. Instead she turns to face Wylan, and rests her work rough hands gently on his young shoulders. After assessing him she frowns. Then smooths his ruddy gold curly hair into order and wipes his face with the sleeve of her blouse. It can’t ease the redness rimming his blue eyes, but it removes the wet tear tracks staining his small cheeks.

Since his mother died, it’s the kindest thing anyone in the house has done for Wylan.

The nanny raps a light fist against the door. She waits for permission before opening it and shoves Wylan inside. 

He stumbles forward into his father’s office on unsteady legs. The door clicks shut, painfully loud behind him. 

His father, Jan Van Eck, doesn’t even look up from the business papers on his desk. 

Wylan waits. His young eyes dart around the room from his father to the grand portrait of his great great grandfather behind him. The bookshelves against the walls are lined with ledgers, thick leather-bound spines with gold embossing that makes him dizzy the longer he looks. He tries not to fidget.

Eventually, his father picks up a single sheet of paper off the corner of the desk and sighs. 

“This is a letter from your tutor.” He begins reading: 

“Councilman Van Eck, 

This week, your son made no progress furthering his studies in reading and writing. Despite my efforts, the truth remains that the boy cannot identify solitary letters nor read the simplest of sentences decoded by the earliest of learners, no matter how many hours are spent studying the alphabet or studying books for beginning readers. Any sporadic progress he seems to make is a crafted illusion hidden by memorization and the occasional correct guess. It is not true progress as the boy still cannot read a new, unfamiliar text. Nor is he capable of writing the most basic words, even his name, despite repetitive practice. In my professional opinion, after witnessing the boy’s attempts to read and write, he is incapable of learning.

Yet your son is truly gifted in his sums and sciences, making progress in both years beyond what is expected of his age. He continues to excel in these subjects as long as content is presented to him orally or written numerically. However, no subject is studied independently of one another, and sooner than later, his success in maths and sciences will stall unless he learns to read and write …”

His father stops reading and looks at Wylan with disgust.

Wylan flushes, shame creeping across his skin. He knew the reports given to his father weren’t flattering, but he hoped they emphasized his better subjects. His tutor frequently commented on his ability to multiply and divide double digits without showing scratchwork. Of course Father doesn’t care about it. Not until he can read too. 

Jan Van Eck sets the letter aside on his desk. “There’s more, but this is damning enough. It’s time we stop living in denial: There’s nothing more that can be done in your studies until you cooperate and start reading.”

“I will!” Wylan sputters, “I promi—”

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting new results,” his father snaps angrily, cutting Wylan off. Wylan shrinks back at the outburst. “Your tutors and I are both done waiting for progress where there is none. I’m dismissing your tutor and nanny. They can return when you start reading, when you are ready to continue your studies. As of today, you’ll be trained by the servants how to cook and clean. Without an education, domestic labor is the most you can accomplish. You’ll finally be able to make yourself useful under Ghezen.” 

A year ago, Wylan traveled to Fjerda with his parents on a ship that crossed the True Sea. He remembers the gentle sway of the vessel beneath his feet, except for one stormy afternoon. Gale winds and choppy water shook the ship. It lurched so suddenly that Wylan fell in his family’s cabin. Even on his hands and knees, he couldn’t stabilize himself enough to stand as the room swung from one side, then another. 

The floor of his father’s office isn’t moving, but Wylan feels equally unsteady as if the whole room tilts sideways. His stomach rolls as if it had. 

No more tutors, no more hours of lessons staring at indecipherable words. Fear chokes any joy he might have at the news. He was going to be a … His father was sending him to the … It couldn’t be real. Father wouldn’t—

Tears prick at the corners of Wylan’s eyes again. Without thinking, he blurts, “Plea—”

“Do not argue with me, Wylan!” his father shouts. 

He falls silent in his father’s wrath, eyes wide, wet, and hurt. 

Jan Van Eck takes a breath, calms himself and continues speaking. “This is in your best interests. I take no joy in seeing my son become a scullion. Nor would your mother.” 

He wishes his father struck him instead. It would hurt less than mentioning Mama. 

“In the meantime, I’ll tell my associates that you are away at boarding school, where you should be if you weren’t defective. Head to the kitchen. The housekeeper will give you instructions from now on. You’re dismissed.”

Numbly, Wylan nods, opens the door, and walks out. Step by step, his feet carry him downstairs to the kitchen, but he remembers nothing else about that first day. He doesn’t remember crying, though he must have, or being given an apron so large he only wears it by tying a knot to shorten the loop around his neck and circle the ties twice around his middle. 

When he’s sent to his own bedroom the next afternoon to remove the sheets from the bed, Wylan freezes in the doorway. The room is empty, stripped bare. His sketchpads stacked neatly on his desk are gone, as is everything else: the untouched books for studying, the stuffed bunny laid carefully atop his pillow, his blocks and toys, all his clothes from the wardrobe, the tin on a shelf holding his baubles—pretty stones, marbles, and other knickknacks—is missing. As if they were never there. 

The housekeeper scolds him for taking so long. She tells him that his things were collected and moved to his new room in the attic’s servants quarters. That night, by the time his chores are complete and he’s dismissed, it’s so late that he digs through the single trunk at the end of his tiny new bed by candlelight. The only thing he finds inside are clothes. No toys, drawing pencils, sheet music, or his bunny. Not even a pillow.

Everything has been stolen from him. Wylan is eight years old. 

Chapter Text

15 Years Later...

Wylan jerks awake as a dishcloth slaps his face. He doesn’t have time to comprehend the rude awakening because the rag strikes him again. He flinches and raises his arms to protect his head from another attack. 

It doesn’t work. 

“Up, boy. Up!” Sannes, the cook, commands brusquely, smacking him with her dishcloth one last time even though he is clearly awake. “Light the oven and empty the ashes. Come on now, boy, the sun’s rising. You’ve got work to do.”

Disoriented, Wylan drops his arm and blinks his wide blue eyes sluggishly in the faint light of the kitchen. The sun hasn’t risen yet, the room still dimmed in shadows. Through the open windows he can see the morning air cast in the violet hue of the predawn light. Too early for the rooster to crow. He must have fallen asleep in front of the fireplace again, Wylan realizes. He remembers sitting, soaking in the warmth of the dying embers. But now the gray stones underneath him are cold. 

Wylan sits up and scrubs tiredly at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Sannes huffs, satisfied he’ll get to work, and leaves him to begin preparing for the morning. She gathers the flour, yeast, and whatever else she needs to mix the doughs she’ll bake in a few hours for breakfast. 

It’s a familiar rhythm to his ear, the measuring and tinkering. Eventually, it’ll give way to kneading the dough by slapping it against the counter. 

And Wylan needs to hurry and heat the oven or she’ll smack him again, this time with a wooden spoon. Or worse, her rolling pin. 

If the household’s bread is late to breakfast, he’ll be blamed. So Wylan stands and fetches the empty ash pail and shovel leaning beside the fireplace.

His left shoulder aches fiercely from lying on the unforgiving hearth all night, but he gets to work scooping yesterday’s ashes from the oven. Afterward, he fills it and sets the wooden kindling alight with a match. Before the bread bakes, the flames need to die down but keep a steady heat. Soon enough, the scent of freshly baked bread will fill the room. 

Wylan’s stomach growls with anticipation, but he ignores it. Too many chores to do first. 

He moves on to cleaning and resetting the fireplace next. Sannes uses both throughout the day to cook. 

Sometimes, Wylan thinks that his father would like to trap him here in the kitchen, keeping Wylan so busy, like Sannes, that he’d never have to see him elsewhere in the house. But that would mean his father would have to suffer Wylan’s cooking, which means it hasn’t happened and it never will. He doesn’t trust Wylan enough not to accidentally poison the whole household. 

Obviously, Wylan didn’t mean to sleep on the kitchen hearth. Last night he washed up after supper: the cooking pots and serving spoons, the finer plates and silver utensils used on the dining table, and the ceramic and tin ones for the staff. By the time he dried them all and put away every last item—Sannes demanded a clean working space—and tossed out the last of the dirty washing water, the sun had set over the estate. 

And he still had more to do. 

The thought alone was more exhausting than the actual work. So he rested his legs, sitting in front of the glowing embers and enjoying the warmth seeping into his sore muscles even though he wasn’t close to being finished for the evening. Let his eyes unfocus and his mind drift away from the work that still needed to be done. There were more chores. Always more chores. He still needed to turn off the oil lamps, empty the pots, ready the house for the night, and mend the tear in his sleeve before it began to fray. At some point he must have laid down, but he doesn’t remember. 

Wylan’s eyes widen in panic. 

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. His chest clenches in fear. Ice water surges through his veins. He didn’t do any of his evening chores. Stupid, stupid Wylan. Forgetting and falling asleep, how did he manage to do something so dumb? 

Fuck, he’s in so much trouble. 

His eyes flicker toward the window where the dawn begins to break. If he hurries, he can still finish the important ones before his father wakes up. Before he notices Wylan’s carelessness. You stupid idiot, he scolds himself. 

Fast as possible, Wylan scoops the old ashes, replaces the wood, and lights it. Usually, he saves the best bits of charcoal for sketching. Upstairs in his tiny servants’ room in the attic, he whitewashed the walls to give him space to draw. Not that he has much time to indulge. 

Especially not now. Fuck, not this morning. 

Wylan drops the bucket outside the door and races back into the main house to fix last night’s mistakes. 

No need to unlock any of the doors if they were never locked to begin with. Thank Ghezen, no one strolled in during the night and robbed the house. His father would actually murder him. 

Emptying the pots is a foul task. In the back of Wylan’s mind, he knows that’s why it’s always been his job. His punishment for being half-witted. If it were up to him, everyone in the house would piss outside against a tree. 

Unfortunately, the oil lamps lining the hallways burned low overnight and there’s no hiding how much oil they used. His father can easily afford to buy more, but that’s not the point. Even if lamp oil is cheap, Wylan knows he’ll still be in trouble for wasting it. “You can’t read, so how can you be expected to understand the economics of this household? These expenses add up, Wylan!”

There’s not enough time to refill all of the lamps before the rest of the house wakes up, but he fills three and hopes it’s enough to spare him. It won’t be—Wylan may be mindless, but he’s not that dumb. 

He’ll have to find the time to finish the rest later today. 

Wylan throws back all the curtains to let in the morning light, one of his usual morning chores, then rushes back to the kitchen and prays he makes it back in time to lay out the dishes in the dining room before his father and Alys come downstairs. 

Sannes’ glare lets him know he’s cutting it awfully close. 

For once, luck is on his side. He finishes setting up before they arrive and returns to the kitchen just as the hourly bell begins to toll. Wylan barely has the chance to wipe the sweat from his forehead before Sannes shoves a platter of eggs and another of fruit in his arms, and a cutting board with fresh bread and butter. 

When he enters the dining room, Alys continues to chatter, oblivious to his presence. Unfortunately, his father isn’t as unaware. He scowls at Wylan before the food is set on the table, and Wylan wonders what he could have possibly done wrong in the half-second since he’s entered the room. 

Nothing, Wylan knows. He merely exists, and that’s enough to anger anyone, especially his father. 

He hurries out of the dining room so quickly that Alys’ little lap dog doesn’t even have a chance to growl at him. The spoiled little beast has only gotten worse lately, so overprotective that Wylan knows he’d be bitten for simply doing his job and filling her teacup. 

And it would be his fault, of course. 

Alys thinks Wylan is just another servant. She doesn’t know; she’s never supposed to know. 

Two years ago when his father announced his upcoming marriage, he called Wylan into his office to explain that his new wife was a sweet young woman. Wylan remembers the conversation well. His father described Alys as charming and kind-hearted, but emotionally sensitive. Therefore, he thought it best that she didn’t know about Wylan, about his … situation. He assured Wylan that knowledge of his deficiency would only upset her. So like everyone else, Jan Van Eck told his new bride that his son was away at university, where Wylan should be.

It hurt to hear, but not as badly as what came next. 

“It’s for the best, you understand,” his father concluded. 

“Yes, father.” His position had always been known within the household. There was no hiding it from the servants. Outside the estate, no one knew, of course. 

“For Ghezen’s sake,” his father snapped. Startled, Wylan flinched. “Show me the proper respect. You’re the help now, Wylan. Start acting like it. This is the type of idiocy from you we want to avoid. If you slip like that in front of Alys, you’ll wish that you died before you ever took your first breath.”

Wylan nodded, trying to find his voice. “Yes, sir,” he amended nervously, proud his words didn’t falter as much as he thought they would. 

“Get out.”

The full weight of the conversation only hit Wylan later when he was scrubbing the baseboards in the drawing room. When his father left to meet with his future new wife and there was no one to see him cry, Wylan tucked himself between the armchair and the end table, as if he were a child. As if he could shrink himself and still fit in the small places he used to hide when the household belonged to him. Not the other way around. 

He grieved, sure that he had officially been disowned. Unloved. Unwanted. Before that day, there had always been hope that he could earn back Jan Van Eck’s good graces. He just needed to read. Then he could move back into his spacious former bedroom, continue studying, and never touch the fucking broom again. 

Wylan wiped his tears away as if that would stop more from falling. It didn’t. Now there was no hope. His servitude would no longer be an open secret in the household, but a private hidden shame. 

Just like him, apparently. 

Since the beginning, Wylan clung to that hope he’d be accepted back, he realized with disgust, even though the opportunity never actually existed. Perhaps it had always been his father’s plan to discard him to the servants’ quarters, and Wylan was just too stupid to figure it out. 

Wylan returns to the dining room with a pot of tea, pours it for his father and Alys, then retreats to the kitchen to eat his own meal. 

Even though none of the servants really talk, breakfast is one of the most enjoyable parts of the day. It’s easy to pretend the others like Wylan’s company when they eat together. At best they ignore him. At worst they take his father’s lead and loathe his presence, unwilling to upset the status quo with any kindness. 

It’s okay. Wylan knows he deserves it and made peace with their disapproval years ago. 

When he walks in, Sannes and her husband Diggory, who tends the estate’s grounds and cares for the horses, sit at the table tucked into the corner of the room. Eating side by side is the most affection they’ve ever shared. Maybe their disdain towards Wylan isn’t personal. After all, the older couple don’t even seem to like each other either. Across from them, Marlies, Alys’ handmaid, eats quietly but contentedly. He thinks she’s probably five years older than him, but she doesn’t speak to him and he hasn’t asked. Wylan suspects his father hired her just to keep Alys entertained. 

She’s the only one who glances at Wylan when he joins the table, taking the seat beside her. But she says nothing as Wylan bites into his slice of bread and a leftover mash of vegetables. He understands. She prefers to keep to herself most days, tired of listening to Alys’ endless conversations. He’d probably do the same in her situation. 

The silence between the four is calm, peaceful. It lasts until Prior and Miggson walk in, laughing between themselves. They don’t live on the estate like Wylan and the others, but they still work for Jan Van Eck, doing all sorts of odd jobs. Running messages, errands, harassing Wylan, fetching supplies, and the miscellaneous work that requires hard labor. 

They each take a serving of food and squeeze around the table. An estate this size should easily have twice as many servants to run a fully functional household, but a lone widower didn’t need much help. The number of necessary staff whittled away over the years, at least until his father remarried. 

Wylan resists the urge to shrink in his chair and hide in plain sight from the two brutes. Instead, he stands to leave. It’s better to get out of their way completely before they decide to turn their attention toward him. 

Too late. 

Miggson’s meaty hand clamps around his sore shoulder and pushes Wylan back into the chair. He doesn’t let go. “Sit down, kid. We’re not here for you.” 

Wylan shakes his head. “I have work to do.” He fights the urge to pull out of the man’s grip. But until Miggson chooses to release him, he knows that he’s not going anywhere. 

Sannes, of all people, speaks up. 

“Yes, you do,” she tells Wylan sharply. “Stop slacking and throw those ashes out properly. Pump the water and bring me more wood for the fires. Hurry up, boy.”

It’s not the defense he wants, but Wylan accepts it. Miggson, Prior too, can get away with a lot, but they know better than to anger the cook if they want to continue eating. 

The hand lifts from his shoulder. Miggson pats him on the back as if it was a friendly gesture instead of threatening, and lets go. Wylan tenses, nods to Sannes. “Yes, ma’am.” 

He drops his dirty plate in the washtub to clean later and heads out the backdoor to dump the ashes in the compost as promised. By the time he gets back to pump water, the others have started to clear the table too, disappearing to start their daily routines. 

Diggory discards his dish in the washtub beside the bucket Wylan fills for Sannes. Instead of leaving, the old man looms beside him. “I know you was out there yesterday. I heard that flute of yours.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Wylan says innocently, not bothering to look up as he pushes the pump’s lever up and down repeatedly. Cold water splashes into the bucket with each pump, but not nearly fast enough to end this conversation.

“Next time, I’ll catch you. I’ll snap that twig in two and thrash you, boy.”

The old man glares at him, but Wylan ignores him. The others—Sannes, Miggson, and Prior, can lord their scraps of power over him, but Wylan doesn’t answer to Diggory. The old gardener holds no authority, especially when he can’t even find Wylan crouching in a fucking bush. 

“Maybe you’re confusing music with birdsong again.” The thrill of standing up to Diggory rushes to his head. It feels good. 

Wylan knows he shouldn’t taunt the man. Angry, he’ll make good on his threat if he catches Wylan anywhere outside. It means that he won’t be able to sneak off to the far corner of the estate to play his flute for at least a week, but he considers the jibe worth it. 

Diggory spits in the bucket, soiling the clean water, and leaves. Wylan grimaces. He lugs it out of the tub and dumps it outside before starting again. Eventually he finishes filling the bucket with water and hauls it onto the counter for the cook. 

Now that breakfast is finished, he returns to the dining room to collect the tableware. In the doorway, he catches sight of his father still in his chair and freezes, eyes wide with surprise. Normally, Jan Van Eck leaves immediately after eating. He’s a busy man. His time is too valuable to dawdle after meals. 

But today he’s reading a book. Properly reading, not pretending and turning a page every 45 seconds like Wylan used to do when he was a child. 

Words have always been a weapon used against Wylan. So he enters the room warily, watching the book, not sure if his father will strike him with it, humiliate him by demanding he read it, or simply use it as a prop to insult him. Or maybe nothing at all. Because it’s just a book, and no one else’s pulse races in fear at such an ordinary object. 

If his father wanted to be left alone, he wouldn’t hesitate to say. So Wylan collects the used dishware as if he isn’t there. He eyes the leftover food that can be split among himself and the other servants.

There’s more leftovers than usual, which meant Alys must not have been hungry. 

Wylan wants to hate her. It would be easier if he did, he knows, but he can’t find the anger in his heart. Alys is young, his age, and he can’t fault her for a marriage that probably wasn’t her choice. She’s as joyful and annoying as she is kind. The irony isn’t lost on Wylan that she is the most amiable toward him of everyone in the household. The only person who hasn’t smacked him across the back of his head or called him worthless. 

That doesn’t stop him from growing frustrated with her. Ghezen knows she talks too much, and her animals are nuisances. 

What he’d give for Alys to still be in the room right now. 

“Why do you insist,” his father began slowly without taking his eyes off the page to look at Wylan, “On sleeping in the kitchen when there are perfectly good quarters upstairs? Have you sunk so low that you’re incapable of using a bed now?”

There it is. 

No matter how many times, how many ways Wylan steels himself against his father’s taunts, the cruelty of his words cuts through the flimsy shields he uses to protect himself. 

Without thinking, Wylan reaches to his cheek to scrub at the soot stain that must have given him away. He wonders if the gray ash discolored his ruddy gold hair too, but fights the instinct to run his hand through it to find out. 

His bed in the servants’ quarters was more of a slim cot, but Wylan doesn’t correct his father. It’s more comfortable than the hearth, and he doesn’t want it taken from him for being pedantic. 

“No, sir,” he says quietly, avoiding his father’s eyes.

Jan Van Eck snaps the book shut, and Wylan flinches. His father finally looks at him, and Wylan feels pinned under the full weight of the attention evaluating his every flaw, every shortcoming with a cold appraising gaze, frowning at what he finds. “If you’re so set on looking like an urchin, then you can be thrown out the front gate to act like one. Is that what you want, to sit on the street and beg?”

Wylan swallows down the urge to flee. It’s strong. His fingers twitch and he clutches the stack of plates just for something to hold onto. Then shakes his head and lowers his eyes down to the floor. 

Silence is best. Let his father speak his piece and wait for it to be over. 

Because it will end, Wylan reminds himself, even though it’s not a comforting thought right now. Not while his father reprimands him. 

“Then clean yourself up. There are standards in this house that still apply to you,” he snarls with disgust. “After all this time, I thought even a soft-headed idiot like you could manage to bathe.” 

Wylan feels the moment his father’s scrutiny lands on his torn sleeve. The one he had meant to repair last night as soon as he went upstairs to his room in the attic. But he fell asleep on the hearth and never fixed it. 

“Are you incapable of using a thread and needle? You look like a vagabond,” Jan Van Eck continues, “It’s not that difficult. Perhaps I was mistaken, and you still need your hand held for the most basic tasks after all these years.”

Wylan’s cheeks flush with shame. He shakes his head. “No—I—I can. I will. When I have the time.”

Jan Van Eck sighs in disappointment. “Hollow promises from a hollow skull.” He picks his book back up and opens it. His eyes travel across the pages with a rhythm only those who have learned to read master. 

Wylan waits for another moment before accepting the silence as a dismissal. He swallows the lump in this throat and rushes to pick up the rest of the dishes. Just as he’s about to step through the door he hears his father’s voice again, quiet, almost conversational. 

“I should have killed you years ago. I suppose it’s never too late to throw your corpse in the canal.” 

A familiar fear settles in Wylan’s stomach like ice. He scurries out of the room. 

It’s not the first time his father threatened his life and it certainly won’t be the last. At least Wylan hopes. Because that means his father followed through and that … that he refuses to think about. 

Drowning Wylan had always been a personal favorite in his father’s arsenal of threats. Not that Jan Van Eck would ever do it himself. Wylan’s sure about that. His father will never dirty his own hands.

All the same, he stopped going near the canal on the northern edge of the estate years ago. 

Just in case.

No, his father would never kill him, Wylan concludes while quickly washing the morning’s dishes, drying them. His father enjoys wielding control over Wylan too much. Difficult to humiliate and discipline him if he’s dead. 

Besides, his father is too Kerch to ever hire more help when his idiot son does the same labor for free. The thought finally settles Wylan’s heart rate and eases the fear building in his stomach. For better or worse he’ll never get rid of Wylan. 

When he’s finished, the sun has risen, bright light pouring through the windows. There’s an endless list of chores to complete in the main house, so Wylan gets started. Upstairs in the master bedroom, he fetches the laundry and replaces the linens. 

During the morning, the house is almost always empty. Sannes heads to the market to buy fresh meat and produce. His father leaves on business, usually accompanied by Prior and Miggson. Before the heat sets in, Alys and her handmaid leave the estate to socialize or stroll through the fresh garden air.

Wylan appreciates the freedom to work unobserved. Especially after seeing his father.

He washes the laundry until his fingertips sting from the harsh soap, then hangs it to dry. Starting upstairs, he moves from room to room wiping down all the surfaces that haven’t had time to collect dust: the portrait frames, the lamps, and shelves. Tidies the rooms as he goes.

His fear of entering the library hasn’t completely eased, even after all these years. Wylan still wakes up from nightmares about being locked inside it again. So he leaves the door wide open and hurries through cleaning.

Logically, he knows the books won’t tattle on him for touching them. But some days, just brushing their clothed spines sends his heart racing. Today is one of them. 

He beats the rugs, cleans the birdcages, sweeps the terrace, and polishes two wooden cabinets in the sitting room by the time the bell rings to serve Alys lunch. Usually she insists that Marlies join her, so he serves them together in the dining room.

Alys picks through her meal again, uninterested. Her little dog eats more than she does, Wylan notes. He wonders if she feels ill. When his mother fell sick, she lost her appetite, he remembers. A tendril of worry digs into the back of his mind. He doesn’t want Alys to die either. 

She didn’t look ill at lunch, nor act like it. In fact, Alys was more excited than usual, enthusiastically cooing over her terrier and talking animatedly about her afternoon music lesson from what Wylan overheard. Perfectly normal Alys behavior. 

She’s fine, he reassures himself. She’s safe, she’s fine. 

After lunch—Wylan and the servants don’t eat a full midday meal—he washes their plates, wipes the table. Then washes the downstairs windows and sweeps the foyer. He’ll wash it too. Rufus, Alys’ nippy little dog, can wait to be bathed tomorrow, he decides. Wylan doesn’t want to deal with it. 

When he first started working, serving, Wylan was weak. Even as a child, the physically demanding chores exhausted him. Years later, he’s grown used to them. Now, he can handle the work. It isn’t easy, but it is easier. 

Alys’ music tutor arrives in the early afternoon through the staff entrance. Wylan gets on his hands and knees to scrub the front hall’s tiled floor as her awful, shrill voice leaks out the closed door of the music room.

He winces.

It’s not fair of him to be so unkind towards Alys’ singing, but Wylan has never been able to stop his envy toward her private music lessons. She’s not even good. By his father’s own logic, Alys shouldn’t continue to indulge in tutoring when there’s no improvement. 

Wylan knows he’s bitter. 

It could have been him receiving lessons if only he learned to read words as well as he reads music. At eight years old, he sounded better playing the flute and piano than Alys ever has singing as an adult with years of practice. 

Wylan misses playing the piano, letting his fingers drift across the keys as his ears follow the melody. He’s not allowed to touch it now, other than to wipe the instrument down. He tried to play the piano once, probably when he was ten years old. Under his father’s orders, Prior beat his hands so badly that Wylan thought his fingers were broken. They weren’t, but it was difficult to tell for several days beneath the swelling and bruising. 

So Wylan won’t risk touching any instrument in the house where others can hear. Everyone knows that he sneaks outside to the far edge of the estate grounds with his flute occasionally. Even his father’s aware—he’s sure—Miggson and Prior must have reported it.

Wylan doesn’t know why his flute hasn’t been confiscated already. 

Maybe Jan Van Eck considers it an acceptable rebellion. He’s never scolded Wylan for attempting to hide it. Nor told his men to search Wylan’s room and steal it. So as long as no one hears the music and Wylan doesn’t get caught playing instead of working, he’s allowed to continue.

That’s actually how he ripped his sleeve yesterday. Wylan lost himself in the melody outside, playing one of Alys’ songs by ear—guessing most of the notes because she never sang in tune. Diggory almost caught him. Wylan threw himself into a bush to hide. By the time he crawled out with his flute twenty minutes later, he had leaves in his hair, muddy knees, and one ripped sleeve. 

But it was worth it to play music again. 

Wylan braces himself for the noise and dips his dirty rag into the soapy water. A grating version of “Sing, Sweet Nightingale” begins. He can do the lovely melody proper justice. So he hums it, losing himself in the repetitive motion of scrubbing the floor. 

In the past, Wylan cleaned as close to the music room as possible to listen to Bajan, the instructor, for any scrap of musical instruction. Chord progressions and arpeggios. Advice about breath control. Anything. 

Unfortunately, Alys’ lessons don’t involve much music theory. Mostly, Bajan plays accompaniment for Alys on the piano, letting her do what she enjoys most, and compliments her efforts. 

The house bell startles Wylan out of the music in his head, ringing echoing through his ears.

He hadn’t been warned to expect anyone important today. This morning, he wiped the ash from his cheek, but he’s hardly presentable to anyone who uses the mansion’s front entrance. Briefly, Wylan wonders if he’s been set up to fail again. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The bell rings again impatiently.

He leaves his rag on the edge of the soapy bucket and stands to answer the door. Jan Van Eck rarely socialized in his own home (too concerned Wylan would embarrass him) and discouraged Alys from doing the same. 

Wylan dries his hands on the bottom of his apron and opens the door. 

Outside, a messenger dressed in a finely tailored coat holds out an envelope sealed with wax. Wylan can’t read, but he clearly recognizes the purple and gold crest of the palace embroidered on the front of the messenger’s dark coat. Three flying fish, impossible to miss.

The man is not taller than Wylan but still looks down his nose at his untamed curly hair and damp, smudged apron. “An invitation from the king,” the messenger explains, handing over the envelope only after deeming Wylan’s hands clean enough to accept it. “See that it’s delivered promptly to the master of the house and his family.”

Wylan simply nods, in awe. What does the king want with his father? 

He turns the parchment envelope over in his hands, examining the crown’s crest in purple wax. The front contains writing, equally spidery as any words Wylan ever saw as a child. Presumably it says his family’s name or just his father’s. 

The longer he holds the envelope, the heavier it feels. 

To his knowledge, Jan Van Eck hasn’t returned yet, but just because he didn’t hear him enter the house, doesn’t mean his father isn’t there. Wylan’s been terribly wrong before. And with something this important, an invitation from the king, he does not want to be wrong. 

Wylan heads upstairs and knocks once gently on the closed office door, swallowing down the anxiety that always wells in his stomach before he enters the room. No answer comes. Either his father wanted to work uninterrupted or he wasn’t home. Wylan knew better than to knock a second time. 

Instead, he takes it to the music room. Alys’ wobbly voice bleeds through the door and Wylan’s not surprised that she doesn’t hear him knock. Taking a chance, he opens the door anyway. The movement catches the attention of the three people in the room: Alys, her handsome music teacher, and Marlies, acting as chaperone between the two. 

At the interruption, her brow wrinkles in confusion, and she lays her sewing in her lap as she meets his blue eyes in a silent question. She must think he’s as witless as everyone says.

Alys stops singing and the piano ends abruptly, silence echoing across the room.

“Yes?” Alys asks, not unkindly, as Wylan steps inside and shuts the door behind him, lest she sing again. He can spare the rest of the household. 

“For you,” he says, handing her the king’s letter. 

She takes it, then squeals in delight. Both Wylan and the music teacher wince at the unnatural pitch. She rips off the wax seal of the royal family to read the invitation inside. “It’s finally happening!” she cheers. “We knew the king and queen were planning a masquerade ball. It was only a matter of time before the invitations went out. Of course we’d be invited, we knew we would be,” Alys explains conspiratorially to her instructor and Marlies. Wylan too, he supposes. 

“Rumor has it that the whole event is to find the prince a match, but no one wants to say it openly. He’s quite stubborn, I hear. Oh, it’ll be lovely,” she prattles on, lost in her own excitement. No doubt she’s already making plans.

“Maybe Jan should send for his son so he can come too. Wouldn’t that be lovely if he could go too? The entire family is invited. Imagine if the prince danced with him, courted him!” she giggles. “I’d have an open invitation to the palace. The queen and I—”

The crown prince of Kerch show an interest in him? Wylan with his messy hair, apron, and the knees of his trousers dirt-stained and wearing thin? He couldn’t imagine if his father would be furious or proud that he caught the attention of such an important man. It’s absurd.

The prince doting on him, living at the palace, and being waited on rather than doing the waiting, never crawling to wash another floor—Ghezen’s Hand, that sounded appealing. Right until the fantasy ended when the prince discovered Wylan was illiterate. Useless.

The entire idea is so stupid that Wylan stares at her blankly, jaw falling open. A second later, he remembers himself and snaps it shut. It’s not her fault, she doesn’t know.

“How did we get so lucky?” Alys continues. “First the baby, now this. The day keeps getting better and better! I can’t wait to tell Jan. He’ll be back—”

Wylan’s thoughts halt abruptly. Baby. It echoes through his brain, like a sour piano chord. Baby. Baby? 

His eyes widened, shocked. Suddenly there isn’t enough air. 

“You’re pregnant,” Wylan blurts out stupidly, forgetting himself. Marlies scowls.

His worst fear comes to life in a single word. And Alys celebrates obliviously in the same room, unaware. 

His father would have slapped him for speaking out of turn. But Alys beams bright as the summer sun, preening under an accomplishment that took no effort. She’s too excited to care that Wylan of all people asked such a personal question. “We just found out this morning! It’s quite early, but there’s so many plans to make.” She turns to Marlies, suddenly nervous. “Do you think I’ll still fit into my ball gown for the masquerade? Oh, what poor timing.”

The blood rushes to Wylan’s ears, and he doesn’t hear anything else. 

If Alys has a baby, then that means his father has a baby too. Another heir. One that’s not defective like him. One that could learn to read and write and take over the family business like Wylan was meant to before his idiocy came to light one tutor at a time. 

His stomach drops. 

Ill, Wylan flees the room. His hands shake. The door doesn’t open fast enough. Alys hasn’t dismissed him, but there’s no way she’ll notice. His thoughts are too scrambled, too panicked to stammer the congratulations she wants. His voice disappears, but that’s okay because if he finds it he might scream. 

He needs to get out. Needs to find somewhere safe, somewhere to hide. He needs to draw breath back into his lungs. Swallow the rising panic. He needs to sink his hands into his hair and tug until he focuses on the pain instead. 

Wylan stumbles to the nearby linen closet and shuts himself inside just in time to collapse to the floor. Drawing his knees into his chest, he curls into a little ball. His thin arms wrap around his legs and he leans forward to bury his hands in his hair, yanking on the red roots as his world silently shatters. 

He knew this was coming. Would have been a fool not to see it. His father married Alys because she was young, because she could give him the family he’s always wanted. Wylan just thought he’d have more time. How much time did he really think he had?

His heart races, and he can hear the drumbeat of his pulse in his ears. A steady, rapid tempo in time with his scattered thoughts. 

Maybe this is good? With the new baby, new heir, to steal all of his father’s attention, nobody will focus on Wylan and all of his faults. 

But for how long, the practical voice in his head wonders. He tries to push the incessant words away, but they refuse to be ignored. How long until his father doesn’t need him anymore? When would the embarrassment of having an uneducated adult child outweighed any use of him serving meals and scrubbing floors?

He’s stupid, but he’s not that stupid. 

Wylan’s panic solidifies into a cold dread. It chills him to the bone. The grip on his hair loosens. 

His father might actually make good on his threat to drown Wylan in the canal. How long did babies take to grow? Wylan couldn’t predict when it might happen. If it happens, he reminds himself. Before the new heir was born? After? When the child started to read, or somewhere in between?

Reality settles into Wylan’s chest, a weight too heavy to avoid. He was going to die. When, he couldn’t say. It was only a matter of time with the new baby on the way. And yet … Wylan smiles. The manic grin stretches and cracks his face uncomfortably. Unfamiliar to his muscles. He wants to laugh. Surely it’s better than screaming?

When the time comes, this entire farce will be over. It won’t matter that he was Jan Van Eck’s disowned heir or a scullion. Nothing will matter. Ghezen’s Hand, it’s so freeing. 

The absurdity hits him, and he stifles his laughter with the same practice he smothers his sobs. He’s hiding in the linen closet coming to terms with his own death, giggling like he’s drunk, like he’s as stupid as everyone thinks. Just down the hall, Alys is probably still twittering joyfully about the king’s masquerade. 

He’s going to die, and all she can think about is a frivolous party. 

Maybe the event will be that impressive. Wylan doesn’t know; he’s never been to a ball. Before his mother died, he was barely allowed to join dinner parties. Too young. He remembers his parents dressing up when they went out. His father’s dashing coats, his mother’s shimmering gowns designed to show off the red glinting gemstones in her jewelry. 

He stayed up to watch them come home, tipsy, but holding hands and breathless with laughter. Happy. 

Wylan wants that too, he realizes, morose in its absence. It would be nice to laugh, to live for one evening. Despite his panic, his stomach feels hollow. He feels hollow. If he’s going to die, he wants to be happy first. Just once. 

That’s the moment he decides. For the first time in his life, Wylan is going to do something for himself. He’s going to go to the masquerade. Alys said the invitation included the entire family, even him, right? Why not go? Not to meet a prince, but because he wants to. Because he can. And if his father finds out … Well, what’s the worst he can do to Wylan, kill him?

O

O

O

Chapter Text

There’s just one flaw in Wylan’s insane plan. Well, there’s definitely more than one, but only one that can actually stop him from attending the King’s Masquerade Ball. 

He has nothing to wear. 

Servants don’t usually wear formal dress shirts and matching coats, fitted pants and black leather shoes. Somehow he doubts that his recently mended shirt, apron, and soot-stained trousers are suitable attire for a guest in the palace.

But he does have access to all of those … Not tailored to his size, of course. But his father owns everything needed to pass as respectable. 

The idea sits in Wylan’s stomach like a lead weight. 

He’s never stolen anything in his father’s house before, never even considered it. The old housekeeper threatened to whip him if she ever found so much as a spoon in his pocket. To open the wardrobe and purposely take something from it …

An ordinary servant accused of theft lost their job, their home, with no chance of working for another household. No one hired a thief. But Wylan’s heard rumors of far worse punishments. Diggory has told stories of men and women losing fingers, even a whole hand. 

And while Wylan thinks the groundskeeper may have exaggerated to scare him, he can’t guarantee his father wouldn’t hurt him just as badly to teach a lesson. 

But in theory Wylan could wear his father’s clothing for a few hours. Then return them before he knew they were missing. 

Wylan spends the next day and a half weighing the risks of borrowing dress clothes. There’s plenty of time to think while completing his mindless, repetitive chores. If he were found with them, what’s the worst his father could do, kill him? 

Yes. 

After gathering himself together and stepping out of the linen closet, Wylan decided that he doesn’t actually want to die. That was the panic speaking. It made his heart beat too fast, jumbling his thoughts and emotions until they tangled together so much that he didn’t care what made it stop. He very much wants to live. Besides, there’s hundreds of more painful things his father, or rather, his father’s men could do to him first. Wylan knows firsthand. 

If they cut off his fingers or break his hands, he could never play his flute or sketch on the whitewashed walls of his room. Is the risk worth losing the only things that bring him joy?

The usual brand of stupidity his father and the rest of the servants have come to expect from Wylan involves making simple mistakes. Minor and ultimately harmless. Clumsily spilling drinks, dropping things. Forgetting to put the lamps out or to move the hanging laundry inside before it rains. So no one in the household expects him to be foolish enough to steal. As long as he keeps the garments clean and returns them immediately, his father wouldn’t suspect he’d done something so uncharacteristic. And if his father did notice, even in such a short amount of time, Wylan could always default to his usual defense of idiocy. Claim he misplaced them. Forgot them. Apologize and plead it was an honest mistake. It’s not a stretch; his father always assumes that he’s too dumb to do anything correctly.

Luckily, the ball is a month away. Wylan has plenty of time to convince himself to back out of his plan entirely or work up the courage to pull together an outfit worthy of entering the palace. As for a mask—he’s not sure where to find one. Maybe he can just bring his flute and just convince the guards he’s one of the musicians if they don’t believe he’s a guest. 

Apparently, Wylan isn’t the only one in the house thinking about what to wear to the ball. When he brings Alys her afternoon tea in the sitting room, she’s standing in front of a full-length mirror that didn’t exist in the room this morning. Marlies finishes tying the stays on the back of a fair blue ball gown. 

It’s lovely. Sheer gossamer fabric floats over a light blue underlay that shines white or silver depending how the light catches. Embroidered curls and swoops of shiny thread and various shades of blue dance across the bodice, the hem around the skirt opening into flower petals. Delicate butterflies made from the same fabric surround the blooms. All of the layers should weigh down the dress, but the fabric sways gently as she turns side to side to examine herself. 

The gown contrasts with Aly’s pale, sickly appearance. Today, her eyes are pinched with exhaustion too. Pregnancy is taking its toll, leaving her nauseous most days. Wylan, who’s called to empty and rinse the bowl she keeps near, knows exactly how ill it makes her. 

Silently, Wylan enters and crosses the room to place the tray of ginger tea and plain bread on the end table near the women. Poor Alys’ stomach can’t handle her usual honey tea and afternoon sweet pastry. Sympathetic, Sannes makes separate meals without meat and strong scents just for her. It hasn’t helped yet. 

Alys spins and appraises her appearance. Why the women can’t do this fitting in her room, Wylan’s unsure. Maybe she’s tired of sleeping the days away in there, another unfortunate symptom of her new condition. 

Or maybe the floor still smells too strongly of vinegar. Wylan tried to dilute its sharp tang as much as possible while still using it to remove the scent of vomit. And he even scrubbed the rug with regular soap and water after, but it probably isn’t enough for her newly sensitive nose. 

Pregnancy sounds like a nightmare. 

“I don’t know, I love the color, but it’s so … old. This embroidery, was this even fashionable when Jan’s first wife wore it?”

The metal tray slips from Wylan’s hands. It crashes noisily, shattering the delicate ceramic cups and teapot. Sharp shards skitter across the floor. Worse, hot yellow tea splashes across the tiles at their feet. It soaks into the rug, Wylan’s pant legs, and splatters the bottom of the women’s skirts. Marlies and Alys jump backward away from the liquid, but it’s too late. 

The tea stains the bottom of Alys’ dress. His mother’s dress. 

Wylan stares, eyes wide, unaware of the mess he’s made or Rufus barking from the couch, the little terrier wound up by the clatter. Nothing else matters. 

The ball gown belonged to his mother.

After she died, his father removed all of her clothes, all her belongings—jewelry, perfumes, and hair pins from the house. Even the smock she wore to paint. He didn’t know anything survived that awful purge. 

“Where did you get that?”

Alys looks between him and the mess on the floor, twisting her blonde eyebrows in confusion like Wylan lost his mind. 

He probably has, but he doesn’t care. That’s his mother’s dress, not Alys’. She has no right to wear it. 

Rufus growls, always protective. But it’s Marlies who moves first. She steps across through the hot puddle and broken tea set, shoving Wylan away. “What is wrong with you?” she hisses. 

Shocked, he staggers a step backward before catching himself. He tries to sidestep Marlies because she’s standing between him and his mother’s dress, but she follows, getting in front of him and shoving harder at his chest with a strength the small woman doesn’t look like she possesses. She pushes him toward the door. 

Wylan tries to look past her, back to Alys and the gown. His mother’s gown.

“It’s not hers—”

“It’s not yours either,” Marlies snaps. Her words sting. She might as well have slapped him. 

Anger and disgust cloud her eyes as she grabs him by his forearms and shoves him one last time out of the sitting room into the hallway. It’s not new. Wylan has spent most of his life being despised, hated by everyone. “Get something to clean this up,” she orders. “Now.”

Satisfied Wylan’s out of the room, the handmaid spins on her heel and returns to Alys’ side. 

“It’s ruined,” Alys says glumly, only caring about the gown. She gathers fistfuls of the shimmering skirt in her hands and stares at the dark stains bleeding across the fabric. 

“It was too old anyway,” Marlies reassures her. “You have much prettier ones.”

Alys sniffs and nods. “I do.” 

By the time Wylan returns with a rag and bucket, both women are gone. Carefully, he picks up the broken ceramic pieces and ignores his own anger, his frustration building up pressure in his chest. He feels lied to. All these years, his mother’s things were still here. Had Alys always been wearing her gowns, her jewelry, and he was just too stupid to know? Too young to remember what they actually looked like?

Maybe more of Mama’s belongings survived than he thought. Her dresses and blouses, even her paintings tucked away in some forgotten trunk in storage. Hope sparks, sealing the ache in his heart. If they existed, he could find them. He could keep them. 

Wylan soaks as much of the liquid out of the rug as possible before dumping the disgusting bucket of tea outside. Then he fills it with clean water and carries a bar of soap back into the drawing room. Before the rug dries, setting the stain, he washes it. No one is there to see him scrub too hard, taking out his feelings on the furniture.

As the afternoon fades into evening, dread looms heavily in the pit of Wylan’s stomach. He hasn’t seen Alys or Marlies again. He doesn’t know if that makes it worse or better. Alys, chatty as always, probably already told his father that he interrupted her dress fitting, broke the china, and ruined both the dress and her afternoon teatime. And his father will … 

Wylan squeezes his eyes shut and hopes his beating ends quickly.

There’s no hiding. 

At dinner Wylan reads the stern expression on his father’s face when he brings their meal, Alys’ ever-present queasiness. He pretends like he hasn’t spent hours anxiously digging the stubs of his bitten fingernails into his palms as he serves them. 

When his father finally addresses him, it’s a relief. Wylan still flinches. “Do you have anything to say to my wife about your behavior this afternoon?”

Wylan nods, short and sharp. His eyes dart to the table, down to the floor as he gathers the words in his head least likely to further dig his own grave, searching for the right ones to say aloud. 

He takes a quick breath and looks at Alys. A proper apology. “I—I’m sorry for causing a scene this afternoon. Ruining your,” he refuses to say gown. It’s not hers, and it never will be, “Afternoon tea. I was—it surprised me. I’m sorry; I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Alys smiles at Wylan, gracious as ever. He wishes she were as cruel as everyone else. She’s too kind, and it hurts. “It’s alright,” she says sincerely, though she’s using that stretched sweet tone. The one that implies he’s a slow-witted serving boy, like everyone in the household claims. 

Alys must feel pious telling her friends that her husband employs an idiot. Gives Wylan a fair chance to honor Ghezen as much as any other man. 

“Marlies told me that you remember the former lady of the house very fondly,” Alys continues. “It makes sense you miss her. You must have been so young when she and Jan took you in; she was a bit like a mother figure to you, hmm?”

Why can’t she just threaten him? Have him beaten. Wylan nods stiffly, determined not to cry. Or scream, even if the sound is already ringing in his ears. Of course she was his mother figure. She was his mother. His life also ended the day she died, just in a different way. 

“If it helps, you can think of me like that too,” Alys offers, attempting kindness. 

Wylan would rather gouge his own eyes out with Sannes’ filet knife. 

“There’s no need,” his father says dismissively, patting Alys’ hand gently where it rests on the table. Then he waves Wylan away. Finally. Humiliation complete, Wylan steps out of the dining room. 

“I wish you had told me you found the dress,” his father tells Alys conversationally. It’s as close as he comes to scolding her. “I could have warned you and prevented the entire incident.”

Listening, Wylan hides around the corner. His heart thunders so loudly that he’s shocked they can’t hear him on the opposite side of the wall. 

She pouts. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“Is the gown salvageable?” 

Wylan tries to take slow deep breaths, keeping quiet, but his lungs freeze as he waits for the answer. 

“That old thing, Marlies said the stains were too strong and it’s not worth saving, so I told her to throw it out. It was lovely, but a bit outdated, if you ask me. I have so many better things to wear in front of the royal family. Blue is a tad overused, don’t you think, dear? It may be popular in court right now, but I’ll never stand out in it. Ooh, I could wear the black and gold gown instead—”

Wylan eats his own meal quickly and quietly in the kitchen. Silent among the aimable evening chatter from Sannes, Diggory, Prior, and Miggson. Marlies ignores him as usual, and for once Wylan’s grateful. None of them taunt him about what happened this afternoon, so she must not have told them. It’s a small blessing. 

After dinner, Wylan rushes through his evening chores, subtly checking the trash in every single room inside the house searching for the dress. He even checks outside too. Alys said she threw it away, so where is it? Disappointment sours his gut. He still hasn’t found it by the time Prior and Miggson approach, a dangerous gleam in their eyes. 

“Van Eck wants you.” 

Miggson clamps a thick hand on Wylan’s right shoulder, the weight heavy and threatening. Prior walks on his left side, boxing him between them as they guide Wylan upstairs toward his father’s office. 

Anticipating the beating, his heart speeds up. His palms sweat. Hundreds of useless apologies prepare to fall off his too-dry tongue. Every instinct in Wylan’s body screams to hide, but he can’t. There’s nowhere to go. 

Without bothering to knock, Prior opens the door to his father’s office and Miggson shoves Wylan inside, leaving him off-kilter. The click of the latch thunders through the room as it closes behind him. It takes Wylan a few seconds to realize the two bruisers haven’t followed him into the office. 

He’s alone with his father. 

“Sit,” Jan Van Eck commands. As usual, he hasn’t looked up from the open ledger in his hands. Only important people receive his attention. 

Wylan obeys, taking a seat on the stiff wooden chair opposite his father. His hands curl in his lap, trying not to fidget with the worn hem of his sleeves. 

The office is as familiar as it is frightening. Wylan doesn’t need to look at it to see the family laurel crest carved into the front of the desk; he’s polished it enough to memorize the feel of it under his fingertips. Twice a week, he cleans the office under his father’s supervision. “You can’t tell what’s important. Ghezen’s Hand forbid you lose anything.” Now he can feel every inch of the surfaces he cleans closing in on him like a shrinking prison. The bookshelf lined with ledgers and a handful of children’s books used to taunt Wylan. The oil lamps and ruby red rug. A portrait of an ancestor, the framed maps of Ketterdam and Kerch he dusts carefully when he cleans. 

His father stands, reshelves the leather-bound ledger on the bookcase behind his desk as if he isn’t in the room. Only afterward Van Eck speaks, turning the intimidating weight of his full attention on Wylan. “You know why you’re here.”

“Yes, sir.” 

His father returns to the desk but remains standing. Just as tall and imposing as the day he called Wylan into this office and fired his last tutor, the day he turned Wylan’s life upside down. 

“Your behavior this afternoon was unacceptable. You are not a child anymore.” 

Wylan nods. He knows, hasn’t felt like one ever since he put on an apron. 

“Your tantrums will not be tolerated. I have overlooked one failure after another your entire life, and my patience is drawing thin. If you frighten Alys again, I’ll consider it a threat to my family, my future heir. The blood we share won’t be enough to save you. I’ll sell your indenture to the first slave ship leaving the harbor. Whoever buys your contract won’t be nearly as kind or forgiving of all your mistakes. Do you understand?” 

Technically, Wylan is still free, unlike most servants. His fathers owns Sannes and Marlies. But as far as Wylan’s concerned, there’s no distinction. He’s never been free in this house. 

But Wylan knows that could change at any moment, even if he couldn’t properly sign his own name to the indenture contract. 

“I understand,” Wylan says quietly, gaze jumping between his father and the floor. He doesn’t want to look at either. 

The plush leather of the desk chair rustles as his father sits. He takes a deep breath and sighs. Instead of sounding disappointed, he just sounds tired, old. 

“There are no more of Marya’s possessions in this house. I want to dispel you of the foolish notion before you tear apart the mansion searching for ghosts.” 

“Why did you keep the dress?” Wylan interrupts. He’s always been stupid. Stubborn. He licks his lips nervously. “I thought you removed all of Mama’s things.”

His father’s glare reminds Wylan that this is a lecture, not a conversation. Only two phrases are required of him. Yes, sir. No, sir. Any deviation from the script is unwelcome. “I did. The dress must have been misplaced in storage where Alys found it. These letters,” his father says, drawing Wylan’s attention toward a stack of envelopes on the desk tied into a neat pile by a black ribbon, “From her are the only things I kept, Ghezen knows why.”

Wylan stares at them, his lungs forgetting how to work. 

“She left them for you before she died. I had hoped, against all common sense, that you would be able to read them yourself by now.” 

His father picks up the bundle of envelopes and hands them to Wylan as if they were any other business correspondence. “Marya always had a weakness for you.”

Wylan turns the letters over in his hands, confused. Shocked to be holding them at all. His heart catches in his throat and he blinks away the wetness suddenly pricking at the corner of his eyes. All this time, she left something for him. And now …

He has to know what’s inside them. “Please—”

“Read them yourself if you want to know what they say,” his father snaps. “Get out.”

Wylan doesn’t argue. Clutching the letters, his heart pounds, caged tightly against his ribs as he rushes up the servants’ staircase to the safety of his room before his father changes his mind and demands the letters back. He doesn’t have time to look at them now—he needs to finish his evening chores—but Wylan perches on the edge of his bed and nimbly unties the black ribbon. 

Ten envelopes spill across his quilt. The same size and color, unsealed by wax. There’s something written on the front of each. He hopes it’s his name. The words begin to spin in front of his eyes so he flips over one and carefully pulls out the neatly creased letter inside. It’s long, several pages covered in small print across the front and back of the expensive parchment. Inaccessible. 

His eyes burn staring at it. Wylan spent years praying the words would come to him. They didn’t. Not with the help of governesses or tutors. He wasted hours late at night willing the ink to stay still and organize itself into something understandable. 

Frustration grows, overtaking the shame welling around his heart. Bitterly, he understands. His father may have kept these letters hoping one day Wylan would read them himself, but he didn’t give them to him today out of any kindness or familial affection. It’s just another cruelty. One that leaves him hollow and hurts in worse ways than a beating.

No amount of motivation will ever make Wylan read. His father tried. He tried. Wylan wanted to read. Wanted it so badly that he cried himself to sleep for months. Wanted to read to stop the tutor striking him with a wooden ruler after his pale skin bruised. Wanted to read so his father would unlock the library door and let him out. lethimoutlethimout. Wanted to read to stop drinking the disgusting tonics that never cured him. He wanted to read so that his father would smile at him just once. 

No matter how hard he wanted to read, it never made a difference.

Now Wylan wants to read in order to learn his mother’s final thoughts. Did she give him advice? Or simply love and reassurance in her absence. Maybe she wrote her life story down, the little tales from her childhood she would have regaled to him one day when he was older. Or did she write him an apology for leaving him behind?

Wylan will never know. 

He can’t ask anyone else in the household to read it to him. They’d probably laugh in his face and tear up the letters. 

Silently, he scrubs the wetness sliding down his cheeks with the cuff of his sleeve and slides the parchment back into the envelope, reties the ribbon, and carefully slips the bundle safely into the bottom of his trunk with his other belongings. Spare clothes, his flute, and charcoal nubs for drawing.

Then Wylan pushes his trunk away from the wall just enough to see the portrait of his mother behind it. The smile that reaches his lips is faint, but real.

Years ago he hid a charcoal portrait of his mother on the whitewashed wall, safely out of sight. (He’s always been afraid that one night he’d return to find the walls smeared, all of his art destroyed at his father’s orders. Or no order at all, his work ruined just because hurting Wylan entertains the rest of the staff.) 

The portrait probably isn’t accurate, just based on his memory of her curly hair, how it framed her heart shaped face, her freckles, warm smile, and loving, soft eyes. All of her real portraits downstairs were removed from the walls the day her clothes and perfumes disappeared too. 

Wylan doesn’t talk to the portrait—that’s stupid. He knows she’s dead, it’s not really Mama. 

It’s just a messy picture on the wall he drew when he realized that he started to forget the details of her face, her voice, the color of her eyes. But sometimes he pretends to talk to it in his mind where no one else can hear. He imagines their conversations, talking about music and art, the butterflies and blooming flora he observes in the garden. 

His smile falls.

She’d be so disappointed to learn who he’s become. A scullion in his father’s house. Someone who is meek, who hides, and lives in constant fear of the small things that make his life bearable being ripped away. Unable to read. Unable to live for himself. 

Wylan remembers his mother as a bright soul, as vibrant as the paints that often stained her fingertips. Delight shined in her deep brown eyes. She’d never wish for him to wear a house apron and scrub the floors on his hands and knees, no matter how stupid. 

For a moment Wylan feels like the sketches on his walls. Only black and white, separated entirely by shades of gray. Colorless. Dull compared to the landscapes his mother used to paint. The sunsets throwing their golden light across a rich pink sky. Deep green cattails with muddy brown heads framing the edge of rippling water at the lake house where they spent many humid summer nights.

He wants to be that colorful, just like Mama’s art. That alive.

The masquerade ball floats through his mind again, as it has ever since Alys took the invitation from him and squealed in glee. The masks, the colors, the elaborate costumery on display. Like Mama’s ball gown.

In the end, attending is an easy decision. 

***   ***   ***

The afternoon of the King’s Masquerade Ball, Alys disappears to get ready for hours before they leave. Wylan doesn’t understand why it takes her that long to bathe and dress, and concludes the schedule allows more time for pampering than preparing. 

But he can’t fault her for doing something that makes her happy. Despite her excitement over the baby, pregnancy makes her miserable. She deserves happiness too. 

The ball changes nothing about his own routine. After lunch Wylan washes the dishes and wipes down the dining table, resetting the room. He washes the upstairs windows. Then, spends the rest of the day on his hands and knees taking a bristle brush to the carpets and upholstery to remove every strand of saintforsaken dog hair. 

It’s exhausting work, but dull and repetitive. Easily, he loses himself in the music inside his head as usual. 

When Wylan runs to the kitchen to fetch Alys’ afternoon tea, Sannes tells him Marlies already retrieved it. He should be insulted. But it’s tough to care, one less chore for him. 

Nearly an hour and a half before they leave, he finishes drawing a bath for his father. Jan Van Eck had a personal attendant when Wylan was a child, he remembers. A man that followed him around like Marlies follows Alys. But Wylan thinks his father prefers his privacy, or at least as much privacy as depending on his son to ready a bath and shine his shoes allows. Part of Wylan thinks he should be flattered, his father trusts him more than a stranger. That’s not why, the cruel little voice in the back of Wylan’s mind tells him as he waits for the warm water to fill. His father trusts the power he wields over Wylan more than any power he lords over a stranger. Jan Van Eck has always been mistrustful of others, even if their sole job was to meet his every whim. 

Dinner is early and rushed, but the work for the household is more or less the same. Wylan serves, he cleans. He knows when to keep his hands busy and when to disappear from sight as Alys and his father sweep through the grand foyer on their way into the carriage driven by Miggson and Prior. 

Without the masters of the house present, the domestic staff finishes their duties to retire early. On their evenings off, Sannes and Diggory put their feet up downstairs and share several glasses of watery ale. Only Diggory is expected to work again later tonight to unhitch the horses when they return. Marlies heads to her room, grateful for the opportunity to be alone with her own quiet thoughts.

Wylan slips into his room and washes the dirt from his face. He scrubs his neck, arms, and hands quickly with a washrag at his water basin in front of the tiny mirror. He doesn’t feel properly clean, but there’s no time to bathe. It will have to do. 

Then he grabs his flute and heads back downstairs, purposefully walking past Diggory and Sannes as he steps outside. They watch him go, hear the faint but high pitched run of a scale as he pretends to find somewhere private to play. 

An unnecessary ruse, they don’t care what he does, Still, Wylan feels more confident sneaking around if they think he’s in the gardens playing music. 

This morning he unlocked the sunroom door, planning to use it late tonight to get back inside. He finds a candlestick and match also purposefully placed, and lights them as he creeps through the second floor’s hallway. 

The master bedroom is graciously empty, dark. Wylan knows its layout by memory after making the bed and sorting his father’s laundry for years. He sets the candlestick on the nearby dresser and cracks open the closet. Inside he searches for a shirt, waistcoat, coat, breaches, stockings, and shoes. Unfortunately, almost all of his father’s clothes are black. He’s never favored anything colorful. Still, Wylan can feel the extravagance of the fabric beneath his fingertips. It’s tightly woven, the silks light, textured. Equally dark embroidery decorates the coats, the buttons on his waistcoats detailed with metalwork.

One by one, Wylan pulls the pieces he needs, second guessing his choices. He knows what he needs, but the entire outfit looks ridiculous. He can’t imagine himself in it and expects the entire court to laugh him off the grounds. He’s never worn anything so formal. The frills, the lace along the wrists. Even with this father’s subdued taste in fashion, it’s all silly and impractical. 

He just starts to unbutton his shirt to change into the stolen clothes when the door to the master bedroom swings wide open. Wylan jumps, and whips his head toward the blinding light from the hallway. There’s no time to hide. 

Marlies freezes in the doorway, equally startled. Clearly, she doesn’t expect to find him and nearly drops the bundle of cloth in her arms. 

He’s caught. Both their eyes go impossibly wide. 

“Don’t!” Wylan blurts, throwing his hands out, as if to placate her. Don’t scream, don’t tell anyone. If she alerts the others that he’s snooping through his father’s room, Wylan may as well save Jan Van Eck the trouble and throw himself into the canal. 

She clutches a hand to her chest, shock morphing into annoyance. “What are you doing here?” 

Marlies’ eyes narrow, suspicious, then dart to his half-unbuttoned shirt, his flute case, and the pile of clothes laid on the bed Wylan made neatly this morning.

“Uh …” There’s no denying it. Fuck. His palms begin to sweat. 

Luckily, Wylan doesn’t need to say anything else. Marlies comes to her own conclusion. The sharpness in her eyes softens ever so slightly. Her voice lowers. “Are you running away?” 

Surprised, Wylan stares. He expected more accusations, threats. Not … empathy.

Mouth dry, he shakes his head. “I’ll be back by morning. I—just—I just—need to do this,” he finishes as if it explains anything. It doesn’t. There’s a prickling under his skin that makes him want to bounce on the balls of his feet and carry him right out of the room, away from this conversation. “Please let me go, I’ll come back. You won’t get in trouble, if I’m caught. I won’t tell them you saw me.”

Marlies seems to weigh the options on her head, then steps inside and quietly shuts the door behind herself. 

Wylan breathes a sigh of relief. 

Still, an uncomfortable tension lingers between them. He hesitates. Even after a year, Wylan doesn’t really know her. They’ve never spoken beyond the necessity of completing their chores. 

“Headed into the city?” She approaches him and dumps the pile in her arms—tools and towels used to style Alys’ hair—on the bed too. She examines the dress clothes he laid out. “That’s a terrible outfit to wear if you want to blend into the bars and clubs. Nobody dresses like this.”

Wylan swallows the lump in his throat. If he admits this, there’s no hiding it from her, no taking it back. In for a penny … “It’s not for the city,” he confesses. “I’m going to the ball.”

Marlies’ eyebrows nearly shoot into her hairline. “Saints, Wylan!”

“Look,” he says, frustrated. He doesn’t want to waste time explaining himself. “I know this plan is stupid. I’m stupid. Going to the masquerade is stupid, but I need to do it. Before …” Wylan can’t bring himself to think about it. He’s going to the ball tonight to live, not to die. 

“You’re not as stupid as everyone says.” 

Caught off guard, Wylan stops, confused. For the first time he wonders if she knows that he can’t read. She must know, it’s always been an open secret among the staff. His father turned him into a scullion because education was wasted on someone that couldn’t learn. 

It occurs to him that maybe Marlies doesn’t know the details. 

Something beneath his sternum twists uncomfortably, grateful for her opinion, even if it’s wrong. 

He’s too cowardly to correct her. 

Luckily, she says nothing more and hands Wylan the white frilly shirt, equally white breeches, stockings, and a pair of brown leather shoes. Then, to his surprise, she starts to hang the waistcoat and coat back into his father’s closet.

“I have something better for you to wear. Go upstairs and I’ll meet you in your room after I put these away.” She nods toward the pile of Alys' things on the bed. Her movements tidying are just as practiced as his. He’s at the door ready to slip out when she asks, “Do you have a mask?”

“No.”

“Luckily Alys had two masks made for the ball, I’ll find the spare for you.” 

Wylan leaves her to rummage through Alys' closet. He sneaks upstairs with the stolen clothing, appreciative for the privacy to change into the shirt and breeches before she arrives. He’s not particularly modest about his own body; Wylan just can’t imagine standing naked in front of Marlies to be anything other than embarrassing. 

He changes and he feels ridiculous wearing the frilled lace shirt. The sleeves fashionably wide, billow around his arms. The breeches tighter than his usual work pants. To distract himself, Wylan brushes his hair, trying to comb his red curls into some semblance of neatness. He’s given up by the time Marlies knocks gently and opens the door. 

She’s never been inside his quarters before, just as he’s never been in hers. It wouldn’t be proper. 

But she’s already helping him break too many rules tonight for either of them to care. 

Naturally, she glances around his small room. It’s not different from any of the other servants’ rooms in the attic. There’s a narrow bed, his quilt unmade and rumpled. A trunk to hold his few belongings. A small stand in the corner for his wash basin, water pitcher, and mirror. 

“Did you draw those?” She asks in awe, looking at the charcoal sketches lining the walls, illuminated in the soft candlelight. 

Wylan follows her gaze, seeing the drawings anew through fresh eyes for the first time in years. 

They’re mostly doodles. Added whenever he’s inspired, whenever there’s time and he’s not so exhausted that he wants to fall asleep the moment he steps into his room. Plenty of them are just images from the garden. Roses half in bloom. Tulips, lavender sprigs, and the lilac tree he often sits beneath to play his flute. 

Other pictures, like the hidden portrait of his mother, are from memory. Pictures of animals and magical creatures from the story books he used to look at before he was expected to read them. Trading ships he once saw floating in the harbor. Piano keys. Paintbrushes dipped in jars of water. Embarrassingly, the stuffed bunny he used to carry around as a child. 

There’s also lines of music. Notes describing the melodies he hears in his head. These are the messiest sketches, where he purposely smudged and rewrote rhythms until he was satisfied. 

The tips of his ears pink. “My mom painted. She taught me to draw before she died.”

“They’re beautiful.” Marlies steps into the narrow room properly and sets the bundle of clothes in her arms on his bed to show him. One of the items must be the gold mask from Alys’ wardrobe. The other …

Wylan’s breath hitches. The waistcoat is blue, made of the same shimmering fabric, decorated in the same embroidery as his mother’s dress. 

He nearly chokes. He can’t believe it. “How did you …” 

It’s clearly unfinished. The raw edges of the bottom hem still expose fraying threads. But it’s breathtaking. 

Decorative metal buttons line the front beside the swirling curves and loops of embroidery. She managed to preserve it as much as possible. The blooming flowers once along the dress’ hem now spread outward across the chest, up toward the shoulders. 

Wylan touches it reverently. The fabric is delicate beneath his fingertips. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

Marlies grins, proud. “The hem needs to be sewn shut, but I can do it quickly enough to be on your way.”

She sits at the edge of his bed closest to the candlelight and prepares her needle. Wylan hands over the waistcoat. Waits awkwardly at the edge of his own room to give her space to work. There’s a childish part of him that’s terrified she’s going to laugh in his face and refuse to give the waistcoat to him. 

She’ll wield its existence over him, threaten him like the others, but so much worse. 

So far, Marlies hasn’t been cruel to him, he reminds himself, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. In fact, she’s helping him. It’s such a strange development, he doesn’t know what to think. 

“I was going to make a matching coat too, there’s plenty of fabric in the gown,” Marlies says, oblivious to Wylan’s anxiety. “Obviously, it won’t be ready tonight, but the next time you decide to do something insane, you can wear it.” The smile she tosses him is cheeky. More personality than she’s ever shown in the year she’s lived here. 

“Why are you helping me?” he asks, needing to know. “It’s not—I mean, thank you. It’s just, you didn’t have to. Why did you make it—?” for me, he wants to ask. 

Marlies continues sewing, as if what she’s about to say is ordinary and doesn’t contain a life changing amount of kindness. She doesn’t look up to answer. “You’d appreciate it more than Alys ever would. Something that sentimental deserves to be worn again. Besides, the dress was too lovely to throw away. Waste not. I didn’t think you would actually get to wear it, though. Thought it might be a little too obvious if you tried to hide an entire ball gown in your bedroom. But something small, it’s easier to keep.”

Wylan wants to thank her again, but the words get caught, lodged between the ache under his breastbone and the knot in his throat. 

Minutes later she finished the hem and added three butterflies across his left shoulder, delicately taken from the original dress. Wylan insisted that she didn’t need to add them. 

“They’ll make it look like you aren’t wearing a coat on purpose,” she explained, sewing them anyway. 

Before he knows it, she knots the final stitch, cuts the thread, and hands over the finished waistcoat. 

Wylan shrugs it on, unable to hide the smile tugging at his lips. It fits him perfectly. This the most incredible gift he’s ever been given. He looks back at Marlies with wet eyes and smiles again. 

“It matches your eyes,” she says softly. 

Wylan looks into the small mirror on the corner of his washtable and nods. It really does. As if he was always meant to wear this color, the heirloom gifted to him. 

He tries to blink the tears away. Words have never been his strength. Right now, anything he says will not be enough to express just how grateful he is that she gave back something that he lost so long ago. 

Wearing the waistcoat made out of his mother’s dress, Wylan stands out against all of the black and white walls. For the first time in years, maybe ever, he feels colorful, alive. Blue, white, silver, and vibrant. He wishes that she could see him now. His heart feels light, flutters at the thought. Mama would be so proud of him. 

“Don’t forget this,” Marlies says, handing him Alys’ spare mask. It’s gold. Small and feminine, with a curved centered spire crowning the forehead. He strokes the black satin ribbon ties between his index finger and thumb. 

Wylan really can’t express his gratitude. Still, he tries. “Thank you so much. I—I owe you.”

Pleased, Marlies smiles too. “Yes, you do. Don’t get caught tonight.”

Chapter Text

Walking to the palace takes a little over two bells. It’s not a difficult journey—he sticks to the main roads, only seeing the occasional carriage—but it is long. Wylan has never been to the palace before. He hasn’t left the estate in over a decade. But he knows the general direction thanks to dusting the city map that hangs framed in his father’s office. 

Every step since leaving the grounds is forbidden and thrilling. And Wylan draws every ounce of courage to continue moving forward until he sees the white towers and rounded purple spires of the castle ahead. 

It would be so easy to turn back. 

He won’t. 

The past hour, he spent practicing excuses if the guards were to question his strange arrival. Answering why he hadn’t arrived with his family, or even in a carriage. Sweat beads along his forehead despite Ketterdam’s evening chill. He’s never been good at lying. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. No one questions him because the massive gate enclosing the palace is thrown wide open and there’s enough activity from partygoers cooling themselves from the heat of the ballroom, socializing wine in hand, to blend in as soon as he climbs the entrance’s marble steps.

Excitement thrums through his veins. Pulse vibrating in pleasant little staccato beats as Wylan stops at the bottom of the stairs to secure his mask, tying the black satin ribbon with the same practiced knot he ties his apron strings every morning. 

He’s late, of course. The masquerade started hours ago, the city’s elite coming together in revelry the same way he’s heard working men and women in the city attend the festivals at the pubs and clubs, only with more sophistication. 

Guests mill through the corridor into the ballroom. Some stick to more formal attire, but most wear bright, flamboyantly colored costumes. A rainbow of hues bottled into a single hallway. Masks of all shapes and sizes adorn their faces. They range from gaudy to elegant, invoking animal patterns, well-known theater caricatures, flowers, and painted details from the finest craftsmen. 

His gold mask is rather plain, he thinks, compared to the spectacles of art surrounding him. 

In his bedroom Wylan felt ridiculously overdressed, but here enveloped by other people and the palace finery, he fits in. Without a proper coat, he’s actually underdressed, but no one pays attention to him or the silly blue butterflies perched on the shoulder of his waistcoat. 

He passes an older woman in a teal gown with artfully rumpled sections of white tulle meant to look like ocean foam. Her mask resembles a wave crashing across her face. 

Inside the grand ballroom he stops, eyes traveling across the expansive ceiling. Gasps. 

It’s overwhelming. Easily the largest room Wylan’s ever seen, ever been inside. It’s a thousand times larger than the grand foyer he scrubs on the estate. Light glints off of the massive crystal chandelier floating above the center of the room, reflecting onto the golden arched windows lining the length of the ballroom. It’s magnificent. A true work of art that stretches long and wide enough to seemingly fit the entire population of Ketterdam inside. 

What am I doing here, Wylan wonders. And just like that, he feels so small. But he has enough sense to close his jaw and move aside, out of the way as others come and go freely around him. 

Among the crowd, Wylan spots a servant wearing a purple uniform coat with the gold royal crest and a bare face without a mask. The man circulates around the crowd with a tray of drinks, unassuming as he works. Even without the uniform, Wylan would recognize that posture anywhere. 

Straight-backed, poised, no eye contact. 

Of course he can’t help but notice them. Wylan has trained to be just like them for so long that he fights off the urge to go stand beside the wall until called for, equally invisible to everyone else in the ballroom. 

He shakes the thought away, lifts his chin and makes a point of looking directly at the other guests, meeting the gaze of the men and women nearby. It’s surprisingly easy to do when everyone’s faces hide behind masks. A pair of gray eyes catches his blue ones, lingering with curiosity. Then the crowd shifts, interrupting the line of sight, and they’re gone. 

Wylan may not know what he’s doing, but he knows why he’s here. 

He slowly weaves further into the crowd, afraid someone will see him for what he is if he stands still for too long. Too rigid and awkward. They’ll know he doesn’t belong. 

The next waltz begins, immediately drawing his ear toward the orchestra. Wylan lets himself follow the sound. A warm rush of giddiness flushes over his chest, through his heart, and down to his very fingertips. He can’t help but tap them along with the music. It’s the first time in over a decade that he’s heard any other performance than Bajan, the handsome music instructor, accompanying Alys’ warbling. He listens eagerly. 

Wylan never learned how to play a string instrument, though he knows enough to identify them by sight, differentiating the high and low resonances by ear, by size, and shape. Had he continued studying, he probably would have learned the violin, though he suspects he would always love his flute more. Prefer the way his fingers jump and skip across the keyholes. 

On the dance floor at the center of the room, skirts twirl and feet stride in tempo. 

The masquerade is bright and pleasant, everything he hoped it would be. There’s color and life everywhere, and he’s sure that without a sip of wine he could still get drunk on just taking it all in. 

Wylan loses himself in the music. He closes his eyes for a moment and really listens. The vibration of the strings echo in his eardrums and resonate in his soul. Any leftover anxiety about sneaking into the masquerade fades away as he’s carried by measures of graceful music. When he opens his eyes, Wylan watches the bows slide across strings with sharp precision. So much so that he doesn’t register a man is beside him, much less talking to him.

“… don’t let me interrupt you.”

Wylan startles. 

The man laughs brightly, his beautiful lips curving upward beneath the curved red-gold beak of his mask. It matches the velvet red of his coat and shoulder cape. Golden lace feathering down both garments accentuates the stranger’s tall torso and narrow waist. His artfully angled enormous wide-brimmed cavalier hat with an equally large red plume dwarfs the ensemble. 

It’s quite dashing. 

Wylan faintly recognizes the attire as an homage to one of the Komedie Brute characters. The red and gold costume of the Madman. 

And looking at him stirs something in his blood that he would rather not. 

Wylan blinks owlishly, caught off guard as he brings himself back to the present. “I—uh … What?”

Mirthful eyes gleaming gray as gunmetal watch him with sly amusement. “I said that I didn’t realize the prince of Kerch was so pretty. And that it’s a shame he’d rather spend the evening eyeing the orchestra than dancing with his handsome guests.”

Wylan feels his cheeks flush pink beneath the edges of his mask. Not knowing where to look, his eyes dart down to the floor, then back up.

“I’m not the prince.” 

“Could have fooled me,” the Madman says with a smooth deep baritone. He steps closer. “Then it’s even more impressive that you look like royalty tonight.”

Wylan’s mouth turns down into a frown. Now the stranger is just making fun of him. 

He knows what he looks like. Short. Calloused working hands with bitten fingernails. Untamable curly hair too bright and unruly to style properly. His eyes too wide, face too boyish to be considered a man. The lines of his nose and jaw are too sharp. There’s nothing regal about his appearance. 

Wylan turns to leave.

But the stranger grabs his wrist, stopping him with a shockingly gentle grasp before he can even take a full step. That alone is enough to make Wylan pause, his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows down his surprise. 

“Have you met him?” the man asks suddenly, switching topics so fast that it makes Wylan’s head spin. He expected another insult, an accusation. Perhaps an apology if he was lucky. 

Wylan’s grown too accustomed with Alys’ incessant chatter. She always provides context, whether anyone else in the room wants it or not. In its absence, he’s lost. He also may be slightly distracted by the Madman’s perfectly plump lips. Wylan wonders if they feel as soft as they seem. “Who?”

“The prince. Have you met him personally? Have you seen him?” 

There’s an easy air about this Madman, from the way his thoughts roll off his tongue unfiltered to his loose-limbed posture. Like confidence comes to him as naturally as breathing. It’s admirable. 

Wylan shakes his head and wonders if this is some type of test. Surely not everyone in attendance tonight is meant to be a courtier who keeps close ties to the royal family. “No.” 

Apparently that’s the right answer. Those gunmetal gray eyes sparkle with delight, and the Madman leans in to whisper with a mischievous grin, “In that case, I could be the prince.”

Oh. 

Oh.  

The realization hits him with the same force as a book to the back of his head, but far more pleasant. His heart leaps. No one has ever flirted with Wylan before. No one has ever had the chance. A flush of warmth floods his veins with lightning speed, and the temperature in the room doubles. 

It’s a new sensation, strange, but not entirely unwelcome. Suddenly, Wylan’s aware of nothing but the stranger’s long fingers still wrapped around his wrist, pressing intimately against the soft skin over his pulse. All of his attention focuses on that one point of contact. It’s exciting. It’s thrilling. Wylan’s on fire, burning from the inside out, and if this is what it feels like to live, he doesn’t want it to stop. 

Wylan’s lips quirk upward despite his best intentions. He turns his face away so the man—who is definitely not the prince—can’t see. Wylan forces himself to stop smiling when looks back, though his amusement rings clearly in his voice. 

“No, you can’t be the prince. According to you, he’s not very handsome.” After a moment, Wylan adds, “Besides, you’re Zemeni.” 

“Kaelish too,” he says with a wink. Then, “You think I’m handsome?”

There’s no question about it. Wylan’s sure the answer is obvious in the tilt of his head, the interest glimmering in his eyes that no mask can hide. It’s all too intense; Wylan’s liable to combust. Instead of acknowledging it, he wets his lips and quickly turns his gaze away. Again. 

His cheeks heat, and surely it’s visible beneath the edges of the golden mask. 

“The prince is Kerch. He’d be wearing only his family’s colors, gold and purple. And I don’t think he’d appreciate you claiming to be him either.”

The Madman laughs, carefree. “Well, I like to live dangerously. What’s a little fun now and then, hmm?” Gently, he pulls Wylan by his wrist ever so slightly closer until he glances up at the Madman’s beautiful eyes again. “Care for a dance?”

Now it’s Wylan’s turn to laugh, a surprised little bark spilling out of his mouth. “That is dangerous. I—I’m not very good. I’ve never—” never really had time to learn formal dance between sweeping and scrubbing dishes. 

But the handsome stranger shrugs off the warning effortlessly as if it doesn’t matter that Wylan can’t do something. That he might be bad at it. 

“Luckily for you, I have been told that I’m an excellent dancer. It’s a party, so let’s live a little, yeah?” 

That’s the entire point of tonight. If Wylan had any hesitation before, it’s gone in an instant. All he wants to do is live in this evening forever. Surrounded by the dizzying array of colors, the music, the sparkling lights, and the attention of this man who thinks he’s worthy of it. 

He starts to lead Wylan toward all of the other dancers at the center of the ballroom. But Wylan halts. His handsome stranger pauses too and turns to Wylan, questioning. 

“Prove it,” Wylan says boldly. “Show me first. Here.” Where it’s private and he can indulge in the joy of dancing with this handsome man on his one night of freedom without worrying about how many others will see him embarrass himself when he trips over his own feet. 

Those beautiful lips grin. “If you want to get me alone, all you have to do is ask.”

Wylan’s cheeks burn. But he’s spared the need to respond when the Madman releases Wylan’s wrist and takes his hand, slotting their fingers together as he leads them to an open space along the edge of the room further from the orchestra. His dark skin is warm and rough, and Wylan can’t begin to remember the last time anyone held his hand. 

They stand face to face, and Wylan’s heart somersaults. The tips of their shoes nearly touch. 

The Madman is taller than him by a considerable degree, even without his hat and its overly large plumed feather adding extra height. This close, Wylan tilts his head back to meet his eyes.

“You lead,” Wylan instructs him as he rests his hand just beneath the costume’s draping cape on the man’s shoulder, just like all of the other couples he witnessed together tonight. 

The Madman places his hand on the back of Wylan’s waistcoat. “With pleasure.” 

Dancing isn’t nearly as difficult as Wylan thought. He’s a quick learner, picking up the steps, the pattern of movement, following the cadence set by the music and the steady metronome of his heart. He’s always been light on his feet, just never had a reason to be rhythmic about it before. Maybe his partner deserves all of the credit though. He moves effortlessly, guiding Wylan forward and back, circling until they end right where they started, and begin the steps all over again in their own private edge of the ballroom. 

“Not half bad,” the Madman says when they finally pause, hearts beating wildly. “We could continue dancing, or,” he leans closer and practically purrs into Wylan’s ear, so close that Wylan can feel the warmth of his breath puff against his cheek, “perhaps we could find somewhere a little more private.”

There’s no mistaking his intent. A thrill shoots down Wylan’s spine, straight to his groin. Without thinking, he licks his lips. Flushes. His entire body overheats in a way that has nothing to do with the warmth of the ballroom.

The mask does nothing to cover the obvious blush spreading across his cheeks.

Yes. Wylan would like that very much. 

Their fingers stay linked together, Wylan’s light skin contrasting against Madman’s darker skin tone. It reminds Wylan of piano keys. Wylan’s plain notes compared to unique unexpected sharps and flats that this Madman gives to whatever song they’re creating between themselves. 

Anything the man wants to give him, Wylan will take eagerly. Greedily. All he wants is to drag this man into an abandoned alcove and live. Kiss that beautiful mouth until he’s dizzy for air and squeeze his eyelids shut so tight that fireworks burst behind them. Until he forgets who he is and who he will be again tomorrow when this is all over. 

There may as well not be anyone else in the entire room for all Wylan cares. The crowd around him bleeds into the background. But he’s snapped back into reality when, in the corner of his eye, he sees him.

He’d recognize his father anywhere. Wylan knows all too well his receding blonde hairline, the black dress clothes he’s spent hours washing. Even in profile across the other side of the ballroom as he speaks to another masquerade guest, Jan Van Eck’s rigid posture and cold piercing gaze are too familiar to ignore. 

Of course Alys engages in conversation with the man’s partner. She never stops talking. Her black and gold dress shimmers under the reflected light of the chandelier on full display. 

All at once, Wylan feels like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over his head. 

He flees. It’s instinct—he drops the Madman’s hand and weaves out of sight behind the extravagantly colored coats and ball gowns of the other guests. Blood rushes through Wylan’s ears. His pulse pounds loud enough to drown out the orchestra, and his lungs can’t pull in enough air. He needs to get out, get away before he’s also recognized. Before he’s seen. 

The nearest set of grand doors lead outside. Wylan rushes through them, too focused on his racing heart and trembling fingers to notice the other guests mingling on the massive marble balcony. An elaborate staircase opens down to the gardens below. Wylan takes the steps without thinking and finds himself on a lined walkway surrounded by trimmed topiaries and tall hedges. A fountain bubbles somewhere in the middle of it all. 

At the bottom of the staircase, he forces himself to pause, breathe. The fresh evening air is sharp, cooler than that of the ballroom. Wylan wills himself to relax and let the creeping panic ease. 

There’s no way his father saw him. He can’t have. Crickets chirp faintly, and Wylan grounds himself in the familiarity of the mundane sound. Jan Van Eck has no reason to suspect his moron son snuck into the ball. No reason to spy his bright red hair at a distance among the crowd of glittering costumes and painted masks and think that Wylan of all people is here. 

He’s safe, but it’s probably not a good idea to return, just in case. 

Seeing his father tonight was always a possibility. Wylan had hoped it just wouldn’t happen. 

Between the soft warm light cast from the ballroom’s two-story windows and the waning moon, he can easily see the garden. Walls of shrubbery enclose the entire area, but Wylan follows the stone path leading further from the ballroom. 

The night around him is peaceful. Calm. It’s not cold, but Wylan’s hands play with the ridiculous lace on his sleeve and he wishes he had a coat to cover himself. 

The feeling of being seen, even by the few partygoers in the garden, makes Wylan’s skin itch. His nerves jittery. No one here is going to report what he does to his father, but all the same, Wylan wants to avoid prying eyes. 

It’s a habit born of self-preservation. 

If the royal garden is anything like the one back home at the estate, then the hedges aren’t as enclosed as they appear. So he finds where the bushes split for the groundskeepers to pass between and slips through, careful not to let the delicate fabric of his waistcoat catch on the leaves or spindly branches. 

Silence rings in the stillness of the empty garden on the other side. He might as well have entered another world for how different it feels. It reminds him of the forests from the folktales his nanny used to tell him. Magical and alive, its own living, breathing entity. Part of him expects a mythical creature to appear from behind a tree at any moment. 

Wylan wanders further through the privacy of the groomed bushes, past well-tended flowerbeds, and across the manicured lawn. 

Eventually he feels far enough away from the party when he reaches the palace’s east wing. The windows above are dark, the rooms unoccupied. So he sits carefully in the grass beneath a young tree, removes his mask, and opens his waistcoat to pull out the two pieces of his flute tucked inside. In seconds, he assembles it and gives a little whistle, testing the sound. 

Despite the time of night, a bird responds. 

When Wylan arrived tonight, he expected to spend more time playing music in the garden than actually attending the masquerade. He’s pleasantly surprised to realize how much he wants to return to the party, if only for the Madman. 

He shouldn’t.

Guilt gnaws at Wylan’s chest and sours his mood. He didn’t want to leave so abruptly. Wylan exhales loudly and imagines what could have been if he stayed. Heated kisses and wandering hands. Shirts askew and breeches half unbuttoned in the frenzy to touch one another …

It’s for the best, he tells himself, even though Wylan doesn’t believe it. At least he’ll always be able to keep the fantasy. The memory of twirling together, holding hands. Touching someone who wanted him just as badly. 

He shakes off the regret and raises the flute to his lips. 

Wylan plays. The first song is light and lilting, the distraction he needs. Afterward, he plays some new ditties that live in his head. Then some old and familiar songs too. Nobody back home cares that he plays music as long as none of the household hear it. Wylan figures the same is true at the palace too. 

He plans to stay until the clock rings twelve bells, then begin the long walk home. 

Until then, he throws himself into the music until the grass nearby rustles with footsteps. Startled, Wylan pauses playing and whips around to look at the intruder. 

It’s the Madman. 

Wylan’s eyes widen in surprise. He lowers his flute and hides the pleased grin that escapes. 

Honestly, he never expected to see the man again. Tomorrow, Wylan returns to the kitchen, scooping ashes and scrubbing floors. Serving. And the Madman lives his own life in the type of luxury that earned him an invitation to the palace, no doubt waited on by people exactly like Wylan. 

In another life, they could have been equals. His heart aches at the thought. 

“Didn’t expect to find you all the way out here,” the Madman teases, gesturing to the emptiness of the dark garden as he approaches Wylan beneath the tree. 

He has removed his mask too. There’s no need to hide their faces this far from the party. He carries the blood red bird beak painted with gold embellishments in his hand, swinging it carelessly by the beak until it flips in the air, then casually catches it again. He’s as handsome as Wylan thought, now that it no longer covers his cheekbones and Wylan can see his entire face. 

Wylan stands, legs stiff from sitting folded on the ground. His hands unconsciously begin to twist around the wooden instrument. He’s never been caught playing before, but now the reality of it isn’t as alarming as he’d always imagined. 

Wylan wets his lips and doesn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned. “You followed me?” 

“Well, you ran away quite suddenly, love. One second you looked ready to pull me off the dance floor and have your sweet wicked way with me, and the next you just pulled away. It was a bit confusing. Is everything alright?”

Wylan’s eyes dart to the ground, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. He supposes it was quite the dramatic exit. Especially after the Madman’s offer … 

“It had nothing to do with you,” Wylan hastily reassures him. He laughs, an awkward little chuckle as he tries to come up with the right explanation. “There was just … someone I wanted to avoid.”

The Madman takes another step forward until there’s a single pace between them. His gray eyes glow in the moonlight of the garden. They’re standing so near that Wylan could reach out and touch him if he wanted to close the distance. His fingers twitch with the desire, but he forces his hand to remain still. 

“That’s good to know. I thought I had upset you. Why come here, though?” He looks around the dark garden with exaggeration, his eyes sweeping the trees, bushes, and building. “Not sure we’re supposed to stray so far from the party, sweetheart.”

He feels himself heat at the endearment. A meaningless name ultimately, but he likes it all the same. 

“It’s private.” Wylan shrugs. He nods to the flute still clutched in his hands. “I just wanted somewhere to hear myself play.”

The Madman grins and reaches out to touch Wylan’s flute curiously. He examines it and runs one long finger along the wooden side before pressing the pad of his long index finger over the holes. “No wonder you were so distracted when we met. You’re a musician.” 

Though he doesn’t think the man means his flute harm, Wylan holds his breath. Waits. Touching someone else’s instrument is far too personal and oddly intimate. He’d never consider doing it to anyone else. Yet the Madman has no qualms. He simply doesn’t play by the same rules. 

Wylan respects that. He wishes that he lived so freely. 

“You could say that,” Wylan says, clearing his throat and finding his voice. 

The space between them grows smaller. Now they’re standing so close that they’re nearly nose to nose. Well, as much as possible given their height difference. He can feel the man’s breath against his cheek, and yet Wylan has no desire to step back, away from this man and his charmingly roguish smiles. The starlight twinkling mischievously in his eyes. Instead of letting go, the Madman’s fingers wrap around the flute beneath his. His thumb strokes across Wylan’s knuckles. 

His breath hitches. 

“So you’re telling me that you’re good with your mouth and your fingers,” the Madman says devilishly. 

Ghezen, it’s such a bad line. Wylan snorts and can’t help but fall a little more hopelessly for him. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I very much would,” the Madman admits softly, and the sincere honesty of it steals the breath from Wylan’s lungs. “I’m Jesper, and you are, love?”

“Wylan.”

It’s not clear who initiates the kiss. Wylan tilts his head up seeking contact just as Jesper leans down and their lips connect, soft at first. Gently savoring the moment. Then the heady rush of what they’re doing catches up to Wylan. Despite holding onto the flute, his hands fist into the lapel of Jesper’s coat, pulling him closer until their chests press together, urging for more. More. More. More!

This time, Wylan’s sure Jesper can taste his smile.

The Madman—Jesper—gladly takes the hint, and he deepens the kiss. Their mouths speed up against one another, seeking and searching. Pushing and pulling in rhythm. A dance where the steps are messy and rushed, but wonderful. Heated. More thrilling than spinning around any ballroom. Wylan never wants it to end. 

Now he understands. This is what it means to live. It’s this: a racing heart. Excitement flooding his veins. Feeling happy and giddy and free. 

It’s red velvet and gold. Ridiculously attractive cavalier hats. Shimmering fabric that’s more valuable to Wylan than anything he’s ever owned. Cricket song. Orchestral strings. Blue butterflies and swooping silver embroidery. A wooden flute. Warm dark skin that reminds him of piano keys. The shadowed greenery of the garden beneath pale moonlight. 

There’s so much color that Wylan doesn’t know how he ever lived without it. 

His back hits the trunk of the tree they’re standing beneath, and he couldn’t care less while Jesper crowds him, pressing their bodies together.

Large, lithe hands cup Wylan’s jaw, tilting his head upward. Yes, he thinks. Yes! And then he doesn’t think at all. 

Jesper’s leg slips between his and grinds their hips together. Wylan gasps, the sound cut short by soft, perfect lips. Jesper does it again and moans loudly against his mouth and it’s as musical as anything else Wylan’s heard all evening. 

Something heavy nearby falls. Breathless, Wylan jumps and breaks away with spit-slicked lips. A lust-clouded brain. His heart beats so fast, so loud that it’s a wonder no one found them sooner. 

He tries to glance around to make sure there’s no guests or palace guards nearby. They need to make sure they haven’t been found, but Jesper dives back for another searing kiss, nipping at Wylan’s lower lip, tugging it between his teeth and obscuring his view. 

Undeterred, Wylan pulls back to whisper, “I heard something.”

“It’s nothing,” Jesper reassures him. Not getting the desired result with Wylan’s lips, he kisses along the right side of Wylan’s jawline, lower and lower until he mouths at Wylan’s neck, alternating to lick and suck on the sensitive skin at the pulse point beneath his ear. 

Wylan can’t stop the high needy whine that escapes between his teeth. He tilts his head accommodatingly, even as his eyes try to search the darkness. 

It’s getting harder to think, but Wylan’s sure there’s definitely someone nearby. He can’t ignore it. He’s stubborn that way. Always asks too many questions. He can’t let go of an idea until he has an answer. 

What if they get caught? Shouldn’t Jesper be more concerned? Maybe he has nothing to lose. 

But Wylan certainly does. 

Jesper grinds against Wylan again, rubbing their pelvises together low and sensual over too many layers of fabric between them. His mouth travels up, teeth tugging lightly at his earlobe. A shiver runs up Wylan’s spine. He moans. 

“Pay attention to me, love. Only me.”

With a sudden clarity, it all makes sense. Wylan places his palms on Jesper’s chest and shoves him backward. “You’re distracting me,” he says, astonished. 

He’s still panting, his chest rising and falling heavily in a way that makes his accusation sound higher and more breathless than he intends. 

Emotions swirl and storm beneath the surface of the skin Jesper had just kissed so eagerly. Betrayal. Shame. Had Jesper wanted him at all or just wanted to keep him occupied?

Stupid, stupid, Wylan. Who would want him?

Hurt, he turns his wide eyes from Jesper to the rest of the garden just in time to see a large figure dressed in such a deep red that the color is nearly black, rappel from a window down the side of the palace with a tick rope. Another taller figure already stands below, looming in the shadows like a bird of prey. 

Jesper puts a hand on Wylan’s arm though Wylan isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be comforting or keep him from running away shouting for help. 

“Sweetheart,” Jesper says regretfully. “You should have focused on me.”

“You had one job,” a gravelly male voice snaps at Jesper with annoyance. “It’s too late; he’s seen us. Bring him.”

He steps out of the shadows, and Wylan can see that the man’s pale face is as severe as his voice. Beneath his black leather gloves, he leans against a cane, though it can’t be a particularly useful tool out here in the soft earth of the garden. 

Instinctively, Wylan knows that he wants nothing to do with this man. 

The rappeler jumps the last few feet to the ground with a dull thud: a woman with thick brown hair styled in a tight updo made messy by the physical exertion. She breathes heavily from her climb, swears in Ravkan, and takes in the scene, green eyes darting between the three men. 

“Some lookout,” she teases Jesper. 

“Well, if you two hadn’t been so bloody loud. You probably woke the saints from their graves,” Jesper complains without any real bite. 

“Sorry,” she says, absolutely not sorry at all. “It was hard to hear anything over all your snogging.”

“Enough,” their leader hisses, getting the final word. 

Wylan spins between Jesper and the two newcomers, eyes wide and confused. That is, until he sees the man in black pick up a filled canvas sack tucked partially behind his legs. 

They’re thieves. 

Robbing the palace. 

Ghezen, what has he stumbled into?

Suddenly, getting caught by this father is the least of Wylan’s concerns tonight. 

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Jesper reassures him, gunmetal gray eyes meeting Wylan’s sincerely. “Please come with us. We’ve got a bit of a schedule to keep.”

“Now!” the other man commands. He turns and leaves, fully expecting the rest of them to follow. They do. 

Well, they attempt to. Wylan freezes, unable to move. He whispers in disbelief, “You’re criminals.” 

Jesper is far too casual about this fact for Wylan’s liking. He nods. “I’m going to ask much nicer than he will, darling. And if you don’t want to come, we can make you. She’s a heartrender who can send you to sleep, and you’ll still come with us whether you want to or not. So walk with us, yeah? What do you say?”

The female heartrender waits nearby for his decision. Her hands start to raise dangerously as Jesper nudges Wylan forward. 

Stupidly, Wylan wonders if he’s being kidnapped. Is this what being kidnapped feels like? It’s simultaneously stranger and more pleasant than he imagined. When Wylan was a child, he was warned not to stray, that people may try to harm his father and take his family’s fortune by stealing him for ransom. 

It’s a laughable thought now. His father would personally thank any kidnapper and slip them extra kruge to finish him off. 

Guided through the palace grounds by thieves during a masquerade he wasn’t even supposed to attend because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time isn’t how or why Wylan expected to be kidnapped.

“Where are you taking me?” An edge of fear cracks his voice. The warmth of Jesper’s hand sears through the upper arm of Wylan’s shirt sleeve as he steers them through the garden close on the heels of the other two criminals. It’s a familiar action. Prior and Miggson use it to lead him through the house often. At least Jesper has the decency not to bruise Wylan’s arm. 

“Quiet,” the leader warns. 

Jesper winks. “All part of the adventure,” he whispers. 

Wylan stares at him like he’s mad. They’re all mad. 

Silently, the four make their way through the empty gardens. Wylan thinks he should be panicking more. He’s just been kidnapped, and despite Jesper’s assurance, he very much doubts they’ll let him walk away unharmed. He glances toward the female heartrender and wonders if she’s calming him. 

They trample through a flower bed, then end up on a road at the palace’s eastern side where a lone carriage waits. A large blonde man sits on top in the driver’s seat. Without hesitation, the leader of the criminals approaches him. 

“No,” the driver says with a thick Fjerdan accent, looking at Wylan, then back to the man with a scowl that reaches his frost-blue eyes. “Demjin, we are not stealing men. That was not the plan. Who is he?”

The leader smiles, his mouth contorting in a wicked twist. “That’s what we’re going to find out. He’s seen too much. Anyone attending the masquerade tonight can be ransomed for the right price. Take us to Braghtstraat, in the warehouse district.”

Wylan’s eyes go wide with fear as bells begin to toll in the distance. Midnight. Then the first bright flare shoots into the sky and bursts above the palace with a shower of red light. 

Wylan’s entire evening has already blown up in his face, so it seems fitting to end the night with actual explosions. 

There’s not a single kruge his father or anyone else would spend to see him safely returned home, much less alive. If this crew has no qualms getting their hands dirty, Jan Van Eck might pay them to dispose of him completely and be done with his son completely. Wylan starts to sweat. 

One by one, they climb into the carriage as more brilliantly colored fireworks erupt in the darkness. Sizzling gold, reds, and greens igniting in the sky. First their leader and the heartrender. The blonde man takes his seat atop the carriage and picks up the horses’ reins. Wylan would protest, stammering that he knows nothing and he’ll tell no one he’s seen them—just let him go, let him live—but it’s impossible to hear anything over the booming fireworks overhead. Jesper senses his reluctance and puts a broad hand on his back, gently easing him forward until Wylan climbs inside too. 

Jesper follows, and as soon as the door shuts, they begin to move. 

It’s not a comfortable ride squished on the seat bench between Jesper, his ridiculously oversized hat, and the large woman while the pale leader sits beside the bag of stolen loot. His eyes bore into Wylan’s without wavering once. If he finds whatever he’s looking for, it’s impossible to tell. 

None of them attempt to speak over the noise outside. Wylan disassembles his flute and awkwardly tucks it back inside his waistcoat. His mask, Alys’ mask, he corrects himself, sits on his lap. He plays with the black satin ribbon between his fingertips. Worries. 

Wylan tries to remember the last time he rode in a carriage and finds that he can’t. It was probably to church, sitting opposite his mother and father. Back then, he barely thought twice about traveling, the luxury of leaving the estate and riding safely from one place to another. The wooden wheels against the cobblestones are just as rickety as he recalls. 

Eventually, the carriage comes to a halt. 

All four of them climb out and enter a darkened warehouse that looks like it’s seen friendlier days. The Fjerdan driver and another woman, a slight figure dressed to blend in with the night, join them inside. 

Jesper fetches a lantern from somewhere in the darkness, and its pale yellow light illuminates a small corner of the abandoned warehouse. 

This is where he’s going to die. Wylan’s hands begin to sweat and he feels silly still clutching Alys’ mask. 

The leader’s cane clicks against the concrete floor with each step and echoes in the empty space. He settles less than half a dozen paces in front of Wylan, clenching the crow’s head of the cane with both hands. 

“Who are you?” 

Wylan swallows nervously as all five sets of eyes focus on him. There’s nowhere to run or hide. He has to answer. “I’m nobody.”

“Your name,” he clarifies, disgusted he needs to do so at all. This is not a man who suffers fools. 

“Wylan.” The man waits, raises an unamused eyebrow waiting for more. Wylan hesitates, then gives in. “Heh-Hendriks.”

The man’s pale eyes dart sideways toward the female heartrender where she leans against the massive Fjerdan man. She shakes her head. 

The leader tracks his unsympathetic piercing gaze back to Wylan. “Why are you lying?”

Shit. 

Amazed, he glances at the heartrender. She seems almost bored, arms crossed over her chest as if it took no effort at all to expose his lie. How does she know? It had to be some type of physiological reaction inside his body—one that she could sense. But his heartbeat rapidly hammers through his chest, and it doesn’t feel any different than it had when he stepped out of the carriage and into the abandoned warehouse. 

Wylan doesn’t know much about Grisha, but she must be powerful. She looks like a force to be reckoned with. An immovable rock weathering storm after storm. He doesn’t know how she senses anything other than the anxiety pumping through his blood, there’s so much of it. 

He can do this. Wylan can answer their questions without giving his identity away. It’s a game, like whenever he stands under his father’s scrutiny. The only right response is the one that gets him out of this conversation unharmed. The rules are just changed: He can’t lie. But Wylan implicitly understands that he does not need to confess the whole truth. 

“Really, I’m nobody,” he deflects, wide blue eyes darting between each figure, hoping they believe his earnestness. It’s true. He believes it. 

Wylan’s confidence grows.

The leader stalks closer, cane clicking again with every step. It suddenly looks more like a weapon as he strides forward. “Then why were you alone so far from the masquerade? Who were you signaling in the garden?”

Signaling, Wylan’s mind echoes in confusion. “What? I wasn’t!” he stammers. “No one.” 

The man moves so quickly that Wylan doesn’t see him lunge. But the next second the criminal’s gloves are on him, fists grabbing and twisting in the delicate fabric of his waistcoat without ever dropping his cane. 

Wylan panics. His own hands fly up reflexively. Clutching at the leather gloves, he tries to pull them off before the leader shakes him like Alys’ terrier Rufus once did to the young rabbit it caught in the garden. 

Viscera flew everywhere. Wylan had to bathe the dog afterward until its smooth coat shined innocently once again. But he’s never been able to get the image of the dog smiling splattered in blood out of his head. 

Wylan has no doubt the criminal leader in front of him would do the same if it served his purpose. 

“You expect me to believe you wanted a quiet place to play a flute in the exact location my crew snuck into tonight,” the man growls. 

This close, Wylan can see every pale scar lining the face of someone familiar with violence. He’s fucked. No, Wylan tells himself. He’s not. Not yet. He can do this. 

“Yes!” He nods desperately, the motion jerky, uncoordinated in his fear. He needs them to believe him. Wylan wets his lips nervously. Then, tells as much of the truth as he can. It’s just as well; he’s never been particularly good at lying. “I wa—wasn’t supposed to be at the ball at all,” he says quickly, tripping over his own tongue. “I’m just a servant. I snuck in for the party.”

Jesper’s eyebrows raise, intrigued, perhaps impressed. He looks at Wylan in a new light, but the others’ expressions remain stoic. 

The hands on his waistcoat tighten, making Wylan gasp. If he weren’t so afraid of dying, he’d be far more concerned about his waistcoat. The fabric from his mother’s dress tearing beneath the brutal grip. 

“That doesn’t explain what you were doing below us in the garden.”

“I wanted somewhere quiet.” Wylan feels the man’s hands flex beneath the black leather gloves twisting into his dress clothes. “I saw,” my father “the master of the house and panicked! I ran out of the ballroom before he could see me! Ask Jesper; he was there! That’s why I ran outside. The garden was empty, and it was the safest place to go!”

“And you brought a flute for what, the simple joy of playing music? At the palace masquerade?” 

“I didn’t know if I could convince the guards that I was a guest, so I brought it because they might believe I was a musician. It’s mine; I know how to play it.”

The man finally releases Wylan and steps back before looking back at his crew. 

“Checks out, boss. He whistles pretty as a songbird,” Jesper agrees.

The heartrender nods again. Proof everything Wylan said is true. 

Smoothing the front of his blue waistcoat, checking for damage, Wylan regains his composure. His waistcoat is wrinkled, but unharmed. His heart still pounds against his ribcage as if he ran for hours. But it’s easier to relax now that the criminal leader’s hands aren’t on him.

The man seems to accept it. He still looks like a bird of prey, all intensity and sharp lines about to go for the kill. He contemplates, rolling the new information around in his mind before pressing a new line of interrogation. “Which household do you work in?”

Wylan reminds himself he can do this. Steels himself even though his stomach twists and the heartrender must be able to feel it. 

“Van Eck. Please, just—let me go. I won’t tell anyone I saw you. No one would believe me even if I did. I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“If you are nobody, then it won’t matter if we kill you,” the man says calmly. Chillingly. 

And just like that, all of Wylan’s confidence flees. Fear, cold as ice water, floods his veins. His eyes widen in horror. He takes a reflexive step back. 

The others are equally unamused, at least some of them. 

“Ka—” Jesper warns, voice harsh. 

The Fjerdan stiffens as if he’s about to give an opinion too. Considering he hadn’t wanted to kidnap Wylan at all, Wylan very much wants to hear his opinion. 

“Fortunately, you are more valuable alive,” the man continues smoothly. He glares at Jesper for interrupting. “Go home tonight; we’ll be in touch soon. The price of your silence is doing what we ask when we ask. If you decide to have loose lips, I’ll make sure you are implicated with us now that I know where to plant the stolen items. You’ll hang before the stadwatch even finds us.”

It’s a dangerous deal. Wylan doesn’t like the vagueness of the terms. He needs to know exactly what this group of thieves plan to gain from him. He may let them steal one or two items from his father’s estate that might go unnoticed, but he thinks of Marlies, even Sannes and Alys, and won’t let anyone get hurt in the process.

At least they won’t kill him. Wylan relaxes, but only slightly. If he’s lucky, he might be able to negotiate, depending on how badly they want whatever he can give. He may no longer be Jan Van Eck’s heir, but he is Kerch, born and raised. Bartering for the best deal is practically in his blood. 

 “What do you want from me?”

“Information, mainly. Van Eck is a cautious man. He runs a small but organized household and a business empire worth more than the entire country’s coffers. No man is without secrets, and surely you know a few of his.”

Wylan shakes his head, looks down at the dusty floor. 

No.

He can’t admit that he doesn’t know anything, the heartrender would sense the lie. He knows his father’s biggest secret. He is his father’s biggest secret. “I’m not trusted with anything important,” he protests. “I just clean.”

There are no secrets at the bottom of a mop bucket, but even Wylan knows that he has access to more than enough basic information about the Van Eck household to satisfy those up to no good. He knows the schedules of his father and Alys. When Prior and Miggson retire for the evening, leaving the estate vulnerable without security. He knows the house’s secrets too. Every door in and out, the location of every room and creaky floorboard. Fuck, he’s the one with the keys. He could draw a map for these criminals straight to the most valuable heirlooms in the house. 

And the pale man in a dark coat with an iron grip on the head of his cane knows it too. 

“We’ll be in touch,” he reminds Wylan before striding off, out of the abandoned warehouse. Back to whatever pit he crawled out of—now Wylan understands why the Fjerdan called him demjin. Demon. It’s an accurate description.

The silent shadow of a woman follows. 

“Well, this has been fun,” the heartrender says to no one specifically. Jesper and the Fjerdan seem to understand her sarcasm for what it is and don’t bother to reply. She and the blonde man start to discuss returning the carriage and what to eat afterward as they leave the warehouse.

Wylan follows. He wants to leave, to go home and forget this absurd ending to an otherwise perfect evening. It won’t be so easy. 

Jesper falls into step beside him. Too deliberate to be a coincidence. 

“What do you want?” Wylan snaps, embarrassed. He’s already made a fool out of himself tonight thinking Jesper could have possibly wanted to dance with him. Pull him somewhere dark and private to kiss him. Him. A servant pretending to be someone more who snuck into the palace masquerade to dance and play his flute. Ghezen, it sounds pathetic, Jesper doesn’t need to remind him. 

Instead he says, “Would you believe Kaz is a big softie at heart?” 

Wylan glares and crosses his arms, both in annoyance and to stave off the chill lingering in the dark abandoned warehouse. 

“Probably not,” Jesper concludes. “You know, for every puppy he kicks, there’s another that—”

Wylan interrupts. “You can leave. You don’t have to pretend to want me anymore. I won’t tell anyone about the robbery.”

Jesper halts. After another step, Wylan does too and turns back to watch the other man. He prepares for an argument. Scathing words. Laughter at his naivete. 

Jesper does none of those. Instead, he shakes his head and grins. “You think that was pretend tonight? My acting is good, love, but not that good. I can assure you it was very real. All of it.”

Wylan feels his face heat against his will. Dammit. He thought that he managed to suppress that dangerous little seed of desire. The one that wants Jesper to hold his hand again. To dance with him. To touch him again and again and kiss without demons and heartrenders appearing like phantoms out of the darkness to interrupt.

He starts walking again and hopes that a little space between them will make the flush on his cheeks disappear. He pushes open the side door of the warehouse that they first entered through and Jesper follows him outside into the dark early hours of the morning. 

“Kaz has got a sense of humor, as twisted as it is. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” Jesper winks before smoothly turning around the corner of the building and disappearing. 

Suddenly, for the first time in hours, he is truly alone. The silence of the night rings heavily through his ears as Wylan realizes that he has no idea where he is. 

He follows Jesper’s path around the corner of the warehouse, only to come to another crossroad. By then, Jesper is long gone. Wylan picks a random direction and starts walking. If he follows the main roads and spots the palace in the distance, eventually he’ll find his way back to the estate. 

He doesn’t notice the shadow following him through the night. 

Chapter Text

Wylan makes it back for the estate two bells before sunrise. That’s one bell before he actually needs to be awake and downstairs scooping yesterday’s ashes and stoking the fires for a new day. 

With bone-aching weariness, Wylan takes the familiar path through the estate grounds back to the house. His feet throb. The blisters alert him that his father’s good shoes aren’t actually meant for walking. But it’s his own fault that the route home took so long. Ketterdam is a rather large city—Wylan knew this in theory—but he’s never had to navigate it himself before. Especially on foot in the dead of night in the wet mist. The warehouse district, he now knows, lies on the western outskirts near the waterfront. If he had been able to just read the street signs he might have made it back hours ago to rest his eyes if he hadn’t gotten turned around time and time again. 

He’s tired. Exhausted. Wylan can’t remember the last time he stayed awake so long. Probably because he never has. A hazy fog similar to the perpetual cloud cover over the city begins to creep around the edges of his thoughts, slowing them. Softening them. He wants to sleep for a week. 

And if he dreams of bright colors, music, dancing, and beautiful dark hands, well … that wouldn’t be so bad. 

He hugs himself and shivers in the cold damp air. 

Tonight was everything Wylan wanted. Fun and freeing. He’ll hold onto the memory fondly as long as he can. Even if it ended bizarrely. 

Wylan had plenty of time to think, reliving each second, on the long walk home. Unsure what to do about the thieves, he decides to do nothing at all. Pretend he hadn’t been kidnapped and interrogated. Threatened and coerced into aiding their next robbery by people that want his father’s secrets. 

That’s infinitely more dangerous. He wishes they were after his money instead. They have no place poking their noses into the household’s business. He knows it’s wishful thinking to hope they’ll forget about him entirely. Still, he’s willing to wager that the chance of being contacted by them is small, especially if he stays inside the house where he belongs. 

If they want information so badly, they can break into the mansion themselves to get it. And by then, the demon and his gang can just steal whatever they want and leave Wylan alone. 

He lets himself in quietly through the sunroom, removing his shoes and trying not to track a damp trail into the narrow servants staircase up to his room in the attic. The morning mist solidified into a light rain over an hour ago. Now it soaks Wylan’s skin like a fine layer of sweat. The ridiculous fancy lace and billowing sleeves of his shirt hang heavily from his arms. Wet, the blue waistcoat clings to his chest. At least the delicate fabric isn’t damaged by the water. 

Wylan creeps into his room and quietly strips out of the wet clothes. He does it slowly; the walls are paper thin, he’s learned over the years. And the last thing he wants is to announce his arrival and rouse Marlies, Diggory, and Sannes from their sleep. 

Carefully, he pushes his mother’s letters into the far corner of his trunk and hides the wet lace shirt, waistcoat, and breeches beneath his spare clothes. Damp as they are, he’s not stupid enough to hang them to dry in plain sight. 

In the trunk, he sees his empty flute case and pauses. 

His flute. 

Wylan lunges at the pile of wet fabric feeling for the two hard wooden pieces that should be inside. They’re not. He can’t find them. Uselessly, he pats his bare waist down—they were inside his waistcoat. They were, he swears it. Panicking, he scans the tiny room with frantic eyes, even though he knows they’re not there. 

Fuck, his flute is gone. 

How could he be so stupid?

Wylan squeezes his eyes shut and feels himself shatter. All of his heightened emotions, his exhaustion and frustration crashing over his head at once. A storm of self-loathing cracks like thunder, splitting his skin and burrowing beneath as his hands find the roots of the copper curls plastered against his forehead and tugs. 

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. 

It’s gone. It’s really gone. 

The sobering thought cuts through the foggy haze clouding his thoughts. 

His only real possession. The one thing he owned. When he moved into the servants’ quarters, all of his sketchbooks and ink pens were thrown out, his toys taken, and his little wool suits vanished. 

But for whatever reason—probably because he didn’t touch it after Mama died—he left his flute in the music room that fateful day. Otherwise, it would have been in his bedroom because he liked to carry the case around the same way his father carried a briefcase. So his flute survived when everything else from his childhood disappeared. 

The flute was his, bought as a beginning instrument as he transitioned from piano to woodwinds. He was supposed to switch from wood to the silver concert flute as he grew older, but never had the chance. Wylan stared longingly at its case in the music room for over a year before daring to take it back. Until tonight, rescuing his flute had been the bravest, stupidest thing he’s ever done, and he lived in fear for months that it would be taken from him too.

Now, his flute could be anywhere between here and the warehouse. Probably laying in a ditch on the roadside in a puddle of rain. Even if he did miraculously find it on the estate lawn come morning, the wood would be too warped and waterlogged to ever play properly again. 

Wylan tugs at his hair one last time until his scalp stings, blinks the water from his eyes rapidly, and bites his lip to stifle the cry that wants to burst through. 

Resigned, he wipes his wet face and hair with a towel and finishes dressing in clean, dry clothes. 

He can’t just buy another flute. He doesn’t get paid, hasn’t ever seen a single kruge for all his work. In the past, he begged the old housekeeper whenever he needed something new. Winter blankets and bigger shoes that didn’t pinch. Larger clothes when he outgrew his last pair. Thank Ghezen she’s gone. Wylan celebrated the day his father dismissed her and unofficially appointed Sannes as head of the household. But he can’t ask Sannes either. Good riddance, she’d say. Now you won’t be distracted. Put yourself to use, boy. Fold the linens and iron those shirts before you hang them. Hurry up. 

It’s really gone. 

Wylan lays down, and the thin mattress has never felt so inviting. He shuts his eyes, wondering what the moment was where his evening went wrong. It had been going so well. Was it when he was kidnapped? Or before that when he met Jesper? When he kissed him in the garden? Certainly not. That was the best part of the night. A pleasant memory when he pretends it was real, not a distraction. 

But the dance—that wasn’t fake, Wylan reassured himself sleepily. Jesper pursued his attention in the ballroom because he wanted him. Wylan. He wanted to hold Wylan’s hand, sweep him off his feet and into a dark corner to kiss him breathless long before he wandered into the wrong part of the garden. 

The thought leaves a smile on his face and a flicker of warmth in his chest as he finally falls asleep. 

Less than an hour later, Wylan wakes to a fist banging on the door. He groans. Only when the fist pounds the door again, he realizes he’s overslept. 

Rolling out of bed before sunrise has never been easy. Today, it’s worse. His limbs are like lead, his mind more groggy than when he fell asleep. He feels like he’s melted into the mattress. The effort alone it takes to pry his eyelids open …

It’s going to be a long day. 

The handle turns and Wylan sits up, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair sticks up at all angles, still damp where it lay pressed against his pillow. 

In the darkness, Marlies peers through the slim crack. She stays firmly in the hallway, unlike last night. 

“Sannes needs you downstairs,” she says. “Hurry up.” Then closes the door without another word. 

Wylan blinks and wonders sluggishly if he hallucinated last night. Not the ball, or even getting kidnapped by thieves robbing the palace. He doesn’t doubt those happened—only because they’re wildly more believable than Marlies speaking to him, much less helping him. 

But the proof is in his trunk—Wylan checks. Damp, wrinkled, and vibrantly blue.

He grabs his apron off of the bedpost and ties it as he jogs down the servants’ stairs to the kitchen.

Sannes must yell at him for being late, but Wylan has no memory of it. Somehow he survives the rest of the morning. After breakfast, Wylan manages to curl into the closet of a spare room, his former bedroom, hidden long enough to nap. 

He wakes tired and stiff from sleeping on the floor, but his head feels clearer, his thoughts sharper. Unfortunately, he’s behind on his chores. So Wylan rushes through the laundry and the sweeping floors praying that no one notices him give the tasks minimal effort. 

After lunch, Wylan yawns and rolls his sleeves up to wash the dishes when a pair of knuckles rap lightly on the propped kitchen door. “Delivery,” a warm voice calls brightly. 

Wylan nearly drops the plate back into the soapy water. 

His eyes widen, and he whirls around in shock to find Jesper leaning against the doorframe. Wylan half expects him to still be wearing the get up of the Madman, but he’s costumed in an ordinary off-white shirt, a carelessly unbuttoned vest, cap, and well-worn corduroy trousers. Just like their usual delivery man. 

Wylan wonders if Jesper snogged him too. 

He’s dressed like the layman who drops off the weekly order of bulk ingredients Sannes buys at the market. Heavy dry items they use frequently: sugar, flour, brown beans, and salt. 

“Put it in the pantry. Come on now,” Sannes commands him without looking up from the stove. 

Wylan sets the dish back in the washtub even though it was nearly clean, dries his hands on the corner of his apron, and follows Jesper outside before Sannes becomes suspicious of the change in routine. 

No doubt Jesper would try to charm his way into the cook’s good graces. But Wylan’s not sure that Sannes has any; he’s certainly never been in them. 

As soon as they’re out of sight, Wylan subtly checks the grounds to make sure Diggory isn’t clipping any of the nearby bushes. To his relief, they’re alone. 

Jesper grins. He knocks their elbows together as they walk. His gaze rakes over Wylan from head to toe, drinking in his real appearance, absent of a golden mask and fitted costume. The reality of Wylan’s worn clothes, his apron and scuffed shoes. He doubts Jesper finds him regal now.

But the smile stretched across his lips never falls as Jesper watches him. 

Wylan doesn’t know whether to be surprised or not to find the actual delivery wagon on the road that leads to the back of the house. Sundries, vegetables, and all. 

He half expected to be kidnapped again. It wouldn’t really be so bad, but maybe that’s the exhaustion talking. Considering Wylan’s life turned upside down overnight and he’s slept for a total of three bells, he doesn’t really know what he expects anymore. 

“Your day job?” Wylan asks skeptically. 

“I’m more of a jack of all trades, really. Sharpshooter. Gambler. Bouncer. Bartender. Lover. Conman. Thief,” Jesper rattles off proudly. “Delivery man and messenger today. You’d be amazed how easy it is to borrow a wagon.”

Wylan shakes his head and pulls one of the crates in the back toward himself. It looks like the correct order. Regardless, he’s taking it inside. 

Jesper unloads a second one and follows him back to the kitchen. His long legs easily catch up to Wylan, and he falls into pace beside him. Wylan glances over, wanting to drop the dry goods in his arms and grab him. But he’s not entirely sure if he’d kiss Jesper’s stupid face or punch him. 

Wylan decides he’d rather bite him instead—the best of both. “What do you want?” 

“That’s a very different question than why I’m here, darling.”

Wylan flushes and ducks his head on instinct. He acts like he meant to do it, rolling his eyes even though he’s not as annoyed as he pretends. “What does your boss want?” he repeats. 

But he doesn’t get an answer because they’re already back at the kitchen’s propped door. Wylan takes the lead, directing Jesper past Sannes into the pantry. The cook likes to sort through the inventory herself, so Wylan sets the heavy crate on the floor and nods at Jesper to do the same. 

When they come out, Wylan’s eyes dart toward the door and he jerks his head the same direction. Luckily, Jesper understands. He tips his head politely at Sannes with a “Ma’am,” and heads out. 

Wylan purposely walks past the folded stack of kruge on the table, back to the washtub to start cleaning again. Predictably, Sannes tracks him across the room from her spot at the stove. She’s stirring a cream mixture in her pot. In the early afternoons, she bakes dessert until the bells chime late enough to start preparing dinner. Custards, cakes, and other sweets. His father and Alys always get the lavish ones, but sometimes she makes biscuits for the staff too. 

“What are you doing, you little idiot?” Sannes snaps in outrage. “Go pay him! Is there anything in your head?”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Grabbing the money, Wylan tunes out the rest of the cook’s insult and rushes out the door. 

He doesn’t have far to go. Just around the corner, Jesper leans his lanky frame against the side of the building, one ankle crossed over the other, spinning a coin between his long fingers as he waits. 

The moment he sees Wylan, Jesper’s entire face lights up with delight like they had pulled off a far more complicated caper. Gray eyes sparkle, lips curling upward in a smile. “How much time have you got?”

Wylan’s tempted to pocket the money and blame the theft on the new and likely one-time delivery driver, but the idea sits ill in his stomach for multiple reasons. Especially after his shock over Jesper and this gang’s robbery last night. Theft is theft, whether it’s stealing the crown jewels or enough pocket change to buy a week’s worth of flour and potatoes. 

Besides, there’s no way Wylan would get away with stealing money. What would he even spend it on anyway? He quiets the thought and hands over the cash before a list cements in his brain. “Not long, I’m just here to pay.”

Jesper counts the amount quickly and stuffs it in his corduroy pocket. “Kaz has a job for you.”

Wylan suspected as much, but he wanted to believe this was a social visit. That didn’t take long, he thinks nervously. He hoped to have more time, but he’s been running out of that more often than not lately.

“He wants you to find out what trade agreements Van Eck’s currently negotiating,” Jesper elaborates. “Kaz also wants access to all of the accounting books, business or personal. He doesn’t care which you get first, but ultimately he wants both. Somethingsomething about knowing a man by where he puts his money. Anyhoo, Kaz wants a copy of the current books, but he said you can nick the actual ones from the past two years if that’s easier.” 

“Oh, that’s all?” Wylan asks sarcastically. His mind is spinning. 

His racing heartbeat drums a firm warning against helping these criminals steal anything. That’s a whole fucking lot to put his neck on the line for. If he got caught …

It’s one thing to borrow a shirt, wash, and return it. Another entirely to break into his father’s office—a room he’s never been allowed inside unsupervised for this very reason—and steal his financial records with the sole purpose of handing it over to a gang of criminals. 

Even if he wanted to, Wylan needs to read the contracts in order to know what they contain. And he can’t. The trade agreements look the same as shipping manifests, and those have the same wiggling spidery scrawl as Sannes’ recipes and every other document he’s seen in that awful room. Fifty ledgers line the shelves beside his father’s desk, and Wylan can’t begin to tell them apart. 

And if he doesn’t … they’ll save their necks and pin the palace robbery on him. 

Wylan could tell Jesper. But he dismisses the thought instantly. He’d have to confess that he can’t read, and he doesn’t think he’s physically capable of ever admitting it. He’d rather die than have Jesper look at him with the same revulsion in his father’s eyes. 

Either way, Wylan’s screwed. 

He can still feel the weight of too little sleep beneath his eyes and guesses that’s why it takes so long to come up with a good excuse to get out of this. 

Wylan shakes his head. “Those financial records aren’t kept in the office. They’re with his accountant.”

Jesper smiles, a lazy, easy thing. It’s unfair. “Kaz figured you’d say that. And he says that Van Eck’s too cautious to leave the only copy of his records with someone else. So they’re in his office.”

“You’re thieves, can’t you just break in and do it yourselves?” Wylan huffs in frustration.

“Easier if you do it, I’m afraid.”

It most definitely isn’t. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow. When can you sneak away for a rendezvous with me?” After a moment he amends like it’s an afterthought, “Kaz isn’t a man you want to keep waiting.”

Tomorrow?

“That’s too soon. I can’t get to them that quickly.” He steps even closer and lowers his voice. “Van Eck keeps his office locked, and if it’s not, he’s in it.” 

That’s the truth. Wylan hopes he can delay Jesper and his boss enough to make them come and steal whatever information they want. Like they should be doing in the first place. They’re the criminals, not Wylan. 

Be incompetent. He’s good at that. 

Jesper puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a little squeeze. “You’ll figure something out; you’re clever enough to break into the palace. I have complete faith in you. One little office can’t be difficult, yeah?”

It’s teasing. Goading. There’s a twinkle of challenge in Jesper’s gunmetal gaze. 

Wylan opens his mouth to protest on principle. He did not break into the palace. Not like Jesper—his boss—Kaz, and the heartrender woman. He’s not like them. Not one bit. 

Before Wylan gets out a word of defense, Jesper leans even closer and switches the topic entirely. “At first I thought you were just some skiv from the Geldstraat. A pretty face, but dull as every other merch. You’re not, though. I think I like you better this way. You’re more fun when you break their rules, take some risks.”

Wylan’s feels his cheeks heat and snaps his jaw shut. 

“Tomorrow night at ten bells work for you?”

It doesn’t. Wylan would like to be asleep by eight bells for the next week at least. But he doesn’t say that. 

“There’s a lilac tree near the east gate. Meet me there,” he tells Jesper instead. 

Jesper winks. “It’s a date.” He climbs into the wagon and snaps the horses’ reins, a practiced, familiar movement. 

Wylan adds delivery driver to the list of Jesper’s many talents as he watches him leave.

Back in the kitchen, he feels Sannes’ scrutiny as he returns to the washtub and picks up the rag and plate for the third time. 

She still hasn’t left the stove, stirring whatever’s in her pot. It’s not biscuits, so Wylan doesn’t care. “What took so long?”

“He argued over the price. I took care of it,” Wylan reassures her, struggling not to yawn. “It wasn’t a problem.”

“How?” 

By talking to him, obviously. What does she expect him to do, get down on his knees? “I told him that’s all I was going to give him and if he didn’t like it, he could talk to the seller, and they’ll talk to you.”

“Probably trying to skim off the top,” she huffs, the spoon in her hand never losing its rhythm. “I’ll have a word with Grigor tomorrow when I’m at the market. If he hires Barrel trash to do an honest man’s work, he’ll lose respectable business.”

Anxiety flutters through Wylan’s veins as he finishes scrubbing the dishes. He imagines showing up to his “date” empty-handed. His stomach sinks at the thought. He can’t bear to see the disappointment on Jesper’s handsome face. 

***   ***   ***

Wylan can’t do it. He just can’t. 

The evening winds down as the sun sets. He cleans the evening cookware, dries, and puts it away for tomorrow. Then he walks room to room to close every curtain in the house as he makes sure nothing is out of place. Ghezen forbid a single ornamental pillow move from its appropriate spot on the sofa. Wylan locks the doors, empties the pots one last time. On his way upstairs to the attic, he extinguishes the oil lamps and takes the familiar path to the attic staircase through the darkness.

His thoughts feel scattered. Disjointed. Foggy with exhaustion after a full day’s work without adequate rest. All Wylan wants to do is drop into his bed and sleep for a month. 

In the house, everyone settles down for the night in their own space: his father downstairs with Alys in the master bedroom—a fact he perfected not thinking about. Marlies’ room just two doors down from his own. Wylan hears Diggory’s heavy footfalls thump on the unvarnished wooden planks across the hall as the groundskeeper readies for bed in the marginally larger room he shares with Sannes. 

It’s the perfect time to sneak into his father’s office. 

He can’t—even if he could read …

His hands shake at the idea of creeping downstairs, stealing the key. Entering that room. He wishes he could blame his fatigue, but he knows better. 

If Wylan breaks into his father’s office, come morning his father will know. Somehow, someway. And the consequence of stealing, just attempting to steal … he can’t do it. Deep down, Wylan knows he’s still a scared little boy. The same child he was at eight years old, afraid of being yelled at, of being hit. He’s never outgrown being terrified of raised voices and raised hands. 

An irrational part of him still believes that the books and ledgers will tattle on him for stepping inside the office. They know he can’t read, that he’s not allowed to cross the threshold. Every piece of paper on the giant desk mocks him. Taunts him. They’ll scream at him for daring to touch them. If he steps one foot inside the office, his father will smell the stink of his idiocy in the room. 

The risk isn’t worth trying to find the documents Kaz demands. 

Instead of sinking his head onto his worn pillow, Wylan completes one last chore. 

He pulls the wrinkled blue waistcoat out of his trunk—he managed to sneak his father’s shirt and breeches downstairs with the rest of the laundry this afternoon. Tomorrow, he’ll put them and Alys’ mask away as if they’d never left the closet. 

Gently, Wylan soaks it in his washbasin with the rest of the water from his pitcher. Now he needs to refill it, but decides he can wait until tomorrow. The delicate fabric wets and relaxes, smoothing out the creases from drying balled up where he hid it early in morning. He doesn’t have proper soap up here to wash it, but he doesn’t think the garment needs to be cleaned. 

He lets his mind wander for a few minutes until his eyes close and his head lolls. Wylan feels himself tilt sideways and jerks himself awake. Then he lays his towel on the floor and carefully squeezes the water out of the waistcoat and lays it flat atop the cloth to dry. Beads of water drip from the wings of the large butterflies along the shoulder as if they were raindrops. Wylan scoots the towel under the metal bed frame where it hides safely from view. 

Tomorrow, he will fold it neatly and put it at the bottom of his trunk with his mother’s letters. 

Then Wylan collapses into bed. He pulls his quilt to his chin and falls into a heavy sleep the second he closes his eyes. 

***   ***   ***

The next day, the joy of the masquerade becomes a fainter memory as Wylan slides back into the routine of the household. His chores are never ending. A dull repetitive mix of polishing, washing, scrubbing, sweeping, mopping, dusting, serving. Rinse and repeat. 

The drudgery of it numbs his mind, and he can’t shake the itch burrowing under his skin screaming that there’s more to life. He finally knows because he’s experienced it. And it hurts to pretend otherwise. 

Would it have been better if he didn’t go to the masquerade? 

No, he knows it in his soul. Now he’s heard the music, seen the lights, the costumes, and pageantry of colors available to him, and he’d never take it back. 

This—his silent, colorless existence—can’t be all he’s expected to ever endure, but he will for the knowledge there’s more than his subservient whitewashed life. 

Wylan hums the waltz under his breath as he carries a basket of Alys’ folded blouses, freshly ironed, upstairs when he hears the front door slam. The walls shake, and he swears that the vibrations rattle his teeth. 

Startled, Wylan jumps. 

It’s not a good sign. His father coming home angry is never good. 

Without thinking, he bolts away from the bedroom—sometimes his father changes into less formal clothes after coming home. He darts into the nearest empty room before his father stomps up the stairs and takes his wrath out on Wylan for existing in his sight. 

He drops the basket of clothes and shuts the door to the music room, safely on the other side. The grand piano stands lonely at the center. It’s one of the best places in the house to hide—Jan Van Eck never comes in here—but he feels his anxiety skyrocket anyway.

Behind the closed door, Wylan waits. His breathing echoes in the empty room, too loud in the silence. 

Moments later, he hears the office door slam too. 

The walls jolt with the force. Wylan worries about the plaster cracking beneath the wallpaper. He stops himself from flinching, just barely, and breathes a sigh of relief. 

There’s always the lingering fear of hearing his name shouted instead, even if it hasn’t happened in years. 

After a few minutes of silence, Wylan quietly opens the music room’s door and darts into the master bedroom to put Alys’ clothes away. 

His father’s foul mood descends on the entire house. It spreads through the hallways and soaks into the rugs, the polished wood. Thick and choking. Like Wylan, the rest of the household goes about their day as unobtrusively as possible. 

Even Alys is quieter, her chatty enthusiasm more subdued when he brings her afternoon tea to the sunroom. 

Wylan does his best to stay out of sight the rest of the day. He prays that his father’s temper fades by the time he steps out of his office, but he’s never that lucky. 

That evening, Wylan serves dinner, balancing two plates of roasted chicken breast, creamed potatoes, buttered bread rolls, and garlic-seasoned vegetables. It’s unfair how delicious it all smells. 

Alys chatters away, twittering indignantly on her husband’s behalf in a way that reminds Wylan of her birds. He takes it as a good sign. 

“It’s unrealistic to expect the harbor to shut down,” Alys continues. Gossip and politics are one and the same to the wives of the Merchant Council. Perhaps she does know what she’s talking about. 

Wylan sets each plate in front of the appropriate person, Alys’ food seasoned mildly due to her pregnancy. Still, it’s better than anything he eats, and Wylan’s mouth waters. He tries not to look at the food to prevent his stomach from drawing unwanted attention by growling. 

The faster he gets this over with, the faster he can go eat his own far less elaborate meal downstairs. 

Soup and boiled potatoes, he thinks, given that he saw Sannes toss the chicken carcass in her stockpot earlier. 

Wylan moves around the table unnoticed, fetching the pitcher for their drinks next. Water for both. Then juice, freshly squeezed by Sannes, to satisfy Alys’ sweet tooth, and a single glass of wine for his father. 

“The whole city will lose money …” 

“You think I don’t know that!” his father snaps, sharp with anger. Wylan flinches. It’s enough to jostle the water pitcher, splashing fat drops onto the white tablecloth. 

Fuck. 

Like a predatory animal, the sudden movement catches his father’s attention. Jan Van Eck rips the cloth napkin from his lap and whips Wylan with it. He skitters backward away from the table, trying to move out of reach. Accidentally, he splashes more water on the floor. He’s not fast enough. The napkin doesn’t actually hurt—just stings his arm. A clear warning. 

“You imbecile! Go stand against the wall,” his father barks.

It’s a direct order, and a particularly vindictive one too. Not only will Wylan have to stand along the wall waiting to serve his father and Alys the rest of the meal, he’ll have to wait until he’s either dismissed or their dinner ends before eating his own. 

Lukewarm soup it is, he thinks dully. At least the others will have finished by the time he goes downstairs, and he’ll get to eat in peace. Alone. 

He nods, rubs his arm, and mumbles, “Yes, sir.” At the back of the room, he sets the pitcher down on the shelf beside the bottles of juice and wine. Then he stands and waits, hands folded in front just like he has practiced for years. 

Alys doesn’t appear put off by the interruption, too busy feeding Rufus perfectly cut bites of chicken on her lap. Wylan’s not surprised; she’s from a wealthy family and has spent her whole life tuning out the people who make her lifestyle possible. A reprimand every now and then to who she believes is the half-witted serving boy is normal. 

Alys continues, “It’s madness to shut down the entire country for some diamonds.”

“It’s not just diamonds,” Jan Van Eck corrects her, still snappish. It’s colder than he probably intends.

Alys frowns and feeds her terrier again. She’s not used to being scolded and clearly doesn’t enjoy it. Wylan watches with fascination as his father attempts his own version of an apology. 

Jan Van Eck adjusts his tone, soothing his rage as he speaks. “The thieves took diamonds, candlesticks, several paintings carved from their frames, snuff boxes, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down. Amateurs, apparently. None of it has that much value individually, but it’s enough for the king to shut down every ship in and out of the harbor until it’s all recovered. The theft was too overt for the palace to pretend it hadn’t happened.”

Alys signals Wylan for more juice. He complies quickly. 

“It was probably the help,” Alys says flippantly. “When things go missing, it’s always the help.”

Wylan takes care not to spill a single drop. He thinks about the blue waistcoat drying under his bed. Purposely, he does not look up. It doesn’t stop him from feeling his father’s piercing gaze. 

The hair on the nape of his neck rises, and he feels the urge to flee. 

“For their sake, they should hope not,” Jan Van Eck says cooly. It’s too pointed to be anything other than a warning. 

He retreats to the back of the room, grateful to be out of sight again. Sweat gathers beneath his arms and he breathes slow, even breaths in time with the metronome in his mind while he wills himself to relax. 

If his father knows Wylan has part of his mother’s dress, had snuck out to the masquerade while wearing it, he wouldn’t be alive to stand here right now. 

The threat is one of his father’s usual mind games, Wylan reassures himself. He doesn’t know. 

This morning, Wylan put away the borrowed shirt and breeches, neither of which contain a stain or any indication they ever left the closet. Alys’ mask too. 

There’s no way his father knows. 

Dinner continues as Alys prompts the Merchant Council’s response to the harbor’s closing and the Council’s plan to reopen it. Wylan refills their drinks again, collects the dirty dishes, and serves dessert before Alys retires to the parlor to be cared for by Marlies the rest of the evening. His father places a hand over her flat stomach and kisses her on the cheek before excusing himself to his office to continue sorting through the financial and political mess caused by the robbery. 

Only then, Wylan stacks the last of the dirty dishware and returns to the kitchen, finally able to eat. He takes the last serving of soup and bites into the single potato quietly. 

For the first time all day, the kitchen is empty. 

It’s … lonely. Wylan slowly swirls his spoon through the broth and thinks of Jesper. His loud, companionable presence. The excitement he’s brought to Wylan’s life in such a short amount of time.

He wonders if Jesper really does want him. Wylan—the dirty kitchen boy who wears an apron and always carries a damp rag. Or did Jesper just want the pretty, fake masquerade guest? 

Wylan’s heart and logical mind answer those questions in very different ways. 

Jesper flirted with him yesterday, he thinks … looking back, he’s not entirely sure how much of the day was real or hallucinated in his exhaustion. But he remembers the instructions of what to steal from his father’s office and the delight in Jesper’s gunmetal eyes. The way Jesper walked beside him, knocked his arm against Wylan’s, and leaned far too close to be delivering a message from any ordinary messenger.

Still, Jesper’s flirting could be a distraction, the terrible voice in his head reminds him. The intrusive thought dulls the flavor of food on his tongue until it turns to ash. Could it be just a game until he and his boss get what they want from Wylan? A way to make him agreeable and willing to help? 

Wylan needs to know, if only to protect himself from disappointment. 

He’s halfway through cleaning up, scrubbing the soup pot, when he hears footsteps entering the kitchen. Surprised, Wylan looks over his shoulder to see Marlies carrying a plate and cup that must have been used by Alys earlier in the day. He goes back to washing as she steps up beside him, laying the things in the washtub. 

“Was it worth it?” she asks, so quietly Wylan almost doesn’t hear. 

It takes him a second to realize she’s talking about the ball. She helped him sneak out, of course she’s curious.

He nods, unable to express just how wonderful it felt to live for one night. He couldn’t describe it if he tried. “Thank you,” he whispers. 

Marlies leaves as if they never spoke at all, but his heart feels a bit lighter. It’s funny how nothing changes—they aren’t friends. They won’t be; his father would never allow it. But he’s not alone anymore either.

He tucks the joy of it away, right beside all of his other memories from the masquerade. 

Kindness comes with a price, he reminds himself as he works. No one does anything for free. Wylan wonders what she wants from him, when she will cash in the debt he now owes her. He may not be able to do much, but he promises to help Marlies however he can. 

Wylan waits anxiously for ten bells. 

When his ear catches the faint chime signaling nine and a half bells, he creeps through the silent house with bated breath and well-placed footsteps. 

Outside, the moon shines its dim light over the garden. It’s darker than the night of the masquerade thanks to the cloud cover, but he doesn’t dare light a candle or lantern to risk being spotted. Besides, he doesn’t plan to stay for long after telling Jesper that he didn’t find the records. 

Wylan arrives early beneath the soft purple buds of the lilac tree. Tonight they are colored a deep rich violet in the shadow of the night. Mourning his flute, he finds a stick, raises it to the correct position against his mouth and plays a silent melody. He’ll just have to get used to practicing this way. Only hearing the music in his head from now on. 

The bells chime again, ten low notes before fading into the evening air. He waits. Eventually, a rustle of grass announces Jesper’s arrival.

Wylan’s heart races nervously, and he suppresses the urge to hide—just in case. It’s Jesper, he knows it’s Jesper, and stands to greet him.

The last time they met like this in a dark garden, the taller man pinned him against a tree, similar in size to the one Wylan stands beneath now, and kissed him with warm lips as they grinded their bodies together. 

His cock stirs at the memory. 

If Wylan gave in to the thief’s distraction properly, his evening may have ended very differently. More sex and less kidnapping. But Wylan knows that after they straightened their clothes in the garden, he never would have seen Jesper again. 

Yet, here he is. Jesper who wears a crooked top hat, leather coat, and that dazzling grin so bright that it shines through the darkness. 

They’ve greeted each other three times now and will probably see each other once or twice more, Wylan guesses, before Jesper realizes Wylan can’t find his father’s financial records. 

“Fancy meeting you all the way out here at this time of night.” He joins Wylan beneath the lilac tree, and while they’re standing a normal distance apart right now, he feels the urge to close the space between them again. 

So he does. “You’re late,” Wylan says, stepping forward. 

Jesper seems pleased the distance between them shortens. “But you waited for me, love,” he replies easily, gently teasing. 

He can’t deny it.

Wylan’s cheeks heat. He thanks all of the saints he doesn’t believe in that the darkness hides the blush coloring his face. 

“This is nothing,” Jesper continues, brushing off his tardiness with a casualness that Wylan will never master. “My Ma said I was late to my own birthday, and I’ve been late ever since. And I left on time tonight, I’ll have you know. It wasn’t my fault that Nina was still using the rowboat this late, and I had to hoof it over the canals on foot.”

It’s amazing what an entirely different life Jesper leads, Wylan realizes. How is it that they manage to live in the same world, the same city, and took such diverging paths? 

Jesper bursting with life, color, and enthusiasm. And then Wylan, who’s just … Wylan.

“So,” Jesper redirects his attention, “What did you find in Van Eck’s office? What did you learn?”

Nothing, he thinks bitterly. I’m incapable of learning. The question stings more than Jesper intended, he’s sure. Wylan bites his tongue and looks away, past Jesper at the empty night behind him. He swallows down the familiar sensation of humiliation.

Jesper couldn’t possibly know. 

“I told you one day wasn’t enough time to get into the office. He was in it all day, furious that the harbor shut down because of the palace robbery. Your gang’s robbery,” Wylan reminds him. “It’s Kaz’s own fault he can’t get the information he wants.”

Jesper barks out a laugh, and it’s beautiful. “What I’d give to watch you tell him that. I guess I’ll just have to come back and see you tomorrow too.”

Wylan hesitates. “I don’t know …”

“I believe in you. Here,” Jesper says, remembering something suddenly. He reaches into the pocket of his shiny leather coat and pulls something out. 

Wylan’s jaw drops; his eyes widen impossibly. “Where did you … How …?”

Jesper hands him the two pieces of his flute. “Kaz lifted it off of you. Thought you might want it back.”

Wylan runs his index finger over the wood, inspecting it as best he can in the darkness. There’s not a scratch on either half. No warping or water damage from the rain that night either. 

Wylan’s heart clenches, aches with the kindness of the gesture. He squeezes his flute in his hands to make sure it’s real. He thought he’d never see it again, but it’s here. It’s really here. Jesper gave his flute back. 

The pieces connect just as they always have, and he runs his fingers along it in a quiet scale. 

It’s a miracle. 

Without thinking, Wylan crashes into Jesper. His hands fist into the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer, as he rocks upward on the tips of his toes seeking Jesper’s mouth with his own. Thank you after thank you sits on his tongue, but Wylan says it with his lips instead. Desperately. Selfishly. He wants to tell Jesper how grateful he is that he came to him tonight. That he brought back the one thing Wylan treasures. He hopes Jesper understands.

The flute is still in his hand, fighting for space in his palm as he grips Jesper’s coat tighter. Wylan can’t imagine letting go of either right now. 

Stunned, Jesper freezes at first, clearly not expecting the suddenness of his reaction. But he’s just as quick to get onboard. He meets Wylan for a sweet, filthy kiss as his hands wrap around Wylan’s back, his waist, holding him so close that there’s hardly any space between their bodies when Jesper whispers, “I didn’t know it was that important to you.”

“It is,” Wylan agrees. He surges forward for Jesper’s mouth again. Now is a good time to be shameless. He’ll have whatever part of Jesper that he gives to Wylan. Real or pretend. But he wants to believe it’s real and take Jesper for his word in the warehouse. Dancing, flirting. Meeting here on the estate—Jesper did it all because he wanted him. Jesper runs with an entire crew of criminals and if he didn’t want to see Wylan, any number of the others could have met with him instead. 

A sound vibrates mournfully in Jesper’s throat as if it pains him to pull away. Wylan attempts to chase after his mouth, but Jesper puts a hand on his chest to still him. 

“You don’t have to,” he tells Wylan.

None of Wylan’s blood is going to his brain at the moment. Breathing heavily, he stares at Jesper with questioning wide blue eyes. 

He searches Jesper’s face, not understanding. 

“I mean, you don’t owe me. You don’t have to do this to pay me back,” Jesper explains, quelling the rising panic in Wylan. “I want you. So badly, but only if you feel the same way, yeah?”

Jesper wants him. He said it.

It’s so sincere that Wylan’s heart aches all over again, somersaults spinning out of control. Words jumble together on his tongue, unable to come out with any type of coherence—his thoughts still not properly functioning—but he knows this time he needs to use them. Jesper will accept nothing less. 

“I want—yes—I’m not—not doing anything I don’t want,” Wylan grinds out, annoyed at the interruption. They didn’t need to stop, as far as he’s concerned. 

Jesper smirks, a wickedly playful thing as his hand drops between them to press against the bulge between Wylan’s legs. “That’s what I want to hear, love.”

Wylan gasps and grinds against Jesper’s hand. The cool night air prickles against his overheated skin. He’s on fire. It’s wonderful. Jesper’s lips find his again and swallow every moan he makes as pleasure ignites through his body. 

This is even better than last time. 

Wylan’s unoccupied hand releases the lapel of Jesper’s coat only to slide beneath it, the firm plane of his chest hard beneath his Barrel clothes. He needs to touch him. Needs it more than he needs air to breathe. They’re not close enough. 

Jesper agrees there are far too many layers between them and starts tugging at Wylan’s pants. 

For the second time, Wylan’s back hits a tree trunk. It’s a good thing, he thinks offhandedly, because he’s not sure he’s able to stand without support for much longer. 

Wylan may be inexperienced, but he isn’t unfamiliar with sex. Over the years, the whittling serving staff gave him a crude education in it whether they meant to or not. They often entertained themselves with dirty jokes and uncouth gestures. He heard them through the paper-thin walls of the attic at night. Creaking floors. Beds frames that occasionally thumped against the walls as the men and women eked out what little selfish pleasures they could for themselves off-duty. 

The closest thing to an explanation he received was one particularly mortifying conversation when the housekeeper explained why his father threatened to castrate him like a dog if he ever found out Wylan touched a woman.

Luckily, that was never a concern. 

Twice he’d been an unwilling witness while the maid and younger gardener snuck into what they assumed was an empty room for a quick fuck, not realizing Wylan had been hiding from the housekeeper’s endless list of chores. At the cusp of puberty, the sounds that man made—his grunts, moans, and heavy breathing as skin slapped against skin—awoke something in Wylan. He learned to touch himself silently beneath his quilt to the memory of those sounds, and imagined them years after the man and his partner had been dismissed from the staff for growing too bold in their escapades. 

It all pales in comparison to this. To Jesper. Now, Wylan has a new catalog of gasps and sensations to satisfy him the rest of his life, however long that may be. The warmth of Jesper’s rich dark skin, his soft plush lips, his pleased little hums. His broad hands against Wylan’s cheek, squeezing his waist, pressing expertly on his covered cock. 

Wylan gasps as Jesper unbuttons his pants and lowers them just enough to slip his nimble fingers inside to pull his cock free from the slit at the front. Being touched is so good. Too good. Wylan throws his head back, banging it against the tree trunk. He’s too preoccupied to notice the sprinkling of purple petals raining down. 

The heat of Jesper’s hand contrasts with the cool evening air, sending his lust-drunk head spinning. 

Wylan pants and clutches at Jesper’s clothes, twisting the fabric in his fist because it’s the only thing he can do right now. 

“So good,” Jesper praises him, and Wylan nearly ends this before they’ve begun. “Wait for me,” he instructs, voice growing deeper. 

Wylan doesn’t have time to contemplate what he means before Jesper releases him. 

Wylan whines at the loss of Jesper’s hands. It’s higher and needier than he intends. Equally eager to be touched, Jesper unclasps the buckle on his leather gun belt—had he been wearing it the whole time, he thinks dizzily. It’s hot as hell and too late to care. Jesper lets the belt drop gently to the ground and works open the front of his pants. 

Abandoned, Wylan’s pink cock bounces between them until he loosely strokes himself, unwilling to lose the friction. 

“Hold on, baby,” Jesper babbles, pulling himself out. “Hold on, I’ve got you.” 

Even in the darkness, Jesper’s cock is a thing of beauty. Longer than Wylan’s, hard and dark. It may be the only other one he’s actually seen, but it’s glorious. Better than all the pricks he’s imagined late at night. Wylan’s torn between the desire to continue stroking himself or reach for Jesper and let him thrust into his hand until he falls apart. 

He still hasn’t let go of his flute or Jesper’s coat in his other hand, but he’s not sure he physically can at this point.

Fuck. He’s not going to last long, he knows. 

He needs Jesper to kiss him again or keep talking to him. To fucking touch him. Needs it more than he needs air, or even music, or art. Wylan can live without those. He’s pretty sure he’ll die if Jesper doesn’t touch him right now. 

Wylan’s still incapable of speech, but he looks up at Jesper, meeting his lust-clouded gray eyes, and hopes he conveys his urgency.

Jesper nods, pumps himself once, twice, before aligning their hips. Then their cocks rub deliciously against each other. Wylan chokes on the moan caught in his throat, clamping his teeth together, and nearly shakes with the force of holding back his orgasm. 

The friction is glorious. It’s perfect. So goddamn perfect. 

Jesper spits into his hand and wraps it loosely around the base of their cocks to guide them against each other. Wylan reaches between their bodies and does the same. Their pre-cum leaks from their heads and coats his palm. Together they thrust into the warm slick channel they create, sliding against one another. It’s a messy, hedonistic rhythm. 

Wylan wouldn’t have it any other way. 

There’s no finesse to it. Just the desire to grind their bodies together. 

Wylan used to think fucking was a violent thing, what little he heard and saw of it. His heart surges in his chest. Wylan knows violence and this—sex—is lewd and primal, but nothing about Jesper’s insistent lips and the way he rocks against Wylan is violent. 

This is so much better than dancing and kissing, holding hands, or bringing himself pleasure.

“Jes—

Jesper leans heavily on Wylan to capture his lips again, pressing him into the tree until his spine digs into the smooth bark. 

Soon enough their thrusts grow faster, more erratic. They muffle their moans and grunts with each other’s mouths. Wylan’s restraint crumbles. His orgasm hits him suddenly. Powerfully. He keens against Jesper’s lips and spills into his hand, making it even wetter, smoother as they fuck. It’s so good. Sogoodsogoodsogood. Every muscle in his body contracts. Tenses under the force.

Wylan’s mouth goes slack against Jesper’s as he rides the high, but the other man doesn’t mind. He keeps going, licking into Wylan’s mouth and sucking the air from his lungs. The grip of his hand squeezes them harder as Jesper chases his own orgasm.

Oversensitive, Wylan bucks beneath their grip. Gasps loudly as he feels Jesper cock twitch hot and slick beside his. Instead of kissing—Wylan’s not coordinated enough to aid him—Jesper presses their foreheads together, babbling, “That’s it, that’s it …” 

Jesper comes just as strongly. He leans all of his weight against Wylan as he comes into his hand.

Jesper’s heartbeat pounds as rapidly in a duet with his own. A drumbeat of celebration. They breathe heavily, swallowing down the cool night air as their orgasms fade and their cocks soften. Slowly, they come back to their senses. 

Jesper hums happily and reluctantly peels himself off of Wylan’s upper body. Finally, Wylan lets go of Jesper’s coat, flute still in hand and looks down at the mess they’ve made. His other hand caught most of their semen. He bends awkwardly to wipe it in the grass at his feet. It works, but the stickiness lingers as he stands, tucks himself away, and fastens his pants. 

“Good news is I’ll be back tomorrow night,” Jesper says, adjusting the leather gun belt around his narrow hips. “Unless you’re ready for another round tonight, that is?”

“Tomorrow,” Wylan reassures him. He probably could get hard again, but he’s not sure he could survive anything else if it’s always that intense. 

“I bet you taste as pretty as you look, darling.” 

Wylan feels himself flush all the way to the tips of his toes. Jesper’s going to kill him, but damned if Wylan wasn’t thinking the same about him. He wants to suck his length and feel the weight of him on his tongue, giving as good as he gets from the wet heat Jesper’s mouth creates for him. The grass stains on his knees will be worth it. 

To Wylan’s surprise, Jesper kisses him one last time, heady and slow. He whispers about the promise of tomorrow from his red plush lips before he leaves with a wink. 

Suddenly everything is brighter, The colors around him sharper, though he can’t tell if that’s from his heart or the mind-shatteringly good orgasm. Both? Yeah, Wylan decides. Why not both? 

He sneaks back into the house clutching his flute in his clean hand. For the first time, maybe ever, he feels desired. Wanted. It’s as dangerous as anything else he learned the night of the masquerade, but Wylan is too happy to care.

Chapter Text

Wylan spends the next day smiling like an idiot to himself as he cleans. He can’t help it. The memory of last night—of Jesper—loops through his mind in pleasant circles. Warm hands and wet lips. His bright smile and teasing tongue. “I want you,” Jesper said. And Wylan believes him wholly. 

It feels good to be wanted. It makes him giddy, like a child again. But he supposes that was the last time anyone ever wanted him around. 

Thoughts of Jesper keep Wylan distracted from the most skull-numbing tasks. It’s wonderful. He doesn’t even care that he has to bathe Rufus. The little terrier refuses to leave Alys’ side even though she coos to it about hygiene and pats it primly on the head before Wylan ties a lead to his collar and drags Rufus, snarling the whole way, to the washtub. 

The best part is that he’s not even exhausted from sneaking out of the house late at night. Sure, he’s tired, but he’s always tired from working without rest. The best part is that he gets to see Jesper again tonight. 

Eagerly, Wylan counts the bells and watches the sun sink lower behind the clouds. 

Wylan can’t imagine they will actually fuck in the garden, not comfortably. It’s too cold, for one. And two, well … he has a suspicion the mechanics might need more time and effort than the quick rendezvous of the maid and gardener he overheard years ago. 

He also can’t imagine anything less erotic than the gooseflesh on his ass on full display. So no, they probably won’t. Not yet, Wylan reassures himself. But he’ll make it happen. He wants to fuck and be fucked. Even if it means breaking into the kitchen in the dead of the night and shutting themselves in the pantry for privacy, he’ll find a way. 

Jesper likes that sort of devious behavior. He’d probably encourage it, purring, “Aren’t you full of surprises?”  

It’s an incredibly arousing thought. He fantasizes about Jesper filling him, even if it’s beside the root vegetables. Equally as exciting as laying Jesper on his back and sliding between his spread legs, watching his face fall slack with pleasure. They’ll just shove flour sacks out of the way. 

At ten bells, Wylan waits beneath the lilac tree, nearly vibrating with excitement. He tries to quell the buzzing beneath his skin, but he can’t stop his heart from fluttering like the wings of the moths he watches in the weak moonlight. 

Someone approaches through the shadows, and it’s the wrong silhouette. Wylan’s eyes widen in horror. Hat too short, too straight atop the head to be Jesper’s. The figure too dark-clothed and pale-skinned. 

His mouth goes dry. It’s Kaz. 

The man aptly called a demon by the Fjerdan man greets Wylan beneath the lilac tree with a scowl. 

Any hope of repeating last night in the pantry with Jesper dies a gruesome death. 

Wylan panics. He agreed to meet Jesper tonight, not the criminal ringleader. His eyes search through the darkness in hopes of finding his Zemeni thief, but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s not here. 

For all of Jesper’s jokes that his boss is soft as a kitten, Wylan’s sure it’s just that, a joke. Kaz may value Jesper’s many skills and tolerate his annoyances, but he doesn’t extend the same courtesies to Wylan, and it shows in his hard, unforgiving gaze. 

“I’m supposed to meet Jesper,” Wylan protests, though the words sound whiny even to his own ears. 

Kaz plants his cane in the soft grass, clutching the head of it in his left hand as he comes to a standstill. “I thought it would be more effective if I came myself. Jesper distracts easily, but that was your plan, wasn’t it?”

Wylan freezes. Ice floods his veins in a way that has nothing to do with Ketterdam’s chilly air. 

“Wh—what?” he stutters. 

“Unless I’m wrong, and you have the records and information I asked for,” he says with the complete confidence of a man who knows he isn’t wrong. 

Be incompetent. Wylan falls back on his most tried and true defense. 

“I’m trying, but I haven’t been able to get into Van Eck’s office. Your robbery shut down the harbor,” Wylan reminds him. “It’s your fault he’s now in there all day. He’ll stay in there until the Council opens trading again. ”

Kaz ignores the accusation. His piercing blue eyes see through Wylan with alarming clarity that makes Wylan feel too seen, vulnerable under his gaze. Even though he’s fully dressed, he wants to pull his jacket closed tighter and wrap his arms around his chest to hide himself. 

“Haven’t been able to or won’t?” Kaz asks, throwing Wylan’s words back at him. 

His lips pinch with discomfort. His heart beats wildly. With every growing second, he feels more and more like a cornered mouse in front of a grinning tom cat, and he doesn’t like it one bit. 

“While you were distracting Jesper, I found some information of my own.”

Wylan’s heart sinks. 

“It’s an interesting coincidence that you share the same name as Jan Van Eck’s son. And that you tried to give me the surname of Van Eck’s first wife when you lied about yours.”

His world is collapsing, Wylan is sure. He hasn’t moved, but everything suddenly tilts off balance. The earth crumbles beneath him, swallowing him without mercy. 

He’s falling. 

There’s no way Wylan lands unscathed and walks away from this conversation. He feels himself pale, breathing too fast, too hard to actually take in the air his lungs demand. 

Kaz knows. 

“But Wylan Van Eck is in Belendt right now attending university. At least, that’s what his father tells everyone. Except it’s not clear which university. There’s no attendance records, transcripts, or tuition payments to either of the universities in Belendt or Ketterdam. Wylan Van Eck hasn’t been seen in years, not since he left to attend boarding school after his mother’s death. But again,” Kaz pauses dramatically, “There’s no record of him at any of the schools where wealthy merchants like Van Eck send their progeny.”

Wylan wants to run away. He feels like the butterflies pinned to the dartboard a tutor once showed him. Their colors on gruesome display for unworthy eyes, wings spread and bared to the world against their will. 

The hair on the back of his neck, his arms, rises in warning. But it’s too late. 

Kaz knows. 

He knows. 

Wylan can’t look at him. Instead, he stares at the ground. He shakes his head in denial, but there’s nothing he can do as Kaz asks the question Wylan’s been dreading. 

“So why is Wylan Van Eck, Jan Van Eck’s only son and heir, washing dishes and scrubbing floors in his father’s house when everyone else thinks he’s studying in Belendt?”

Wylan refuses to look up. He sets his jaw. He can’t speak—he won’t. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Kaz warns. 

How dare he? Wylan finally meets the man’s cruel gaze. For the first time in a long time, anger surges through Wylan. It’s not Kaz’s secret to know. There’s no lying if he kept out of Wylan’s business in the first place. Kaz thinks he’s so clever for looking once at Wylan and solving him like a puzzle. But he doesn’t get to pat himself on the back with the satisfaction of being smarter than everyone else for figuring out the nightmare Wylan’s lived for years. 

“Your heartrender isn’t here; you can’t tell when I’m lying.”

“Are you protecting your father out of some misplaced loyalty? Affection? Clearly you aren’t his heir anymore,” Kaz sneers. “Your father remarried and rumor has it the new heir to his trading empire sits in the belly of a wife little older than his son.”

Wylan glares at Kaz, but the demon takes it in stride, smirking. He’s fucking proud of all of his little deductions. 

But if he doesn’t know the reason Wylan wears an apron, he knows nothing. 

It’s a bitter victory. 

“How much would your father pay to keep this secret hidden?” Kaz asks conversationally, as if he’s asking about the rain. 

Jan Van Eck would rather bury Wylan alive in the cellar to keep his secrets hidden and save his reputation. After Wylan’s failed education, he will never spend another kruge on him. 

“Blackmailing him won’t work,” Wylan warns. 

“But blackmailing you will,” Kaz asserts. “I still want a list of his current trade agreements and copies of all business and personal financial records. You are still going to give them to me. The same demand, just for a different reason.”

Wylan bites his cheek, tasting blood. He has to say it, but the words taste like ash. His tongue is too thick, too heavy to wrap around the confession. “I can’t.”

“You will,” Kaz reassures him coldly. “Or I’ll expose you and your father’s dirty little secret to the entire Merchant Council and still implicate you for the palace robbery.”

“I can’t,” Wylan repeats between clenched teeth. Shame floods his cheeks. His hands squeeze into fists and shake uselessly at his side. Everyone in the household has always known. He’s never had to admit his illiteracy before. “I want to, but I can’t! I—I …” He’s going to be sick. His stomach rolls threateningly. Saliva pools in his mouth; he just might. “Ican’tread,” Wylan spits at last. 

Kaz’s smirk vanishes. His brow furrows, taking this new information in, trying to process it among the puzzle pieces of Wylan’s life he’s already connected. 

“You can’t read,” Kaz repeats flatly. He waits for a response, so Wylan closes his eyes, wills the sickness away, and nods. It pains him physically.

“You’re not a simpleton,” Kaz states matter-of-factly. “Jesper and Inej would have noticed.” 

Wylan opens his eyes. “I am,” he repeats, shame lacing his words. He still wants to vomit. Maybe Kaz will stop talking and finally leave him alone if he does. 

“Jesper wouldn’t fuck anyone incapable of consent. He says you’re clever, witty, and full of hidden talent. Your musical ability and artistic skill prove as much.”

“Hang on, how do you know about that?” Wylan demands, bypassing the fact that Jesper discussed him with his boss. Wylan’s drawings are only in his bedroom. Jesper couldn’t have known; he’s never seen them. Kaz either, unless— “Have you been spying on me?”

His space has never been private. Technically, it has never belonged to him. But there’s a difference between Prior, Miggson, and the old housekeeper rummaging through his room and a complete stranger. 

“The wraith has been watching you,” Kaz says, as if that has any meaning whatsoever. “According to her, you are clumsy and terrible with directions—”

“Because I can’t read,” Wylan seethes, remembering the useless street signs that mocked him as he walked the city in circles the morning after the ball. 

“—but competent enough to sneak into the palace masquerade, lie to your father, Jesper, a heartrender, and myself. Those aren’t the actions of a moron.”

“And yet here I am,” Wylan gestures angrily to himself. “I can’t do what you want. You should leave.”

Kaz, infuriatingly, doesn’t. Instead, he smiles. “So you have no qualms about stealing from your father?”

Wylan frowns. “Take what you want from him. I don’t care. Just don’t involve me.”

“Half of the bastards in the Barrel can’t read, Wylan. You should have told us from the beginning. It would have saved us time.”

Those bastards never had numerous tutors and the opportunities presented to Wylan. It’s not their fault they can’t read when no one taught them. The same isn’t true for Wylan. He was taught, over, and over, and over again. He’s just too stupid to learn. 

“I can destroy your father if you give me that information. If you help me, I can guarantee he’s sent to jail, and you’ll never have to pick up a broom for the rest of your life.”

Wylan wants nothing more, but he knows Kaz won’t do it out of the goodness of his heart. Largely because he doesn’t have one. 

“What do you get out of it?”

Kaz’s smirk returns as if to say, See, you are intelligent. “Several million kruge, but we can negotiate the exact price later after I know Van Eck’s net worth.”

“I never want to see him again,” Wylan affirms. It’s a feeling that he hasn’t put to words even in the safety of his own mind. But now that he says it, he’s never believed anything more. 

He just wants to be free. It’s the first time he’s ever admitted it to himself. 

“And you won’t unless your next job is sweeping the cells at Hellgate.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Tomorrow at midnight, my crew and I will be back to break into your father’s office. You are going to open the door, let us in, and lead us directly to it, then lock everything behind us on our way out. No one will ever know we were there.”

Still risky, but far better than Kaz’s original plan to send Wylan to retrieve the documents. If they get caught, Wylan can always claim he was threatened, coerced into aiding the criminals. 

“Do we have a deal?” Kaz holds out his black-gloved hand. 

Wylan shakes it like the merchant heir he was once expected to become. “The deal is the deal. Get me out of here.”

Only when Wylan creeps through the house and lies down, replaying his conversation with Kaz, it occurs to him that the demon never once looked down his nose at him. 

Wylan had waited for it. Braced himself for the sneers and the insults that never came. 

Kaz didn’t care. He didn’t care that Wylan couldn’t read. 

The startling realization keeps him awake for another bell. Mind abuzz, he picks apart the implications. Kaz likely said nothing to keep Wylan cooperative. But he doesn’t actually need Wylan’s assistance in his grand scheme to ruin Jan Van Eck’s reputation. A lock pick can easily open a door: It’s just as useful and much less fuss than Wylan. 

So maybe, just maybe, Kaz doesn’t actually care that he’s illiterate. 

“Half of the bastards in the Barrel can’t read, Wylan.”

He understands what it means, but Wylan doesn’t know what that means for him. Why bother telling Wylan at all? Was Kaz trying to imply that others won’t care either?

Because that’s not true.

It doesn’t make sense. He spins the thought around and around. It goes against everything he’s ever known. 

“You’re not a simpleton … you’re clever, witty and full of hidden talent … competent … Your musical ability and artistic skill prove as much … Those aren’t the actions of a moron …”

Maybe it doesn’t matter that he can’t read. He remembers the feeling of happiness this morning and recognizes the flutter of an identical sensation now. Different, but not dissimilar. It feels almost like … ?

But Wylan doesn’t dare voice it to himself yet. 

***   ***   ***

The feeling only grows. By mid-morning, Wylan’s forced to recognize it by name. Hope. Because Kaz guaranteed that he could send Jan Van Eck to jail. He promised Wylan freedom. And that’s a scary thought too, the longer he dwells on it—what would he do, where would he go—but it’s undeniably exciting. 

Hope. It warms Wylan like a rare ray of sunlight cutting through the clouds. Bright and radiant enough to replace the fear, anxiety, and resignation that clung to his skin for so long. He forgot what it felt like to live without the weight of them on his chest. 

It’s unfamiliar and terrifying, but good. 

For the first time in days, his father leaves the estate to conduct business. Either the harbor finally opened, or the Merchant Council decided to meet in a desperate attempt to overturn the royal decree. Either way, he’s out of the house. The walls around Wylan grow a little wider, brighter, less threatening. Safely out of danger, he finally breathes again.

Alys too steps out with Marlies for some social event—Wylan assumes, at least; he hasn’t seen them all afternoon. He’s grateful for the return to routine. The peace that comes from everyone focused solely on their own schedule. 

His father comes home at the end of the work day uncharacteristically pleased. He showers Alys with affection and even smiles in the short time it took Wylan to serve their meal. It’s unusual, but not bad. His father ignores him when he’s happy, and Wylan is always grateful for that. 

In a rare turn of events, it’s Alys who’s in a sour mood. She pinches her small mouth in distress and picks through her dinner, just as she had in early pregnancy. Perhaps she’s nauseous again. He’ll get out the bucket and vinegar just in case. 

Dinner in the kitchen is far more normal, though Marlies is absent. Wylan scoots his chair into her usual space to avoid being crowded by Prior and Miggson at the table. Thankfully, they’re too busy eating to bother him. 

He tunes out the conversation and thinks of Jesper, playing an old but favorite game in his mind: turning someone into a melody. And Jesper, bold and dynamic, gentle and kind, creates a captivating song. He’s full of unexpected rhythms. A jaunty bar tune. A folk ballad. Chords sliding gracefully, effortlessly between keys and back again. The softest sonata before a crescendo as Wylan’s lips touch Jesper’s and keep touching him as the tempo increases. 

There are a dozen different possibilities, but Wylan hears Jesper as a piano. Maybe it’s just because Wylan likes playing piano. But Wylan likes Jesper too, so he figures it’s fitting. It suits Jesper. The instrument’s range and versatility match the charming thief perfectly. 

When Wylan serves the dessert and collects the dinner dishes, his father instructs him to light the fireplace in the study and stock it with wood for the evening. 

It’s not a particularly damp or chilly day, but Wylan obeys, hoping the warmth lightens Alys’ mood. She likes sitting in the armchair near the hearth with her needlework in the evenings. 

He arranges the extra wood neatly at the edge of the hearth, stokes the little flame to life, then returns downstairs to clean up. Just as he finishes washing the dishes and begins hunting down the towels to dry them, Prior and Miggson stalk into the kitchen. 

“Van Eck wants you.”

Caught off guard, Wylan nods slowly—though he has no choice but to agree—and closes the cupboard without taking a towel from it. Miggson claps him on the shoulder in what should be a companionable gesture. It’s not. He squeezes too tightly as he and Prior steer Wylan through the house, caging him between themselves even with plenty of room to walk through the wide hallways without needing to touch. 

Desperately, Wylan replays the past few days in his mind, trying to figure out what he’s done wrong, but coming up blank. His heart races wildly. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s about to be punished. But for what?

Putting something away incorrectly? Sneaking out of the house to meet Jesper last night—no, impossible. A misstep at breakfast? Dinner? Conspiring with a crew of criminals? Not following the Rules that have been drilled into his head since he was eight years old?

To his surprise, Miggson and Prior bring him to the study instead of his father’s office. 

Wylan steps through the doorway and freezes.

Alys isn’t in the room, of course she’s not—but his father is. He stands beside the desk on the far side near the fireplace, now roaring to life after Wylan stoked it not even an hour ago. 

Deliberately laid out on the desk are Wylan’s flute, his mother’s letters, and his waistcoat. It shimmers iridescently blue, out of place where it lays carelessly unfolded against the room’s dark wood. 

Wylan’s eyes widen in fear. He’s fucked. 

He’s so fucked. 

Despite the roaring in his ears, Wylan’s panic takes an almost supernatural calm. His breathing remains even, steady despite the terror suddenly constricting his chest. Because this is it. There is nothing worse than standing before his father with the three most precious things Wylan owns laid on display. One of which was meant to be a secret. 

He’s violently aware of his own heartbeat and the seconds that span between it like hours.

Prior shoves him forward, and the stillness that left him calm breaks. Wylan stumbles further into the study. 

With every step forward, his fingers twitch with the desire to turn and run away. He stops in the center of the room at a safe distance from his father. But Prior pushes him forward again until Wylan has no choice but to stand in front of his father. Every instinct in his body screams to leave, but there’s nowhere to go. He’s trapped. 

Jan Van Eck picks up the waistcoat and examines it impassively with the same appraising eye he uses on painted canvases and other artworks in his collection. Eventually, he crushes the material in his fist and looks at Wylan with a cool fury. 

“Do you really think I’m unaware of everything that takes place in my own house?” 

Wylan says nothing. He doesn’t think he’s actually supposed to answer. 

Held carelessly, the delicate organza fabric of his mother’s dress crumples in his father’s clenched hand. It’s getting wrinkled. If he were any bolder, Wylan would snatch it back and carefully smooth it out. But he isn’t, and that’s why he’s here trying not to cower under his father’s wrath. 

He clutches the ends of his sleeves instead, an old habit. It pains him to see his waistcoat treated so callously. How can his father treat it with the same casual indifference as a dirty dish rag, a scrap of parchment, or any other ordinary object? 

Please, Wylan wants to beg, don’t hurt it.

“Where did you get this?” Jan Van Eck asks coldly. 

He lies, just as he promised Marlies he would if he were caught. “I made it.”

His father raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You made this from the old gown Alys threw away?” 

It’s the same fabric, Wylan wants to point out. “Yes, sir.” 

Van Eck nods thoughtfully, as if considering the answer, then slaps Wylan. Hard. There isn’t time to brace himself. His head whips sideways, eyes watering reflexively, and his left cheek burns.

“Don’t lie to me, you worthless imbecile!” Undisguised contempt radiates from him with so much force that Wylan flinches, expecting another blow. “We found the butchered gown in the handmaid’s quarters and the identical coat she started sewing from it. I dealt with her this afternoon and she confessed to making it for you.”

Wylan’s stomach sinks. “Dealt with” could mean anything, from firing Marlies to beating her bloody. Docking her wages or merely threatening her into future compliance. Ashamed, Wylan stares down at the carpet, unable to look up. Guilt stains his skin like a nasty sunburn. He never meant to involve Marlies. Never wanted her to face punishment for his stupid desire to attend the masquerade. 

“You don’t even know what you’ve done,” his father hisses. “Now we’re down a vital member of this household and I don’t have time to find another. Alys is distraught that I had to sell the girl. Because of you, she couldn’t be trusted in this house or any other.”

No. 

His ears ring. She can’t be—

“Of course you didn’t think what would happen to her. You can’t, you stupid little worm. You only thought of yourself when you manipulated her into helping you. Now she’s spreading her legs in a pleasure house on the West Stave because no respectable household would buy the indenture contract of a thief.” His father jabs a long, accusatory finger at him. “You doomed that girl the moment you tricked her into pitying you.”

Wylan pales. Shakes his head. He backs away in his denial that it’s not true. He never tricked her, never manipulated her or wanted pity. Marlies is upstairs with Alys, he tells himself. He’ll see her at breakfast again tomorrow, and sewing when she chaperones Alys’ music lessons, ears stuffed with cotton. 

He steps backward again and bumps into Miggson’s chest. Wylan can’t escape, just like he can’t escape the reality that Marlies is really gone. 

Even from the isolation of the estate, he knows the West Stave brothels’ horrific reputations. Places where any body can be bought and used for any price. Where the merchandise can’t refuse. 

Jan Van Eck sees the horror in his eyes. 

“It’s your fault, Wylan. Her suffering is on your head.”

It’s not, he wants to protest, but the words die before they reach Wylan’s tongue. 

“What were you thinking leaving this house? Did you really believe a mask hid your identity? That I wouldn’t recognize your poor posture and ragged hair anywhere?”

Naively, Wylan hoped he wouldn’t. He kicks himself for being so senseless. 

“Anyone could have seen you,” his father continues furiously. “The Council isn’t as stupid as you think! They’d make the connection between us, and I’d turn into a laughingstock for lying that you’re studying in Belendt. I’d be forced to explain your sudden reappearance and why you are unfit to be in public. Do you want everyone in the city to know the truth about how stupid you are? How worthless you are?” 

The crackling of the fireplace fills the tense silence. 

“Answer me.”

“No,” Wyan shakes his head as a familiar wave of shame resurfaces. “No, sir.”

“You thought you got away with sneaking into the palace because I’ve been too busy dealing with business matters.” Jan Van Eck looks at Wylan like he’s a piece of filth tracked in from the street. “Now, I finally have time to fix your mistakes. Who did you speak to at the masquerade?”

Wylan licks his lips, but his mouth is still dry and it doesn’t do any good. 

He doesn’t think his father knows about Jesper yet. Or the other criminals and Wylan’s knowledge of the palace robbery. But he might be blindly walking into another trap. Still, it’s better to take another hit than accidentally confess any of his secrets. 

So he won’t. Tell the truth, just not all of it—he can do that. He’s done it before, with Kaz and the heartrender in the warehouse. Eventually, the demon uncovered the truth, but by then Wylan was back at the estate, safely away from his brutal grip. That’s all Wylan needs to do now too. Omit enough details until he can escape this room, escape his father’s cruel attention. Surviving right now is more important than whatever consequence comes later. 

“Just one man, Zemeni,” Wylan admits. “I didn’t catch his name.”

It was true at the time. 

His father sneers. “Because you were so busy discussing politics and trading, I’m sure.”

The tips of Wylan’s ears redden. The urge to defend himself clips the tip of his tongue. “We danced. I left soon after.” 

“After you threw yourself at him like an eager little whore,” his father scolds, disgusted. “He chose you because you were desperate. Easy. What other reason would anyone ever want you?”

That’s not true. Jesper said he was clever, pretty. He liked Wylan’s music. He chose him at the ball, again under the lilac tree, and he’ll choose Wylan tonight too when Kaz and Jesper break into his father’s office.

Yet the familiar heat of shame flushes his skin. Or maybe it’s just the extra warmth in the room from the fireplace. “I didn’t—”

“I saw your embarrassing display!” his father interrupts, and Wylan snaps his mouth shut so fast that his teeth click. “And so did everyone else in that room. Apparently, I’ve been too lenient with you. Stealing. Lying. Sneaking away, and acting wanton. These offenses cannot go unpunished, you understand.” 

To Wylan’s relief, he drops the crumpled waistcoat down on the table behind Wylan’s flute and the stack of his mother’s letters. 

It’s safe, for now, but he can’t let himself breathe a sigh of relief yet. 

His father gestures to the other two objects on the desk. The music he was just given back and the last words of his mother. “Choose one. Which would you rather keep?

It can’t be that simple. It’s a trick, another game, but Wylan doesn’t see any way for him to win without knowing the rules. Even then, the odds are always rigged in his father’s favor. 

He needs to answer. Jan Van Eck is not a patient man, nor is he going to ask twice. 

“The letters,” Wylan says without hesitation. “I want Mama’s letters.”

His father picks up the stack of envelopes bundled together by the black satin ribbon, examining them with the same dispassionate interest as the waistcoat. A thread of icy fear laces through Wylan’s heart and blooms across his sternum. He wants to beg him to put them down, to give them back. 

Turning the letters over in his hand, his father returns his attention to Wylan and scoffs. “You can’t even read these. What use do you have for them?”

“They’re mine,” Wylan says, his voice not nearly as strong as he hopes. Mama wrote them for him. She wanted him to have the letters. 

His father makes a show of flipping the envelopes over. “Oh really? I don’t see anything that indicates they belong to you. Where’s your name?”

Wylan clenches his jaw at the familiar taunt. His former tutors spent months trying to make him recognize his own name, to learn how to write it. Through no fault of their own, they all failed. 

He can’t identify his own name even if it was on the letters.

Nervously, he holds out his hands to take Mama’s letters back. But his father’s eyes harden. He turns away from Wylan, closer to the fireplace, and tosses them into the flames. 

“No!”

Wylan lunges forward, ready to grab the letters, to rescue them from burning to cinders even though they’ve already ignited. Prior and Miggson grab his arms, holding him back, and Wylan shrieks. He doesn’t care if anyone else in the house hears. How could he when his mother’s letters are burning?

Nothing else matters. He twists, fighting to free himself. Desperately, Wylan strains against their hands and watches in horror as the envelopes and parchment inside glow orange, then black, flaking away into ashes as the fire eats through the letters all at once. 

They’re gone. 

His mother’s letters are gone. 

He sobs, a cry of frustration rips through his throat. Wylan wants to scream that they were his and rage at the injustice of it. They belonged to him. She wrote the letters for him. His father had no right to destroy them.

Instead, Wylan sinks backward into the hands holding him up, defeated. 

Only then do Prior and Miggson release him. Wylan blinks away the tears starting to obscure his vision. He should have known. His father gave him the letters just to take them away, just to hurt Wylan again because Jan Van Eck thinks he deserves it. Wylan doesn’t. He knows that he’s never done anything wrong. In all these years, he’s never thrown a tantrum, asked for more than he was given, or demanded his birthright. He accepted everything ever done to him without complaint. And now … Tears slide down cheeks, and he doesn’t know if they’re from his heart breaking or the anger steadily burning in his veins. 

“They would have been safe if you behaved,” his father says calmly, completely at odds with Wylan, who stands in front of him crying and shaking. “You’ve always struggled to learn, but I will teach you, and you will learn this lesson at any cost.”

His father picks up his flute next, and Wylan realizes there are still fragments of his soul that can shatter. 

“No,” Wylan begs quietly, “Please, don’t.”

But his pleas fall on deaf ears. His father raises his flute above his head and strikes it against the edge of the desk with a strength he rarely shows. Wylan screams like a wild animal. It’s a hoarse sound, violent and ugly as Miggson and Prior restrain him again. His father does it again and again until the wooden flute cracks and snaps above the joint where the pieces connect. The jagged shard flies to the floor and rolls away.

Breathing heavily from exertion, Jan Van Eck drops the rest of the broken flute to the ground and wipes his hand clean of the mess. 

Wylan glares at him with wet, hurt, hateful eyes. 

“It had to be done.”

His fists clench in rage. 

“No, it didn’t,” Wylan says quietly, even surprising himself. He’s never talked back before. Never had the courage. 

His father’s eyebrows shoot into his receding blonde hairline. He nods for Prior and Miggson to release Wylan. Miggson squeezes his upper arm, digging into the fresh bruises caused by his struggle, before letting go. 

His father picks up the blue waistcoat and throws it at Wylan. He catches it clumsily. 

“Put it on.” 

And once, maybe even an hour ago, Wylan would have flinched at the steel in his tone and obeyed. But he doesn’t care anymore. He has nothing left to lose. 

Even though the waistcoat is safely back in his hands, it doesn’t feel like a victory. He knows it was never meant to. Still, his fingers tangle into the delicate blue fabric protectively as he clutches it to his chest. 

“No,” Wylan says, and he means it. 

Whatever humiliation his father plans, Wylan refuses to participate. 

“If you want to dress up and play pretend, then we will indulge you,” Jan Van Eck says, his tone growing dangerously low. “Put. It. On.”

“No.” Wylan’s voice grows stronger, and he takes pride in the flash of fury that crosses his father’s face. Jan Van Eck is not a man used to others disagreeing with him—used to Wylan refusing him. It’s only one word, but he’s never felt more powerful. Wylan’s lips curl upward in satisfaction. 

His confidence falters when his father smiles too.

“I have tried to treat you like an adult, Wylan, but you continue to act with the stunted maturity of a child. An ungrateful selfish toddler who plays dress up in his mother’s clothes. Who kicks and screams while repeating the only word he knows. Who refuses to abide by the rules of his house. And if that’s the way you want to act, so be it. I will treat you like a naughty, ill-behaved child. No privileges, no freedoms. Whipped soundly and sent to bed without supper until you become obedient.” 

His father looks past Wylan to his hired thugs hovering nearby. “Take him upstairs when you’re finished.”

Wylan doesn’t have time to react. Miggson grabs him again, wrenching Wylan’s arm behind his back, twisting it into an unnatural angle. He gasps in pain. Then Prior’s hands wrap tightly around his throat.

Wylan’s eyes go painfully wide. His lungs seize, and he can’t make any sound at all. 

***   ***   ***

Wylan crumples to the floor of his quarters. He narrowly avoids hitting his head on the leg of the bed frame.

Distantly, he’s aware of the door closing, leaving him in the darkness. The lock clicks with a heavy finality on the other side. It’s unnecessary, not that Wylan can tell them. Prior’s fists crushed his throat so badly that he doesn’t think he can speak even if he tries. Breathing hurts. 

His thoughts feel scattered, fuzzy, and he struggles to keep awareness instead of sinking into the comfort of oblivion. 

Unable to move, Wylan curls into himself even though he no longer needs to protect his face or stomach. 

Eventually, he will have to get up. But Wylan doesn’t know if he can, even if his head stops spinning long enough to sit up and take off his waistcoat. Bruises the shape of boot prints litter his middle, bringing fresh aches every time he shifts. 

Even if he could, he’s not sure that he ever wants to get up again. 

He’s so pathetic. 

Shame bubbles in Wylan’s chest, and it tastes like the acid coating his teeth. He should have just given in to his father’s demand. But he’s stubborn and stupid. He wanted to fight back. For what, he thinks regretfully. What good did it do?  

Prior strangled him repeatedly and still stuffed him into the waistcoat like a wheezing ragdoll. 

His father got what he wanted in the end. He always does. 

And Wylan … 

His mouth still tastes of blood and bile. They soak the delicate blue fabric he wanted so badly to protect. His defiance accomplished nothing. At least now the thick, sluggish trail of red dripping from his nose falls on the floorboards, not splattering his precious waistcoat or the carpet that he knows in his soul he’ll be forced to scrub clean tomorrow. 

He should stand up. Light a candle and take stock of his injuries. The bruising is superficial, as painful as it is, and after a week, the ugly mottled colors will fade. They don’t concern him. He needs to check his nose, his ribs, the sharp pinching in his abdomen whenever he moves. Laying a damp towel across the tender, swollen skin of his nose, his right eye may help. At the very least, he should wipe his face clean. But moving seems impossible. 

Not for the first time, he wonders if his nose is broken. If he is broken. 

Miggson kicked his stomach over and over waiting for him to retch. “Naughty children don’t get to keep their dinner.” It took so long that Wylan finally jammed his own fingers down his crushed throat, desperate to comply if it made the Miggson stop. He didn’t care what it took, Wylan just wanted the pain to end. 

He hates himself so much. 

Hot wet tears fall silently down Wylan’s cheeks as he lies in the darkened room. The dim evening light dulls the white walls back into lifeless tones of gray until the shadows swallow what little color remains. The muted shades that defined his existence for so long. Then there’s nothing. Empty spaces and lonely blackness.

He just wants to be free from it all. Free from the beatings, from the self-loathing that cloaks him like the dirty waistcoat. Free from his father’s cruelty. 

Naively, he believed it was possible. Kaz offered him an escape, and even though it was nothing but a fantasy, Wylan wanted it more than he’s ever wanted anything. Ghezen, he’s so stupid. He should have known better. 

He does now. 

Worst of all, he had been so close to escaping. He nearly brushed it with his fingertips. But like everything else, no matter how tightly he tried to hold on, it had been ripped from his hands. 

Wylan squeezes his eyes shut tighter and mourns the plan forming in his head all day. Now he knows that it never stood a chance of working, but he liked believing that he could flee with Kaz and Jesper after the robbery. Leave the estate, this house, once and for all. And by the time Jan Van Eck realizes that his financial records had been stolen, Wylan would be far away. Safe. 

The bells toll in the distance. His mind swims, thick with fog and exhaustion. His thoughts drift to Jesper. Lovely, kind Jesper. With an equally lovely voice and soft hands. They aren’t really. His hands are as rough as Wylan’s, but they were soft when they touched him. One day he longs to experience that gentleness again and forget what it feels like to be grabbed and pushed. Shoved and made to feel nothing but hurt. 

He’s glad that Jesper won’t see him this weak and repulsive. 

There will be no break-in tonight, not for Wylan. Maybe Jesper and Kaz will carry on without him to steal his father’s secrets, but he won’t let himself hope. 

He tries not to think of their disappointment, Jesper’s beautiful lips turning into a frown, wondering why Wylan abandoned him under the lilac tree when he never shows up. 

He wants to tell Jesper that he didn’t forget. He’s not ignoring the plans they made. There’s a lock on the door, and his body is too battered to get off the floor, much less sneak through the hallways. 

Wylan cries, like the pathetic mess he is. It’s all he can do, so he cries for his mother’s letters, forever unread and now burnt to ashes. They probably weren’t even real. Just mocking taunts written by his father’s own hand. Wylan always knew, unspoken in his mind, that it was a possibility; he just wanted them to be written by his mother so badly that they might be real if he believed hard enough. Now, he doesn’t know which is worse. He cries for his broken flute and the music it will never play again, for the failed break-in tonight, and his chance of escape destroyed because he thought that he was more clever than his father. Cries for Marlies who deserves better than being sold to a whorehouse for being kind to him. And most of all, Wylan cries for himself. 

Chapter Text

His father gives him a full day to recover, and for that Wylan is grateful. His door in the attic remains locked, untouched, the whole time as the rest of the household ignores his existence. It’s ok, Wylan thinks as he hears their shuffling footsteps in the morning. It’s better to be left alone.  

He uses the reprieve to scrape himself off of the floor sometime after the sun rises, shed his blood-stained clothes, and ease his battered body into bed. 

It’s far from an uncomfortable confinement. He could have been shut in the cellar or closed in the drafty garden shed. Trapped in an empty closet or the library again if his father felt particularly cruel. Wylan knows the house well enough to understand he could suffer a worse punishment than resting in the false security of his quarters. 

He has a mattress, no matter how thin, a pot and a window to empty it before the stench of urine assaults his bruised if not broken nose, and what’s left of the water in his pitcher. He only wishes that he had the foresight to refill it yesterday. Wylan uses the smallest amount on his towel to scrub the dried blood from his face. Then, he rations the rest of his water, not sure how many hours or days he’ll be imprisoned. 

Hunger gnaws at his stomach, and he ignores it as best as he’s able. 

Without anything else to do, his mind forces him to relive the events of last night on an endless loop. Every horrible second of it. His father knew everything. Of course he did. Wylan had been naive to think he wouldn’t be seen at the ball. Too hopeful and too careless. It’s not a mistake he’ll make again. 

His father knows it all. That Marlies sewed the waistcoat, that Wylan snuck out of the house and into the masquerade. He knows about the dance with Jesper … No, Wylan realizes suddenly. 

His eyes widen with shock. His breath hitches. 

Jan Van Eck knew that he danced with a Zemeni man, but he didn’t know that the man was Jesper. Someone as kind as he was tall, with gentle hands, outrageous hats, and an easy smile. A man who runs with the criminal crew responsible for the palace robbery. 

Wylan’s mind races. That means that his father doesn’t know Wylan interrupted the palace robbery. Or about his new connections with the thieves themselves. He doesn’t know that Jesper and Kaz both snuck onto the estate to speak to Wylan in the dead of the night mere days ago and plotted to steal his financial records, jail him, and set Wylan free. 

If his father knew, he would have lorded the failed plan over Wylan’s head, insulted his intelligence, then punished Wylan severely for conspiring against him. He had no reason to pretend ignorance, not when he was already exposing Wylan’s laundry list of secrets. 

So his father genuinely doesn’t know. 

Relieved, Wylan closes his eyes and lets the knowledge wash over him. Nothing feels good right now, the pain too persistent, but he clings to his last secret fiercely and tucks it protectively against his chest where hope once grew. 

Wylan underestimated his father, but his father underestimated him too. 

Sometime the next morning—after a day, maybe a day and a half of waiting—the key on the other side of the door turns. It unlocks with a loud click. Wylan sits up as Prior walks in and drops a half-filled bucket on the floor. Water splashes over the rim messily.

He throws a rag at Wylan, who catches it out of reflex. The movement pulls at the bruising across his abdomen. “Break time’s over, kid. Back to work. Van Eck says you can come down after you wash the shit off these walls.”

His father certainly did not say it that way, but Wylan understands the message all the same. Anything that brought him happiness, a sense of independence and joy, needs to be destroyed. 

Without waiting for a response, Prior walks out and locks the door behind him. 

The hollowness Wylan felt earlier begins to creep in as he looks around the room at his sketches. Old ones, new ones, his comfort over the years when there was little to be found. The charcoal will be a nightmare to clean properly, especially without access to soap, new water, and fresh rags. The most he’ll be able to do is smear the walls, turning his black and white world dull and full of flat tone grays once more. 

Wylan dips his hands in the water. He cups his palms and brings two handfuls to his dry lips before wetting the cloth and getting started.

It doesn’t hurt to erase the sketches as much as he thought, but that’s because the ring of bruises around his throat still hurts more. Everything hurts more. He’s too hungry and thirsty and numb to protest as he wipes his drawings away. 

He expected this for years. Maybe it’s kinder that he’s the one to do it. Wylan commits each image to memory, says goodbye to them all in his head, and washes away his art. 

And if he forgets to move his trunk to wash the wall behind it, well, he’s always been stupid. Forgetful. 

Prior unlocks the door again two hours later and deems the walls acceptably washed. They certainly aren’t clean, but Wylan managed to scrub the gray residue into an even layer as if they were meant to be off-white. He pretends that was the chore. 

“You don’t need that,” Miggson says as Wylan reaches for his apron to head downstairs. “Put the costume on. It’s your new uniform.” 

Confused, Wylan stares at him. Miggson points to the dirty blue waistcoat abandoned on the floor, and it’s such an absurd order that Wylan balks. He doesn’t move to pick it up. 

“That’s not a suggestion, kid. Put it on.” 

The words trigger the memory of when his father commanded him to wear it. Refusing made the beating so much worse. He should have just worn it. Without protesting, Wylan obeys now, ignoring the odor and stains discoloring the front. 

So that’s his father’s plan. More humiliation. 

He tries not to feel as ridiculous as he knows he looks. 

Miggson leads Wylan downstairs, informing him of the new rules. Mainly, he’s to stay out of sight from Alys until he heals. 

The stress of seeing his black eye, finger-shaped bruises around his neck, and ruined clothes might upset her. Or more importantly, her ability to grow the baby. 

That’s just fine with Wylan. Avoiding Alys means staying out of his father’s way too. Sannes must be serving their meals in his absence—she’s going to be so angry at him for causing her extra work. 

In the kitchen, he doesn’t look at the cook once. Instead, he takes one of the tin plates, two slices of bread, and a cup of water to the table and bows his head over them. Miggson lingers as he eats. 

A few minutes later someone new walks in and Wylan finally raises his gaze to find a round woman with auburn hair pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head. She wears a frilled apron tied around her skirt that’s as decorative as it is practical. 

Marlies’ replacement. Wylan’s heart aches. 

She deposits the tea tray on the counter beside the washtub. 

“Don’t bother, he’ll take care of it now,” Sannes tells her, gesturing to Wylan, before she starts the pump. 

“That him, the half-wit?” The new woman asks Miggson and the cook, eyeing his injuries and ridiculous clothes with disgust. 

Wylan sighs and shrinks into his seat. She’s only repeating what she’s been told, he reminds himself as the familiar frustration begins to rise. There’s no way she knows the truth about him already. She’s too new for them to share the family secrets. In another few months Wylan will go from the idiot to Van Eck’s idiot son. Then she’ll understand why they keep him around. 

Wylan hunches over his meal.

Suddenly, Miggson’s hand presses into the back of his neck. Panicked, Wylan jumps out of his seat. His chair clatters to the floor at the speed he tries to escape. He doesn’t mean for it to happen, it’s instinct. The memory of Prior’s hands around his neck is too fresh. They can all see the finger-shaped bruises in plain sight beneath his collar. 

But Miggson holds on, stopping Wylan from darting across the room out of reach. His thumb and forefinger dig into the base of Wylan’s neck in warning, but not squeezing. 

Wylan wills himself to relax. He’s not any danger—not yet. Ghezen, he’s breathing heavily and trembling. He must look insane. 

“Don’t be rude,” Miggson instructs, as if Wylan’s simply shy and not an unwilling participant. “Say hello, introduce yourself.”

Considering how she already labeled him as the estate’s idiot, another introduction seems unnecessary. 

“Hello,” he croaks, keeping his gaze to the floor. It’s the first time he’s spoken since being strangled. His voice is raw, both from disuse and damage. 

Miggson pats him on the back like he’s an animal that performed a neat little trick. Roll over. Stay. Speak. 

“Be firm with him,” Miggson warns Marlies’ replacement. “Don’t be afraid to tell him off. The last handmaid was fired after he was too friendly with her, so let me and Prior know if he’s causing you trouble.”

The staff have said a lot about Wylan over the years: he’s an imbecile, he’s lazy. He’s a curse to his father and his family. A useless waste of space. But he’s never been accused of being dangerous to any of the women in the house. Untrustworthy. He refuses to let them imply that he slept with Marlies. The last thing he needs is this woman to be afraid to be alone with him. 

No, the last thing he needs is his father to hear the rumor he fucked Marlies. 

“I didn’t touch her,” he clarifies, voice rasping. He clenches his jaw determined to speak. “She was kind. That’s all.”

Miggson’s free hand plucks at the filthy waiscoat. “Kind enough that she stole from the lady of the house for you.”

“I never asked her to.”

Before he even sees it, Miggson’s fist is in his stomach. Wylan vision crosses, and he doubles over instantly, struggling for air again. His knees crash to the tiled floor. 

Wylan doesn’t hear the rest of their conversation. By the time he gets to his feet, the new handmaid is gone. Sannes orders Wylan to wash the dishes, and he stumbles over to the washtub where a full day’s worth of cutlery waits for him. 

He starts pumping the water while Miggson takes a seat at the table, puts his feet up on a chair, and starts up a conversation with Sannes about dinner. 

Wylan then spends the rest of the day scrubbing his dried bile and blood from the study, just as he predicted. It’s a long, slow process to avoid damaging the rug.

At dinner, he’s given a seat but denied a plate, as promised. The new handmaid snaps at him like she’s been instructed to do. Wylan sees it for what it is, an attempt to assert herself into the hierarchy of the household. 

Retreating into his thoughts, Wylan ignores the others as they eat around him. He wonders how badly Kaz wanted his father’s records. Badly enough to follow through on the break-in without him? Or has he abandoned his plan at Wylan’s inconvenience? One way or another he’ll find out, he supposes. 

Wylan clears the table and cleans the kitchen after dinner—time-consuming but easy. He readies the house for the evening as much as he’s able to while keeping out of sight and stalked through the hallways.

He hates it. Miggson and Prior switch every few hours, taking turns following him, harassing him. Their eyes bore into him from behind, and Wylan tries not to clench his teeth. He shudders at their breath on the back of his neck while they loom over him. 

Wylan had been given so much freedom that he forgot that he was on a leash at all. He knows that Prior and Miggson are just there to rein him in. 

No one knows that Wylan snuck out more than once. It’s his secret. Still, they lock his door again in the evening. The sound of the key twisting echoes in his ears, too loud in the stillness of his tiny room. 

His father doesn’t actually think Wylan will try to escape. He just wants him to feel trapped. 

He does. 

The hollow ache returns while Wylan strips off the dirty waistcoat and hangs it on the bedpost beside his actual apron. How long he’s meant to wear it, he has no idea. By the end of the week it’ll be filthy and discolored, he thinks sadly. 

It would be so much easier not to care. To pretend that the waistcoat is any other piece of clothing. Ordinary. Unimportant. Meaningless. But it isn’t. It belonged to his mother. It’s his now, and it’s all Wylan has left that’s his in this awful house. 

Whatever his father has planned, Wylan’s sure that the waistcoat is meant to survive. Wylan’s not entirely sure if he will either. 

Twilight light seeps in through the window despite the cloud cover. Wylan looks out of it and wishes he saw someone crouched on the roof. Where is Kaz’s spy now? 

Where’s Jesper? 

Maybe the feeling inside him isn’t hollowness. He recognizes it now: loneliness. 

With a startling clarity, Wylan realizes they aren’t coming to rescue him. Whether because they can’t come to him or refuse to doesn’t matter. The point is they aren’t. No one is. 

The force of the thought brings a dampness to the corners of his eyes, and the weight of it settles heavily in his stomach like a brick. No one has come to save him the last fifteen years, and no one ever will. 

If Wylan wants to escape, he can’t wait for men to appear from the shadows offering him a lifeline. He needs to do it himself. 

Sannes lets him out the next morning before dawn, and Wylan falls into the routine of his new hell. 

Clearly, Prior and Miggson enjoy the ease of their assignment. Mostly they put their feet up, taunt Wylan, then laugh as he flinches out of their reach, and just make his work so much fucking harder. 

It’s only mid-morning. 

Despite the handkerchief tied over the lower half of Wylan’s face for protection, the sharp tang of chemicals still burns his nose as he stands in the laundry room and begins to stir the mixture for bleach together. As the swelling goes down, it’s a good sign, he thinks. 

Wylan has a system. He may not know the chemical names of the powders labeled on the sides of the jars he uses, but he’s been taught exactly how many scoops to add and the ratio of water needed to make them effective. What to use and which to avoid so he doesn’t poison himself and the entire household in his ignorance. Then he returns each jar to its precise spot on the shelf to not confuse them. And all these years, that’s been enough. 

Miggson fidgets in the corner. Bored. But he hasn’t made it Wylan’s problem yet. 

Making the bleach solution is a two-step process. First he needs to mix it, then dilute it with water in the washtubs to avoid hurting the fabric and his own hands. 

The famous mercher black that Alys and his father wear is only made possible by the contrast of stark white shirts and the accessories Wylan keeps pristine.

Prior enters the laundry room, nodding to Miggson, who takes it as his cue to get up at last. Wylan watches them warily beneath his eyelashes as he works. They don’t switch shifts, so either it’s a social visit, or Prior’s just killing time. Either way, he doesn’t like when they’re together. 

Miggson wanders around the room as the two chat. He stops in front of shelves, begins fiddling with the cleaning chemicals, examining the contents of each, then putting them down haphazardly. Out of order. Wylan resists the urge to run over and return the bottles and jars to their correct places. But then they would know it bothers him and do it purposely. 

“Don’t touch those,” Wylan says instead.

Not expecting him to speak up, they both turn their attention toward Wylan, thick eyebrows raised. 

Miggson frowns. “You telling me what to do, kid?”

“Those are dangerous; don’t touch them,” Wylan repeats. He’s learned the hard way that they all irritate skin. Some more than others, but he doesn’t care if they jump to the worst conclusion if it means they stop creating more work for him. Wylan knows his memory is strong enough to sort everything back into order; he just doesn’t want to test it. 

Miggson picks up one of the jars, glancing at the label. Then he holds it out to Wylan. “Do you even know what this is?”

Every fucking time. Wylan glares, sets his jaw, but says nothing. Of course he can’t. It doesn’t invalidate the fact he’s right, and they need to stop messing with the cleaning chemicals. 

Miggson grins and lets the jar slip from his meaty hands. Wylan gasps and reaches out, but he’s too far away, unable to stop it from falling. The glass shatters. Hundreds of tiny shards skitter across the tiles. Chemical powder covers the floor like a layer of soot. 

Wylan quickly realizes that he made the mistake of taking his eyes off both hired thugs as the glass fell. Prior grabs him from behind, pinning both of his wrists in one hand. The edge of the table bites sharply into his hip as he’s pushed down. Prior shoves the bucket of bleach toward him. 

They’re going to kill him! Wylan panics. 

The undiluted cleaner splashes dangerously onto the table, his clothes—the waistcoat. He fights with all his strength as Prior grabs the back of his head and forces Wylan’s face into the bucket. 

It’s useless, he can’t get any leverage. The wooden rim digs into his forehead so hard stars burst behind his eyes. 

The smell assaults Wylan’s senses. He coughs, trying to breathe in fresh air. His eyes water. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to die!

Wylan tries to twist his head to the side, but Prior holds him down. His bandana covering his face falls into the bucket as he struggles. It dips into the liquid. Bleach soaks the tip of the fabric and steadily climbs up. 

He gags, squeezes his eyes closed and tries to hold his breath. 

Suddenly, the hand on Wylan’s head tangles into his hair and wrenches him backward by his scalp. Out of the bucket. 

Wylan coughs, gasping lungfuls of fresh air. 

Prior only continues to pull his neck back at a sharp angle, forcing Wylan to lean back, nearly snapping his spine in half. 

Miggson leans down uncomfortably close to his ear. “Tell me what to do again,” he says calmly, “and I’ll pour it down your throat.”

Wylan stumbles back as soon as they release him. He yanks at the bleach soaked handkerchief, getting it away from his face. His shaking fingers scramble to untie the knot. It falls to the floor, and Wylan nearly does too with relief. 

That was too close. Wylan’s heart hammers too fast, too loud in the confines of his chest. He swallows deep, heavy breaths even though his lungs ache. 

Miggson and Prior return to the front of the room, as if they didn’t nearly murder him. Wylan’s unsure if his father gave them permission to kill him, but he’s not eager to find out. 

He needs a new handkerchief. Wylan walks on shaky legs to the back of the room to take a clean one from the linen shelf, and that’s when he sees it: the bottle of vinegar and the wash bucket it lives inside ever since Alys started getting morning sickness. He set it out three nights ago after dinner, thinking it might be needed because she looked ill. But his father had him beaten and locked up. Wylan never had the chance to put the bucket away. 

Impulsively, Wylan grabs the vinegar. 

His hands stop shaking. Maybe that’s not true, but he feels steadier than he has in days. Sure of himself. 

Blood, oil, vomit, wine, dirt, shit, food, spunk, and every type of stain that naturally exists, Wylan has been taught how to clean it. The former staff told him which powders to use, how long to let the fabrics soak. To use cold water, hot water. And most importantly it’s been beaten into him—fuck the old housekeeper, fuck Prior, fuck Miggson, and everyone else whoever hit him—which cleaners to never ever, ever, EVER mix. 

The list is long and complicated. And if he was as stupid as everyone said, none of them would have ever forced him to memorize it. None of them would have trusted him to use the cleaning chemicals in the first place. 

Wylan sets the vinegar on the work table. He might not know the names of the powders and solutions he works with, but unlike Prior and Miggson, he knows exactly what they are capable of doing. 

He squeezes the thin glass bottle in his fist and tries not to overthink his ill-conceived plan. If he does, he’ll lose his courage. His anger. His chance at freedom. 

No one is going to save him, Wylan reminds himself. If he wants to escape, he needs to do it on his own. 

Wylan knows that he can’t stay in this house another day. One way or another they’re going to kill him. Through isolation and fear until he only cowers like an obedient beaten dog with its tail tucked between its legs. Or one day soon, his father will make good on his threat to drown him. He’ll never allow Wylan to exist in the same house as his new heir. Or Miggson and Prior will go too far. Ghezen, they nearly just did. Wylan’s life means nothing to any of them. 

Wylan dips his new handkerchief in one of the small vats of clean water, wringing it quickly before tying it snugly over his mouth and nose. He takes a deep breath and dumps the vinegar into the bleach as Miggson and Prior stand unaware. 

It bubbles gently as the liquids mix. Faint pale green steam rises from the bucket like a bad omen. 

Without hesitating—it’s too late to abandon his plan—Wylan steps around the work table. His shoes crunch over the broken glass, the spilled powder on the floor. He’s not going to clean them. 

He’s not going to clean anything ever again. 

Wylan spent years tossing buckets of water onto the grass, the bushes outside the kitchen. He’s gotten good at aiming and men their size are easy targets.

By the time Prior and Miggson see him, it’s too late. Wylan hurls the poison at their heads. 

It splashes across their faces, their necks, drips down onto their shirts. Green vapor rolls off them. The sweet deadly stench climbs down their noses and into their lungs. It dances on waves over their bodies toward the floor. 

They shout, cough as it burns their sensitive eyes. 

Miggson curses and immediately scrubs at his face with the hem of his shirt. Angry, Prior lunges at Wylan, growling like a rabid animal. 

His attempt is wild. Desperate. Blinded by the poison, he manages to catch Wylan by the legs as he darts out of reach to the safety of the back door. They slam heavily into the floor. 

Shards of broken glass bite into Wylan’s hands, but he barely feels it. 

Instinctively he yells and kicks to free himself from Prior’s grip. Wylan’s hands scramble against the floor, trying to grab anything to help him fight. He only finds a fistful of the spilled chemical. Wylan rolls over and throws it in Prior’s face. 

It’s messy, but it’s enough. Prior’s grip on Wylan loosens. He starts coughing violently. Between the poison and the powder in his nose, he struggles to breathe, attempting to suck in air that won’t come. 

Wylan frees himself from beneath Prior’s weight and stumbles to his feet. His own eyes water, irritated from the pale green mist settling over the floor. He runs to the laundry room’s back door and throws it open. 

Freedom is a cloudy, sunless gray day in Ketterdam.

Outside in the fresh air, Wylan yanks his wet bandana down, letting it hang loosely around his neck. He dodges around the clothes lines where the staff’s laundry hangs and keeps running. There’s no way Miggson and Prior followed him, but he doesn’t look back to find out. Wylan runs. Without thinking, he follows the footpaths used by the servants at the back of the house until he sprints past the kitchen and out the delivery gate. 

He needs to put as much distance between himself and the house as possible. 

His lungs ache from the exertion, his muscles cramp. But Wylan refuses to stop even when he races down the empty dusty road leading toward Ketterdam. 

There’s no real plan. Just putting one foot in front of the other until he ends up somewhere. Eventually, the ache in his side becomes too much. Wylan stops running and clutches at his abdomen, gulping for breath as he keeps walking. The road crunches underfoot as he twists to look behind him, but as expected, there’s no one there.

The gravel gives way to cobblestone the closer he gets to the city. Foot traffic grows among the little shops and stalls that start lining the streets. Wylan starts getting strange looks, and it’s only then that he realizes he must be a sight. His hair in wild ruddy curls, damp with sweat. The stark bruising across his face, his throat. He’s still wearing his waistcoat, which normally stands out, but especially now that it’s covered in dried blood and stained with vomit and scattered drops of bleach. A trace of white powder still covers his hands. It stings the cuts, and his skin is already turning itchy and pink with irritation. 

Self-consciously, Wylan takes off his waistcoat and folds it beneath his arm. It’s useless, unsalvageable, and disgusting. Still, he can’t make himself part with it. 

Jesper once mentioned the place he worked. To be fair, Wylan had been fairly distracted at the moment, his mind still comfortably humming with the rush of sex, of Jesper, to actually pay attention to the details of what he said. But Wylan knows it’s one of the clubs. 

His knowledge of Ketterdam remains limited, but the city is famous for the pleasure houses on the West Stave and the gambling halls along the East. Wylan heads east. 

In the end, it’s shockingly easy to find Jesper. In the late afternoon, he’s perched on a set of barrels beside the entrance to a club with the emblem of a bird above it. Right, the Crow Club. He lazily twirls the pair of pearl-handled revolvers in his hands until he catches sight of Wylan. The guns come abruptly to a stop, as does Wylan himself. 

Standing immediately, Jesper holsters his weapons without taking his eyes off Wylan. His jaw drops as he absorbs Wylan’s disheveled appearance. Equally confused and horrified. 

Embarrassment takes over, staining Wylan’s cheeks red beneath his black eye. He wishes Jesper didn’t have to see him like this. “I, um …” 

Jesper hurries toward him. When he reaches out, Wylan steps back and Jesper’s face falls. 

Oh.

“No!” Wylan rushes to reassure him, holding his cut hands out in front of him, showing Jesper the white residue. “No, uh, I’m not—it’s just—I’m covered in … I don’t know. I don’t want it to hurt you too.”

Jesper still looks worried. “Saints, Wylan, what happened?” he asks gently. 

“I escaped.” Wylan smiles, giggles with the rush of it. He’s standing here in front of Jesper far away from his father’s reach. Wylan’s finally free. 

“Let’s get you inside; you can wash up.” Jesper steers him into the club, placing a single hand carefully on the middle of his lower back. It’s probably safe. There’s not many people at this hour. Mostly employees readying for the evening rush. Jesper calls to another man to take his spot at the door and leads Wylan further inside to wash his hands until—

Kaz Brekker’s stony glare stops them in their path. For once, his cane—Wylan now in the light of day sees the handle is a bird’s head, a crow’s head—is gripped firmly in his hand instead of planted firmly on the floor. He owns this club, Wylan realizes belatedly, or at the very least manages it. And he’s less than thrilled to see Wylan and Jesper, by extension, with him. 

“My office,” Kaz instructs. It’s a command, not a statement. Wylan has heard enough of them over the years to recognize it. 

Jesper has too, apparently. He rolls his eyes. “Saints, Kaz, at least let him clean up first.”

“You can do that at the Slat after we speak. Were you pursued here?” he asks Wylan, getting straight to business. 

“No.”

Kaz nods and turns on his heel, cane clicking rhythmically on the club’s floor with each step. Reluctant, Jesper nods to Wylan to follow. 

They climb a narrow circular stair to another floor where Kaz’s office overlooks the tables of the gambling hall. 

It’s a small darkly lit room save for one flickering oil lamp. The shadows suit its inhabitant well. Though not large, the desk along the wall is neat and tidy, each file and ledger upon it kept meticulously organized. 

Everything about his father’s office symbolized wealth. Status. From the overly grand hand-carved desk, the imported ruby-red rug, and the gilded frames lining the walls. All of it meant to impress. Kaz’s office gives an air of sophistication that mimics a mercher’s office, but in a much more practical sense. The items in it are expensive. Well-made, but not extravagant. And the frames of the paintings on the wall desperately need dusting. 

“You were supposed to stay put.” 

Wylan balks. “So that they could kill me? I’m lucky to have escaped because that’s what almost happened today.”

“Clearly, it didn’t,” Kaz looks rather unconcerned to be learning that Wylan nearly died. “Does Van Eck know about our involvement? Did he discover the break-in?”

For once, it would be nice for someone to care about Wylan’s wellbeing. Just once. Jesper does, he reminds himself. He stands beside Wylan now within arm’s reach, but not touching, though he clearly wants to. His hands twitch with the desire, and he distracts himself by spinning the rings around his finger instead.

Wylan shakes his head, only because he can’t take Kaz by the shoulders and shake him instead. “You went through with it, you really broke into his office?” 

“Of course. I took what I needed,” Kaz informs him as if it were never in question. 

“Why weren’t you there?” Jesper steps closer, unable to keep away entirely. He gently nudges Wylan with his elbow. “Kaz said you never showed.”

Wylan licks his lips nervously. The back of his hand itches fiercely and he resists the urge to scratch it. “I couldn’t,” he says reluctantly. “My father knew I went to the masquerade. That night, he locked me in my room. Most of this,” he gestures vaguely to his injuries, “Happened that night too.”

They don’t need to know that he could barely move. That fighting back only caused more harm. He doesn’t want to tell them that he cried like a child. That he pathetically imagined them unlocking his door and whisking him away into the night. 

Kaz hums to himself as if putting more puzzle pieces of Wylan’s life together. “Inej said you were indisposed.”

“You knew?” Wylan asks, shocked. “You knew what they did to me and you did nothing to help?”

Jesper glares at Kaz. “You never told me Wylan was in trouble.” 

“And for good reason. You would have stormed in guns blazing and ruined the plan. If you had waited,” Kaz says, turning to Wylan, “The stadwatch would have found you in a bloody pulp when they raided the house, only strengthening your case.”

“There’s no case if I’m dead!”

“You’re not,” Kaz says flatly, as if Wylan’s simply being dramatic. He’s done with this part of the conversation, ready to move on, but Wylan isn’t. Kaz doesn’t just get to ignore him after purposely leaving Wylan in the hands of his father’s men. 

How can he be so callous? 

Wylan’s fury rises. The voice in the back of his head that sounds like his father calls him childish for reacting emotionally. He wants to shout, to scream. Arguing with a man like Kaz is useless, but he can’t stop himself. 

“You could have gotten me out,” Wylan protests. He didn’t have to suffer hurt and alone or be threatened and intimidated while Kaz sat around safely reading his father’s ledgers. At the very least, they could have contacted him even if they didn’t want to interfere. A knock on his door, a bird caw. Anything. 

“We’re not in the business of rescuing people,” Kaz says coldly. “There are hundreds indentured against their will in this city. You’re no different.”

Jesper opens his mouth to speak, but Wylan beats him to it. 

“I’m not an indenture!” 

He doesn’t know if that makes his situation worse or better, but it’s the truth. Wylan never sold himself. Still, he ended up with few rights and less options as those that had. But there’s no contract to blame for all of his misery. He wishes that he could chalk his life up to a raw deal from a lousy piece of paper. 

Kaz’s sharp eyes narrow on Wylan. “Everyone in this city has a sob story. Yours just happens to be more interesting and profitable than most. Don’t confuse Jesper’s lust with goodwill. I’m running a business, not a charity. Take comfort in the fact that it’s working to your advantage and I’m willing to send your father to Hellgate instead of you.”

“Enough,” Jesper snaps, finally cutting the tension in the small office. He clearly has something more scathing to say to Kaz, but doesn’t. “This isn’t helping. We can meet later when you’re ready to tell us the next step of the plan. Until then, Wylan’s time is better spent washing away whatever toxin he’s covered in and finding Nina. He’s not going back, Kaz.”

“No, it would be ill-advised,” Kaz agrees. “Our plans can be amended. I’ll let both of you know when you’re needed. For now, find Nina. She should still be at the Slat. Ask her to heal Wylan, as much as she’s able. Tell her to restock her tailoring kit too. We’ll need it soon.”

“She’s going to love that,” Jesper mutters to himself. 

“Wylan,” Kaz catches his attention one last time. “I honor every deal I make. Yours included. We are going to make each other very rich men.”

“I’m not greedy; I don’t need the money. I just want to be free.”

Kaz finally rounds his desk and takes a seat on the wooden chair behind it. “Money is freedom, Wylan. Soon you’ll have both. You’ll never have to work another day in your life.”

Wylan nods, accepting it as the closest thing to kindness Kaz is willing to offer. 

On their way out of the club, Jesper grows quiet, but it’s the same type of quiet as the sky going silent while a storm builds. He’s tense. Rigid in a way Wylan hasn’t yet seen on his lanky limbs. 

“He’s such a hypocrite,” Jesper hisses, clearly annoyed. “He’d never say any of that to Inej. He shouldn’t have said it to you.” 

Warmth floods his chest to know Jesper cares. Wylan shrugs. He doesn’t really want to think about the exchange any longer. 

“It’s not the worst thing someone said to me today.”

He means it to be flippant, a joke, but Jesper only frowns. Then his attention lands on the waistcoat in Wylan’s hands. He nods to it. 

“That looks familiar. Didn’t think I’d see that again.”

Wylan only brought the waistcoat because he happened to be wearing it as he ran. He doesn’t want to admit the beautiful fabric was a punishment. That his father intended to humiliate him with it. “I was trying to clean it," he lies instead, unfolding it to show Jesper the numerous stains. If he thinks it happened in Wylan’s scuffle to flee, Wylan won’t correct him. “It’s ruined, though. I don’t think that I can fix it.”

Jesper leads Wylan a few streets over to a plain, yet crooked building in a long line of narrow, crooked buildings. It’s where he and the other members of their gang live. Because of course it’s a gang. However, it’s not entirely clear whether the gang is named the Crows or the Dregs … Wylan’s heard both spill from Jesper’s chatter and honestly he doesn’t care enough to ask. 

“Not much, but it’s home,” Jesper says in introduction as they step over the threshold. Above all else, it looks lived in. The tables and chairs of the common areas are clean but not tidy. It’s … comfortable, Wylan decides. Even without the luxuries that make things soft—throw pillows, plush couches, and velvet curtains—it’s still comfortable in a way Wylan’s home had never been. 

Jesper brings Wylan upstairs to the second floor and points him to a washroom at the end of the hall. 

“Take your time. I’m going to talk to Nina about patching you up, if you don’t mind.”

Wylan’s not sure how much a medik can do for him, but agrees anyway. Maybe she’ll have something to soothe the itch on his hands. He really should have washed them sooner. 

“Can I—” he starts, hating that he has to ask at all. But it’s Jesper, and if anyone’s going to help him without acting like Wylan is the world’s largest inconvenience, it’s Jesper. “Can I borrow new clothes? I don’t know much of the powder that got on these when I was on the floor.” 

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Jesper agrees. And it’s really that easy. “I’ll leave them outside the door for you.”

Any attempt at privacy is unnecessary after what they’ve already done. After everything Wylan imagines them doing. “You can bring them in. I don’t mind if you see me naked.” 

Jesper grins. It’s a wide, beautiful thing that stretches across his entire face and lights twin sparks of delight in his gunmetal gray eyes. “Wylan, are you trying to seduce me?”

Wylan tilts his head and feels his own smile grow. “If you can’t tell, then I’m being too subtle,” he teases. 

It feels so natural, the banter and easy flirting. 

Jesper leans forward until their foreheads touch, a single, solid point of contact. They keep their hands safely to themselves otherwise. Wylan closes his eyes. For the first time all day, he truly relaxes, inhaling the scent of jurda and gunpowder. 

Soft beautiful lips brush lightly against Wylan’s skin. “I’ll be back,” Jesper promises.

Inside the washroom, there’s a small metal tub that Wylan could fold himself into, but he doesn’t want to risk whatever chemical is on his hands absorbing onto more of his skin, even diluted by the water. So he fills a few inches of the tub before rolling up his sleeves and scrubbing at his arms, giving into the itch that’s been plaguing him all afternoon.

Jesper returns with the fresh clothes. He also brings a towel and washcloth, which Wylan accepts gratefully. After Jesper leaves, Wylan locks the door to avoid anyone else in the building stumbling in on him. Sliding the old bolt stirs a flutter of excitement. It locks from the inside. The inside. Wylan pushes it back and forth, like a child, with the knowledge he can open it and leave whenever he wants. 

He uses the washcloth to scrub his hands and arms again before he dumps the water, rinses the bottom of the tub, and starts all over again. He’s taking no chances. When Wylan’s sure he’s clean, he strips off his shirt and pants and gives his whole body the most thorough wash he’s had all week. 

Just to be safe, he rinses his own clothes too, even the waistcoat. Unfortunately, the water does nothing to remove the stains. He eyes several white spots with regret. With time he can remove the bile and blood, but there’s nothing he can do to repair the damage caused by the bleach. 

Wylan dresses. Jesper’s clothes—a beige buttoned shirt with a woven pattern and brown trousers—are too long, as expected, but they fit comfortably after he rolls the sleeves and hems. 

Down the hallway, Wylan finds Jesper in his room with the door thrown wide open. His room is big by Wylan’s standards. Only because Wylan’s was so narrow that his fingertips touched both walls when he stretched his arms out. 

Jesper’s room bursts with life, with color, as if he decided to collect as much of the rainbow as possible in a single space. Burnt orange walls, a mauve blanket. Maroon pillows and a dresser covered in chipped pine green paint. It’s as far away as he can get from his former colorless existence, and Wylan loves it. 

The double bed Jesper sits on takes up most of the space. His bright shirts and suits with eccentric patterns overflow from the simple dresser and trunk on the opposite side. Clearly, Jesper doesn’t just come back to his room to sleep at the end of the day. He truly lives here among the clutter of top hats, scattered coins, playing cards, and bullets. 

Jesper greets him immediately. He stands, and his hands wrap around Wylan’s waist, touching him as much as he wants now, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Wylan’s cheeks flush at the thought. His hands rest above Jesper’s hips, slipping underneath his suit jacket. And maybe it really is that natural.

They don’t need to stand so close, but Wylan wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“Glad you’re here now,” Jesper says quietly. There’s no need to raise their voices to be heard when they’re inches away. 

Wylan answers by pushing up on his tiptoes for a kiss. Just because he can. If this is what freedom feels like, tastes like, he could get used to it. Easily. 

“Slow down, you two, you have all night.”

Wylan doesn’t jump, but it’s a near thing. Instinctively, he wants to leap back and hide what they were doing. But Jesper loops an arm behind his waist and keeps him close. 

The heartrender from the masquerade stands in the doorway, unapologetic about the interruption. Her eyes glint with mischief, and she begins munching on a biscuit from the box she’s holding. 

“You’re Nina,” Wylan says, connecting the name he’s heard from Jesper and Kaz to the intimidating heartrender from his interrogation at the warehouse. 

“My reputation precedes me.” She offers him a biscuit. It’s buttery soft and crumbles instantly on his tongue. Wylan didn’t realize how hungry he was. Neither did his stomach. It grumbles embarrassingly loudly at the realization. 

Nina hands him the whole box and perches herself on the edge of the bed as if it were hers all along and pats the space beside her in invitation. “I’m a heartrender, not a trained healer, but I’ll do my best to help.”

Wylan sits beside her. She takes another biscuit from the box in his hands. “Eat,” she instructs, sensing his hesitation to take any himself. “Saints know I have more.”

Permission given, Wylan takes two. 

Nina takes in the visible bruising on his face and neck with a clinical eye. To his relief, she doesn’t comment on it, nor ask how it happened. He’s grateful. 

“Any other injuries?” she asks, finally brushing the crumbs off her fingers to get to work. 

Wylan shows Nina the mottled bruising on his stomach and confirms it hurts the most. Then shows her his irritated hands, the small cuts that litter his palms. 

She starts at his abdomen, face fixing in firm concentration as she focuses on her connection to the small sciences. Her hands twist in rhythm. Gentle swells and crests until Wylan feels his blood warm. The skin tingles as the aches in his muscles fade and the bruising recedes from purple to a faint yellow-green. I’m not a real healer, Nina reminds Wylan. It’s the best I can do for now. 

It’s a long, slow process, but Nina works steadily without complaint. They all pause to eat another biscuit, and then Nina works on his hands until the itch eases, the pinkness disappears. 

Jesper remembers to relay Kaz’s message about her tailoring kit as Nina brings the swelling down in his nose. 

She huffs. “That bastard. He knows I’m not a tailor, right?”

“You’re not a healer either,” Jesper points out, fully aware of the irony. 

“Hold still,” Nina instructs Wylan as he tries not to sneeze. He twitches at the healing; it tickles. “Do you know what he’s planning this time?”

“Kaz never tells me anything. I’m lucky to know there’s a plan at all. Ask Inej; she’s probably started her role in it already.”

Nina finishes repairing the superficial bruising around Wylan’s throat, his eye. “There,” she says finally, dropping her exhausted arms and standing. “It’s the best I can do for today. The rest should go away in a day or so. If you need anything else, save it for tomorrow. I’ll be in bed licking waffle crumbs off of Matthias’ chest.”

Jesper smiles, completely unfazed by her confession. “Enjoy your evening.”

“You know I will.”

Wylan thanks her one last time. With a knowing glance Nina winks at the pair of them and closes the door behind herself. 

Then they’re alone, sitting on Jesper’s bed side by side. Wylan scoots away from the edge and closer to the middle so that he can curl his legs beneath himself. 

“That’s Nina for you,” Jesper says fondly. 

“She’s very…” Wylan searches for the right description. Bold. Talented. Generous.  

“Confident,” Jesper finishes practically rolling his eyes. “She’ll flirt with anyone, any thing, but she’s head over heels for Helvar. Nina’s a good friend when you’re in a pinch. Or after you get out of one.”

“You know from experience?” Wylan asks wryly. 

“Hm, more than I care to admit,” Jesper confesses. “I’m in a very dangerous line of work, you know. Robbing the palace, dancing with an unfairly attractive man. Sneaking into the dead of night to meet him.”

Wylan rolls his eyes and pushes at Jesper’s arm playfully. Ducks his head. Though he likes it, Wylan doesn’t know what to do with Jesper’s compliments. 

One of Jesper’s long fingers finds his chin and tilts Wylan’s head up to look at him again. 

“Worth it,” he says, meeting Wylan’s pale blue eyes. His voice contains nothing but sincerity, a vulnerability that certainly exists, but he had yet to show. He believes it, and Wylan does too. Against all odds Jesper chose him and feels no regret. 

Leaning forward, he closes the gap between himself and Jesper for a kiss, tasting the honesty in the smile on his lips. Wylan feels safe and happy and never wants it to end. 

Callused warm hands cradle the sides of his face. Jesper’s touch is just as soft as Wylan remembers. Gentle. “Let me get a look at you, gorgeous,” Jesper murmurs, drawing back far enough to take in the sight of Wylan’s healed face. His thumb strokes Wylan’s cheek, like he’s precious. Someone worth wanting. 

“No one’s ever going to hurt you again,” Jesper promises. “I won’t let them.” 

Wylan’s heart lurches. He once believed in the fairy tales his mother read to him. Magical adventures and happy endings. It’s been years since he stopped thinking of them as real, just silly little fantasies. Pleasant thoughts and nothing more. Jesper makes Wylan believe in those stories again. Where kindness still exists, goodness prevails, and love pierces the loneliest hearts. Maybe like the characters once read to him, he too can struggle through the rain, endure the wind and the storms, and find happiness in the rainbow at the end. 

It’s a nice thought. 

“Not your father,” Jesper continues tenderly, “Or Van Eck, or anyone else in that house. I’ll never let them—”

Wylan pulls away from his hands in confusion. “What?” 

Jesper looks equally startled. “I said that I’ll never let them get near you again.”

“No, not that. What about my father, Van Eck?” Because if Wylan heard him correctly, he thought Jesper said—

“Neither of them will ever hurt you again.”

Oh. 

Oh no. 

The disappointment must show on his face because Jesper asks him what’s wrong. 

“Kaz didn’t tell you?” Without realizing it, Wylan withdraws, scooting farther to the edge of the bed. Jesper has no idea who he is. Wylan assumed that if Kaz knew that he was Van Eck’s son, then Jesper did too. Did they not talk? But Kaz kept his secret, even from Jesper, the one person who might have the right to know who he was getting involved with. 

Concerned, Jesper’s brow wrinkles. “Tell me about what?” 

Unease suddenly swirls in Wylan’s stomach. Jesper doesn’t know that Wylan’s father discarded him to the kitchen when he was a child. That he’s … not an idiot, but a failure. A disappointment. That Wylan can’t read, and it ruined his life. 

His tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth at the confession. He thought Jesper wanted him, flaws and all. Jesper didn’t care who Wylan’s father was or fact he had been disowned. He didn’t care if Wylan couldn’t read a book, much less a shopping list. 

Jesper defended Wylan against Kaz. He brought him here, somewhere clean, colorful, and safe. They kissed again and again and Jesper held Wylan close. But now Wylan realizes that Jesper did it all without knowing about Wylan. His heritage, faults, and defects on full display. 

Now he’s afraid to admit any of it. What if Jesper’s loving gaze morphs into disdain too?

But now Jesper’s waiting for him to say something, growing increasingly worried the longer Wylan remains silent. 

His secret is lodged so far down his throat that he’s never told anyone the full truth before. It’s been drilled into his head that no one can know. Kaz figured out Wylan’s identity on his own. He didn’t care that Wylan couldn’t read. So maybe, just maybe—he prays—Jesper won’t either. 

“Van Eck is my father,” he says hesitantly and braces. Waiting for the blow, the shame, and judgment.

But it doesn’t come. Jesper’s dark eyebrows twist in confusion. “Is that why Kaz wants to work with you? He’s planning to, what, blackmail your dad? Threaten to reveal his secret side son to the whole Merchant Council if he doesn’t pay up?”

The lump only grows in Wylan’s throat. He wishes it were that simple. Unable to look at Jeper any longer, Wylan’s eyes drop down to the light purple blanket he’s sitting on. He shakes his head. “No, I’m not—” a bastard. “He hates me. For years, he’s been telling everyone that I’m in Belendt. Studying. But I’m not, it’s a lie. I’ve been at home, in the kitchen the whole time. He’s waiting for everyone to forget about me,” Wylan confesses quietly. 

Maybe it wasn’t difficult to say after all. It still hurts though. 

Beneath his lashes Wylan can see Jesper’s face fall. “Why would he do that?

Wylan sets his jaw. He really doesn’t want to talk about this now or ever again. But if he’s already picking at this open wound, he might as well just rip the scab off entirely. It’s better that Jesper finds out now before his rejection pains Wylan even more. “I can’t—I’m not—the heir he wants. I can’t read, Jesper.”

Wylan risks looking at him. He’s watching Wylan, too, with wide sad eyes. 

“That’s not a good reason for him to hate you,” Jesper says quietly. Sensing that Wylan’s withdrawing, he reaches over and takes his hand, threading their fingers together. Keeping Wylan tethered. Grounded. “Normal parents don’t just get rid of their kids when they can’t do something, Wylan.”

Wylan huffs a bitter little laugh, but his words aren’t angry. “You think I don’t know?”

“I’m not entirely sure if you do, love,” Jesper says delicately. His thumb strokes soothingly over Wylan’s knuckles. “Sorry your dad’s a piece of shit. You deserve better than being raised by him.”

Rich men don’t raise their own children, but he doesn’t correct Jesper. Wylan grew up under the shadow of the housekeeper, an extension of his father’s cruelty, and he supposes that was just as awful. “Anything you read, you don’t have to do,” she explained as she handed him the daily list of chores. He doesn’t know if the lists were her idea or his father’s. It didn’t matter. Everyday he’d look at it dutifully, then shake his head in shame and ask her what it said. And she rolled her eyes before rattling off the list at lightning speed and shooing him out of the kitchen as if Wylan was nothing but a nuisance. An inconvenience even among the servants. 

Wylan’s lips twitch into a smile at the unexpectedness of Jesper’s empathy. Of course, perfect, kind Jesper never once treated him like an inconvenience. Even now knowing the full truth of his sorry existence, his illiteracy, there’s no scorn or impatience. Just kindness. Acceptance whether Wylan deserves it or not. 

He looks down at their hands, still interlocked. Jesper hasn’t let go of him yet. “I think you’re the only person to ever want me around since my mom,” Wylan admits softly. He tries to laugh, but it’s weak. Forced. 

Jesper squeezes Wylan’s hand, afraid he knows the answer before he even asks, “Is she gone?”

Nodding, Wylan bites the inside of his cheek and blinks back the water in the corner of his eyes that always forms when he thinks too long about losing his mother. 

Even though it was fifteen years ago, it still feels too raw. It always will. But for once, Wylan wants to share. 

“I was eight,” He starts slowly, gathering up the momentum to continue. Jesper listens patiently. “One day she was just … gone. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I don’t even know how she died. My father wouldn’t let me go to her funeral either. He said that he thought I would cause a scene.” Because Wylan was too young, he said, as if he couldn’t trust Wylan to behave. He shakes off the memory, only made worse for what came next. “A week later, my father sent me to the kitchen to work. He was so eager to get rid of me.”

Jesper raises Wylan’s hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. It’s unbelievably tender. Wylan smiles at him fondly. Eager to share something happier, he points to his pile of clothes on the floor. “My waistcoat—the one I wore to the masquerade—used to be one of her dresses. It’s the only thing that’s left of her.”

“No wonder it was so beautiful,” Jesper murmurs. “I bet she would have loved that you wore it.”

Yes, Wylan thinks that too. 

“I was seven when my Ma …” Jesper doesn’t need to finish his thought. Sadness clouds his eyes, and Wylan wants to hold him until it goes away even though he knows viscerally that it never will. 

Wylan understands all too well. 

For a moment, it looks like Jesper’s going to say more. The memories play across his face. He huffs. “Saints, my Da actually had a reason to get rid of me. I would have deserved it. I was a bloody terror after she died. Never stopped being one, to be honest,” he rambles. Twitchy, his hands jump between fiddling with the buttons on his jacket, a loose thread from the blanket, spinning the rings on his fingers, and emphasizing his point as he talks. “Look, Wylan. I’m still a mess. A real mess. You should know that. I’m not a good person, but I want to be good to you, and I don’t know if I can because I’m just—You deserve so much more. I’m deep in the red. Like, deep deep. I can’t keep away from the tables. And I can’t walk away from them either. If it wasn’t for—”

Wylan silences him with a kiss. Slow, but firm enough to quiet the insecurities pouring from Jesper’s anxious mouth. He doesn’t really know what else to do. Helping someone, comforting them isn’t a skill he’s learned. Wylan hopes that he conveys just how much Jesper means to him through the press of their lips. “I don’t care,” Wylan says when they part to breathe. “We’re both messes.”

“I’m such a fuck-up, you need to know that,” Jesper warns. “I’m not anyone’s first choice. Everything I do, no matter how hard I try, I just … fuck it up, ok? I was on lookout that night, at the palace. I couldn’t even keep you out of the garden.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Jesper laughs a little self-deprecatingly. “I think you’re the first person who wanted me too, to be honest. Plenty want my guns, face, or my body here in the Barrel, just for one night. But never me.” 

“I want you, Jesper,” Wylan says, and he believes it with his whole heart. He wants Jesper who is so good and kind even if he doubts it himself. Beautiful Jesper with his distractingly handsome mouth and his ability to treat Wylan like a person when everyone else gave up on him over a decade ago. 

Maybe they are the only people in all of Ketterdam to want and to be wanted by the other. But that’s enough. It’s certainly more than they ever had before. 

Wylan hugs Jesper. He never plans to let go, not unless Jesper asks him. He doesn’t know if this newfound connection between them will last, but he’s willing to try to make it. 

Inside Jesper’s cozy colorful room it’s easy to forget the rest of Ketterdam exists. The canals and rain-slick streets. The seedy pleasure houses, the bars, gambling parlors. Just a few streets over, Kaz must be cooking up a mysterious plan to destroy his father’s reputation and steal his fortune. Jan Van Eck must know by now that Wylan poisoned his keepers and fled. Vividly, Wylan imagines his rage, shouting through the halls, throwing whatever’s in reach as curses his unwanted son. Alys is safe from his anger, probably. But Wylan can’t guarantee the same for the rest of the household. Without Wylan, who will become the new target of his father’s wrath?

Here in the safety of these four walls, in Jesper’s arms, Wylan wants so badly to forget about all of them. But he can’t. He doesn’t know if he ever will. 

“I killed them,” Wylan whispers, finally voicing the fear plaguing the edge of his thoughts all afternoon. He knows it’s unlikely Prior and Miggson survived. Not when the poison touched their faces, their skin. “My father’s men who attacked me, I … I think I killed them.”

Jesper’s voice rumbles through his chest, “When you escaped?”

Wylan nods into his shoulder. His breath hitches.

Jesper asks no more questions. One day, another day, Wylan will tell him the whole story, but the guilt eats away at his skin like a corrosive acid. He killed Miggson and Prior. They deserved it—they didn’t, it must have been horrific—but he doesn’t regret poisoning them to get away. Shame tears away at whatever’s left beneath his skin. He’s so relieved they’re gone. 

“You’re not a bad person, Wylan,” Jesper’s low baritone murmurs as if he knows exactly what Wylan’s thinking. And maybe he understands. Jesper carries twin pistols on his hips. Surely here in the lawless Barrel he’s used them. 

“I don’t want anyone to die.”

This time, Jesper kisses him. Sweet and just a little bit sorrowful on both their behalfs. It’s a distraction, but Wylan appreciates his effort nonetheless. He clutches the fabric of Jesper’s shirt, desperate to keep him near. For the first time, he’s allowed to hold someone close. Hide in the security that someone else is there and he won’t be pushed away. 

Wylan knows that Jesper feels the same when he cups Wylan’s face between his hands like Wylan is precious, as valuable as anything stolen from the palace. Forever restless, Jesper’s hands never linger in one place for long. His lithe fingers thread through Wylan’s hair, down his shoulders, tracing along his arms until he presses their palms together and interlocks their fingers again. 

Black and white piano keys, Wylan thinks happily.

Their insecurities don’t disappear, but they fade. Held at bay by their blind faith in one another. 

When they part Wylan’s hands roam across Jesper’s broad shoulders. He enjoys every flex of muscle beneath his fingertips. Without a doubt, he’s the most handsome person Wylan has ever seen. He’s not wasting the opportunity to have Jesper as fully as he wants. 

Emboldened, he shifts to his knees and loops his arms around Jesper’s neck, and his fingers tangle in his dark curls. 

He practically crawls onto Jesper’s lap, but given the welcoming arms and searing kiss Wylan receives, Jesper is just as thrilled. It feels so natural. Wylan’s heart flutters. There’s an entire fortune promised to him, but all he wants is this. To be held and appreciated and to do the same back. To have a human connection that has nothing to do with being hit or ordered from room to room to clean. It’s so lovely. 

Jesper moans. He leans back into the pile of pillows, pulling Wylan fully on top of him, never breaking their kiss. They’re both hard. Wylan feels himself stir despite the constraint of his pants. The bulge in Jesper’s trousers presses deliciously against his hip, equally obvious in his desire. 

“What do you want, love? Tell me what you need.”

Flushed from the heat, from the proximity to Jesper, Wylan bites his lip. Hesitates. He knows exactly what he wants, what he craved ever since he and Jesper took each other in hand beneath the lilac tree. But … “Being fucked, does it, uh, hurt?” 

Everything Wylan learned about sex growing up made it seem violent, as if the brutality of fucking was merely an acceptable side effect for the spine tingling pleasure. Wylan wants, but the thought of experiencing more pain turns him away from the idea altogether. Surely, he shouldn’t crave something that hurts?

“It shouldn’t,” Jesper answers. “We just have to go slow and keep making sure it feels good. And it can feel really, really good. Is that what you want, love?”

More than anything. They have the time, the privacy to indulge. Wylan’s head swims with the fantasy of Jesper’s body surrounding him, in him, wanting him. The thought appeals to something deeply satisfying that he can’t entirely name. 

“Yes. I want you to fuck me,” Wylan says in the hair’s breath between their bodies. 

“Saints, you don’t know how hot that is,” Jesper’s gray eyes sparkle just as they had that first night beneath his mask in the ballroom. “Say it again.”

Wylan’s voice grows with confidence. “Fuck me, Jesper.”

Jesper groans, kisses him again. It’s a promise. “Anything. I’ll make you feel so good.”

That’s exactly what Wylan wants. He can’t make up for all of the joy that’s been robbed from him over the years, but sharing the night with Jesper is an excellent start. 

They unbutton their shirts in haste, only to get distracted by the smooth planes of skin beneath. If touching was good before with layers, it’s so much better without them. Jesper pushes the fabric from Wylan’s shoulders and nips at the crook of his neck, down along his newly revealed collarbone. It pulls breathy gasps from Wylan, distracting him from his own goal of palming at Jesper’s chest. Beneath Wylan’s greedy fingertips, he is warm. Strong. All lean, firm muscle. 

Reluctantly, they part to shuck off the last of their layers, and Wylan thinks he should feel vulnerable this naked in front of someone else, but for once, he finds excitement, not shame. 

Wylan crawls onto the bed again, and Jesper lays him out like a feast. Reverently, he runs his hands over Wylan’s chest, the softest ghost of a brush over the still-healing bruises across his middle, careful not to put pressure on them. 

Jesper can’t keep his hands to himself. They trail over Wylan’s hips, tracing the V of his pelvis, the inside of his thighs before squeezing. He cradles Wylan’s bent knees, then slides down the long line of his calves, finally resting on his ankles. 

Fuck, this is what it feels like to be wanted. To be touched and adored. 

Everything is sharper, clearer now, as if the world finally makes sense. Even among an entire room of bright rainbow hues, Jesper’s quicksilver eyes are the most beautiful color Wylan has ever seen. 

Jesper stares at him hungrily. Wylan imagines that the intensity of his own burning gaze is no different as he commits the sharp lines of Jesper’s body to memory. 

Laying one of the smaller towels on a pillow, Jesper urges Wylan to lift his hips and settle atop it. It props him at a comfortable angle. Then, Jesper rummages through his bedside before returning with a vial of oil that he shows to Wylan as he uncorks it. 

“Tell me if it’s too much; we can stop any time,” Jesper reminds him as he pours some over his hand. 

His dark fingers glisten in the soft golden lamplight. He salivates at the sight. Stopping is the very last thing on Wylan’s mind. 

“Touch me.”

Wylan shifts his thighs wider, and Jesper settles in the space between them. He waits in eager, tense anticipation. Jesper’s eyes never leave his face. Instead of breaching him immediately, Jesper lightly massages the oil into his skin, stroking the soft, sensitive area beneath his balls. 

Wylan gasps. 

“Good, yeah?” Jesper asks, enjoying the sight of Wylan’s wild red curls splayed against his pillow, the way his cock twitches already. Deliciously eager. “All you need to do is relax.”

Wylan doesn’t see how, not when even the smallest teasing touch—at the beginning, they’ve barely started—winds him up and sends his heart racing. 

Jesper continues to rub small circles, only to dip lower, just for a second, and press against his opening. It’s maddening in the best way. He does it again and again. 

The slow rhythm has Wylan yearning for more, more, more. And he wants it now. If Jesper doesn’t start fucking him, he’s going to flip them over and take matters into his own hands and ride Jesper until he no longer remembers his own name. 

Jesper seems to sense it too. He reaches for Wylan’s cock and tucks it into his palm and wraps his long fingers around the shaft. Wylan’s eyes flutter shut in relief. 

He doesn’t think the dual sensation can get any better, but then Jesper leans down and licks the flat of his tongue across the tip. A slow, deliberate stripe. Warm and wet and so fucking good. 

Wylan moans and throws his head back into the pillow. 

Jesper laps up a little bead of pre-cum, and his beautiful lips wrap around Wylan, licking and sucking at a steady, easy pace. Not enough to find release, but that’s not the goal right now. It’s so good. Wylan’s thoughts turn hazy with pleasure. The worry from before smooths away. All the tension in his body fades. Wylan melts into the mattress. Jesper’s finger continues to massage him, now rubbing firm little circles around the ring of muscle, pressing ever so gently against it as he sucks on the head of Wylan’s cock. 

Wylan hums in approval. 

Finally Jesper pushes inside. Just the tip of his finger. 

Odd, but not uncomfortable. Not unpleasant. Jesper continues the slow pace inching forward and back again. As promised, there’s no pain, just the pleasant stretch. He presses the pad of his finger firmly against his inner walls, repeating the motion steadily until the fire in his blood burns. 

Wylan can’t help himself any more. He rocks his hips into Jesper’s hand, shallow little thrusts without the proper leverage. His cock slides along Jesper’s talented tongue. A high, needy whine rises from Wylan’s throat. 

Suddenly, the need to touch Jesper overwhelms him. Wylan reaches out, sinking his fingers into Jesper’s hair, not sure if he wants to simply pull him closer, to beg for more, or thank him for the intense toe-curling sensations threatening to overwhelm his senses. 

“Jesper,” he pleads. 

Without losing the rhythm of his finger inside Wylan, Jesper pops off his cock, lips full, red, and slick. “All in good time. Need to stretch you first, Wylan.”

He likes that. Hearing his name in Jesper’s dark honey voice. He could get used to it. 

Jesper lowers his mouth to Wylan’s cock, and a second finger gently prods at his entrance. The stretch is twice as good. 

Wylan moans. His back arches. 

Jesper alternates between taking him deeper with his mouth and his fingers. Drunk on Wylan’s pleasure, his two fingers move a little firmer, a little faster. Pulling at his rim and scissoring inside him. 

Wylan gasps. It’s so good. He bites his bottom lip as his arousal floods his veins with liquid fire. Soon, Jesper adds a third finger and Wylan can’t help the sounds that slip from his lips. Aah aah Jesper … yes. Yes. Aah—

“That’s it.” Jesper encourages him. “Let me know how good you feel.”

He abandons Wylan’s cock in favor of focusing on fucking him, and Wylan is too distracted to care. The warmth in his groin grows. The familiar building pressure tightening all the muscles in his body like a coiling spring about to burst. Wylan tenses. 

“Jesper,” he warns. And Jesper must sense the desperation in his voice. He pulls out completely. 

Wylan can’t help but clench his teeth and groan at the loss of it all. 

Breathing heavily, he meets Jesper’s gray eyes blown wide with lust, though he imagines his look the exact same. Jesper cleans his hand by wiping it on the towel beneath Wylan. Carefully, he takes Wylan’s hands in his, untangling Wylan’s fingers from his hair. Jesper’s thumbs caress the sensitive skin of his wrist, and Wylan shudders at the gentleness of it.

Then Jesper surges forward, crawling over Wylan for a searing kiss. 

“Saints, you don’t know how beautiful you are,” Jesper murmurs against his mouth. When they part, the heat in his blood has faded, but left is the desire that smolders like red hot embers. Wylan snakes his hand between their bodies, finding Jesper’s gorgeous cock. Despite not having been touched yet, he’s as hard as Wylan. Just as eager. 

This time, Jesper moans into his mouth. It’s thrilling. Wylan takes satisfaction in knowing that he’s the one pulling those delectable sounds from Jesper. A musician playing all of the right notes to create a symphony meant for his ears alone. 

Jesper’s eyes flutter shut, and he wraps his hand over Wylan’s, slowing the pace before either of them lose themselves to the moment. It would be so easy to chase their release. 

“Want you so much, Wy. Want to be in you. Are you ready for me?” Jesper asks, as impatient as Wylan feels. 

He picks up the oil again and settles back between Wylan’s legs to slick himself up. Wylan watches hungrily, committing the image to memory as Jesper expertly strokes himself. Long smooth motions, wrist curling just right as he reaches the head. He applies more than is probably necessary, making a show of it. 

But then he’s encouraging Wylan to spread his thighs wider, tilt his pelvis. Finally, Jesper lines himself up and nudges against Wylan before guiding himself inside. 

They take it slow, letting Jesper inside him little by little. Pausing more often than pushing forward. 

It’s a lot. Not bad, just different. Intense. Fuller. Thicker. Better. Overwhelmed, Wylan bites his lips and clutches the muscle of Jesper’s shoulders. 

“Still good?” Jesper asks, voice tight, holding himself back from pushing in farther, which is equally maddening as it is appreciated. 

It’s taking all of their willpower not to rush. They probably could, though—

“Keep going,” Wylan urges. If Jesper stops one more time, he’s going to lose his mind. 

Jesper does, sliding out, then back in just enough to make Wylan’s breath hitch, to feel the warmth curling low and heavy beneath his navel once again. 

The pleasure ignites something deep inside him, and his legs turn to jelly. It’s everything he wanted. To feel connected. Warm, wanted. And so fucking good. Wylan shifts his hips and rocks up to meet each thrust. 

“More,” Wylan pleads. He needs—he needs—

Jesper listens. He pulls his cock out nearly all the way, only to push back in steadily, driving Wylan insane. Quickly, they find a rhythm. Fucking is like dancing. There are fewer steps, but once again, Jesper leads and Wylan follows, just as they had that fateful night at the masquerade. All Wylan needs to do is trust himself, trust Jesper—and he does wholeheartedly. The metronome of his rapid heart keeps time. There’s no orchestra, just the percussion of their punchy little breaths, guttural moans, the creaking of the bed, and the slap and slide of skin on skin crescendoing as their bodies move in tandem. 

Suddenly, it’s not enough to hold onto Jesper’s arms, his shoulders. The familiar heat travels down Wylan’s spine and sits low under his belly. He needs to hold him even closer, as if having him on top of Wylan, inside him, isn’t close enough. He understands Jesper’s actions earlier. He needs to touch every part of him all at once. So Wylan does, desperate to lose himself until he doesn’t know where he begins and Jesper ends. 

“I’m—” he warns incoherently. “Jesper!”

But that’s enough. Jesper wraps his hand around Wylan’s cock and begins to pump. 

“Come for me,” he instructs. 

Wylan does. He squeezes his eyes shut, lets his jaw fall open and rides wave after wave of searing pleasure. Hot and sticky, he spills between them onto his own stomach. Jesper moans at the sight. His thrusts speed up, then turn erratic, losing his rhythm until he buries himself to the hilt and tips over the edge himself. 

They both pause, breathing heavily into the quiet bedroom around them, as they come back down. Jesper leans forward to catch Wylan’s lips for one last kiss. It’s slower now with the heat in their blood satisfied. 

“That was …” Jesper begins, smiles as the thought floats away from him. 

Wylan understands. “Yeah,” he agrees, then laughs softly with the joy of it all. His limbs feel pleasantly heavy, his thoughts warm and syrupy thick by the time Jesper pulls out. Wylan hums, protesting the loss. 

“I’m right here,” Jesper reasures him. “Need to clean up.”

They really don’t, as far as Wylan is concerned. They could lie down side by side and not move until the next sunset. But it’s not his bed, so Wylan lazily accepts a washcloth and cleans the oil, sweat, and semen from his skin before tossing it to the floor along with the pillow he lay on and the towel covering it. Tomorrow, he’ll wash everything.

For now, the mattress dips as Jesper sits on the bed again. Wylan scoots from the center over to the right side to give him enough room to stretch out. Jesper, he has a hunch, is the type of person that will gladly take up as much space as possible. 

Wylan yawns, and he kicks the blanket down the bed, still too hot for the extra layer, and pulls the sheet over his flushed skin. He pulls one of the many plush pillows beneath his head. Comfortable, Wylan’s eyes close immediately. 

“What, no pillow talk?” Jesper teases softly, brushing Wylan’s sweaty hair from his forehead. Wylan hums under the touch. “Give me an hour, and we can go for another round.” 

He’s joking, Wylan’s fairly sure. He cracks a bleary eye open before deciding it’s not worth the effort. “Goodnight, Jesper.”

He’s not awake enough to hear Jesper’s response. 

Soon enough, Jesper joins him in slumber. It’s not clear who reaches for who in the middle of the night. But by the time Wylan wakes with the sunrise shining through the lace curtain, they are holding onto one another in a tangle of limbs. 

It’s the most restful sleep Wylan ever remembers.

Chapter Text

For the first time in his life, Wylan is dressed like a true mercher heir. He finishes buttoning a black woolen waistcoat before smoothing the expensive fabric in disbelief. Then Wylan adjusts the cuffs of the starched white shirt underneath, trying to pull them down over his wrists out of habit more than necessity. The ruby-red laurel wreath cufflinks glint in the lamplight—the first of his inheritance, Kaz assured him with a smirk as he dropped them into Wylan’s palm yesterday. Wylan straightens them and pretends he’s not nearly as anxious as his pounding heart suggests. 

He has no idea where Kaz acquired him a fully fitted suit, but Jesper reassured Wylan that half of the Staves were under the Bastard of the Barrel’s thumb and the other half owed him a favor. It only made Wylan sweat more. Soon enough, his name would be added to one of those lists, and he wasn’t entirely sure which one. 

The black mercher fabric is stiff under his fingertips. Quality material with polished metallic black buttons. He’d know. His father wears wool suits just like it, and Wylan spent most of his life laundering them. 

Wylan tries not to wonder if Kaz already owned a suit worthy of being worn by a son of the Merchant Council or if he bought it specifically for Wylan’s role in this heist. Both options horrify him equally. 

“You look incredible,” Jesper says, catching Wylan’s attention as he steps behind him. Jesper loops his arms around Wylan’s waist and leans forward to rest his chin on Wylan’s shoulder affectionately. 

Wylan glances up toward the mirror hung at eye level—Jesper’s eye level—above the washstand. He meets Jesper’s reflected gaze. 

“I don’t recognize myself.”

Jesper stands to his full height. “That’s the tailoring,” he reassures him. 

And it is, partly. Wylan stares at his own unfamiliar reflection. Nina only superficially changed his hair and eye color. It’s still his face, but now his eyes are brown. Brown. Specifically the color of dark coffee beans, because he watched her root through the kitchen cabinets, take them, then wink at him. Coffee’s not a bad color, at least. It’s warm and rich. Jesper likes it, and that’s all that matters. Coffee is certainly more romantic-sounding than the brown of the wooden lacquer she used on his hair. Wylan’s pretty sure, and mildly offended, that the color Nina used came from one of the broken stools fished out of the alley behind the Crow Club. 

“I’m not a tailor,” Nina reminded Wylan when she altered his appearance yesterday in the first step of Kaz’s new plan. “Going darker is easier, unless you want me to bleach your hair—”

“No,” Wylan answered a little too quickly. “Brown is fine.”

It’s … different, Wylan concludes, studying himself in the mirror, but he supposes everything is supposed to be different now. He’s no exception. 

He resists the urge to touch his hair again. For the first time in his life, it’s laying flat, straight, and neatly combed. Last night, both he and Jesper ran their hands through it so many times that it stuck out at every odd angle. It was actually messier before they had sex. Though looking back on it, Wylan’s sure that his wild new hair certainly inspired Jesper to pin him to the mattress until the rest of him was equally debauched. So he really can’t complain. 

Jesper’s hands settle distractingly on Wylan’s hips, at least for a moment. “As handsome as you look in this getup, I can’t wait to get you out of it. How many beds does the mansion have again?”

“Seven.” Four for the main family and three guest rooms. There’s also twelve staff beds, but Wylan doubts Jesper has any interest in those. The idea of borrowing Sannes and Diggory’s bed makes his skin crawl. 

Jesper’s lips begin tracing a line on his neck between his shoulder and ear, pausing only to kiss the sensitive skin. Wylan hums appreciatively and tilts his head to the side to give him more space. 

“We’re going to need all of them.” Jesper’s eyes suddenly light up with excitement. “I’ve never slept with a mercher before.”

“You woke up next to me this morning.”

“Mmm, so I did,” Jesper concedes happily. “So I did.”

Wylan turns away from the mirror to face him properly. Unlike Wylan, Jesper wears a colorful suit exploding with yellow, green, and orange Zemeni patterns. Authentically made, Jesper explained enthusiastically, not the cheap Kerch print that plagues Ketterdam’s looms.

It’s hardly different from the vibrancy of his usual Barrel fashion, and while Wylan wouldn’t ever chose to wear something so loud, he loves that Jesper dons the most colorful, often garish combinations of Barrel flash simply because they remind him of the bold, bright designs of his home. Besides, Jesper looks stunning in the sharp cut of the suit. If Wylan weren’t so anxious, he’d eagerly rip it off Jesper as well. With his teeth. 

“I have something for you,” Jesper says quietly. His voice is absent its usual confidence and bravado, which means whatever he has is important to him. 

Curious, Wylan cocks his head. 

Jesper strides across the room, stops at the dresser, and opens the top drawer. He takes something out, though Wylan can’t see what until he turns around. In two quick steps, Jesper’s before him again, carefully holding his waistcoat. The one that Wylan wore at the masquerade the night they met. And the same one that he brought with him the day he escaped, running from his father’s estate straight to Jesper. 

Wylan’s jaw drops when he unfolds it. Clean and unstained. Undamaged. Not a single drop of blood or bile sullies the delicate fabric anymore. Shockingly, the splashes of bleach are gone too. Wylan knows they were there. He traced the trail of damage where the wet handkerchief dripped the cleaning chemical down the front of the waistcoat, permanently destroying the blue dye. But there’s no sign of any of it now. Not even a scar. 

Wylan touches the front of the waistcoat, eyes wide with disbelief. “How did you—”

Nothing can remove bleach. One accident years ago was enough to learn that lesson the hard way. Luckily, it only affected one of the maids’ dresses, but her sharp tongue ensured that he never made the mistake again. 

“I know someone, a Durast.” Jesper fidgets, rubs the back of his neck nervously. “He’s not very good, but uh, good enough to get the stains out and fix the color.”

The waistcoat shines brand new, brighter than before. In the light of a sunbeam, it sparkles like a thousand shimmering stars. Wylan’s heart swells, and he’s suddenly overcome with emotion. 

“Oh, Jesper,” he says breathlessly as all other words escape him. He blinks back the tears at the corners of his eyes and hugs the waistcoat to his chest. “Thank you.”

Wylan knows that he fixed it. 

Jesper isn’t as subtle as he thinks about his fabrikator abilities when the evidence lies scattered all across his room. Bent coins and folded bullet casings litter every flat surface. In the short time he’s been here, Wylan’s found rough attempts at homemade lock picks. Even a misshapen coat hook. 

For whatever reason, Jesper keeps his Grisha talents secret. Wylan’s not sure why. Is he scared of being captured and forced into an indenture contract like most of the Grisha in Ketterdam? Or shipped to Ravka to fight their never-ending wars? He can’t imagine brave, bold, beautiful Jesper with his pearl-handled pistols is scared of anything. And yet …

He hasn’t mentioned it to Wylan once. But that’s okay. There are plenty of topics Wylan would rather not address either. So he says nothing, waiting until Jesper is ready to share that part of himself. 

“It’s not perfect,” Jesper says quickly. “The only way to fix the bleach stain was to take the same blue dye from somewhere else in the waistcoat, so, um, the inside layer isn’t as pretty anymore. It’s not ruined like the front was, but the color is lighter, weaker because it’s spread thinner to cover the stains.” 

“It’s perfect,” Wylan reassures him. Because it is. He steps forward and wraps his arms around Jesper in gratitude. Wylan lays his head against his shoulder. Jesper managed to save the most precious thing he owns, the only thing he owns. He didn’t even know that was possible. Now, every time he looks at it, Wylan will think of his mother, and Jesper too. He wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“How do you feel?” Jesper asks. Wylan knows he’s no longer talking about the waistcoat. He lifts himself off of Jesper’s shoulder. 

“Terrified,” Wylan states honestly. And he is, beneath the wool facade. The weight of his father’s cufflinks feels more like handcuffs. He’s not sure anyone will believe he’s an heir to a merchant empire. Stadwatch officers will take one look at him, know he’s a fraud, strip him of the suit, and laugh him back into the kitchen. 

Jesper takes Wylan’s free hand. “I’ll be with you the whole time. You don’t have to face your father alone. You can do this, I know you can.”

Wylan nods, knowing he’s right. He can do it. With Jesper’s help, he memorized copies of all the forgeries Kaz prepared. It nearly made Wylan ill to ask, but Jesper read him the documents without hesitation until he could easily recite all the details of the life he should be living. No one has read to Wylan in years. But Jesper did enthusiastically, happily, interjecting his own thoughts between sentences. Stopping, starting, and rereading again when asked. He made it seem so easy. There’s an anger, a sadness thick in Wylan’s throat like sludge at the realization maybe it had never been that inconvenient to read to him. His father, his tutors, and the housekeepers just chose not to help him. 

They practiced turning Wylan into a mercher. “It’s all about confidence. Take up space. Treat everyone like the world owes you for existing,” Nina instructed while she taught him how to act, how to sit, and walk as if he grew up with gold coins jingling in his pockets. “And stand up straight. Men with money don’t hunch over.”

Today, Wylan doesn’t need to believe himself a mercher, he just needs everyone else to believe it long enough to get his father arrested. 

“It’s time,” Jesper says. He squeezes Wylan’s hand. Wylan knows he has to do this—Kaz and Jesper are counting on him—but he needs to do it for himself more. It’s his one chance to stand in front of his father and prove he won’t be cowed. That he won’t live in Jan Van Eck’s shadow or scurry unseen to hide in his house anymore. 

Still, there’s a small part of Wylan that wishes he and Jesper never had to leave the safety of Jesper’s bedroom in the Slat. They could just stay here forever instead. But that would be no different than hiding between the walls of the mansion. Wylan’s done hiding. He wants to live. To experience all the joy, music, and color the world has to offer. 

Wylan meets his beautiful gray eyes and smiles. “Let’s go steal my father’s money.”

Jesper’s grin is dazzling. “That’s the spirit, love.” 

Downstairs, Kaz appraises their appearances and nods, finding both acceptable. Strangely, he’s not wearing his usual black greatcoat, nor the black pants and waistcoat reminiscent of mercher’s attire. It’s … disconcerting. The no nonsense club owner Wylan’s come to know is dressed in an ordinary, harmless layman’s brown coat. 

Jesper warned Wylan that Kaz loved costumes and playing a role nearly as much as him. Wylan raised a skeptical eyebrow at the time, but now he wonders if he joined a Barrel gang or a theater troupe. 

“Your father has men searching the city for you. He’s put a bounty out for a beaten redheaded runaway serving boy. It seems like he’s not content letting you go.”

Wylan doubts there’s any reason his father would ever let him escape.

Still, he takes pride in the fact that he is no longer the person his father is looking for. Wylan is clean, whole, uninjured, and dressed to impersonate the top tier of society. 

“He’s doing it quietly, of course,” Kaz continues. How he knows all of this, Wylan’s unsure. But Jesper told him that Inej—the spy—has hardly had a spare second to sleep in her own bed, much less officially meet Wylan. “The stadwatch haven’t been involved yet, which means he’s covering up the deaths of his men. Van Eck isn’t eager to call attention to either of you right now. We’ll make that work in our favor.”

“He hates drawing unwanted attention,” Wylan agrees, grimacing. That’s why his father hid him, to avoid shaming the family legacy.

Kaz pulls out a pocket watch and checks the time. “You know what to do. The stadwatch should be arriving soon. Let’s go.”

Jesper and Wylan climb into a carriage waiting nearby. It’s simple, black, and nondescript. Perfect for their supposed travel from Belendt. Two suitcases sit inside, and Wylan wonders how far Kaz’s dedication to their charade extends. He doesn’t open them to find out. 

Kaz hands Jesper his cane to store for later, then climbs into the driver’s seat. With a snap of the reins, the carriage lurches forward. Wylan’s stomach somersaults with the motion. 

He’s really doing this. 

Nerves claw at Wylan’s insides like a wild beast as the narrow city streets open into wide country roads. As if sensing his discomfort, Jesper threads their fingers together and squeezes lightly. 

“What’s the first thing you’re going to do?”

“Hmm?” Wylan asks, snapping his attention from the maple trees along the lane dappling the road in sunlight. Sometimes Jesper says things without context, forgetting that Wylan doesn’t know the trail of thought that led him to speak. 

Wylan’s unsure if this is the case again or he was too distracted in his own swirling mind. 

Jesper nudges his side playfully. “You’re about to be loaded. Filthy rich. What’s the first thing you’re going to do?”

“Oh,” Wylan says blankly. He hadn’t actually thought about that part yet. It seemed so impossibly far away, so unreal. “I don’t know.”

He’s never had money before. That’s not true, Wylan thinks, remembering when he used to carry pocket change around for sweets as a little boy every time his father took him to the Exchange. But that was a lifetime ago. And if he had known what was coming, that he’d never own another coin again, he would have hoarded it responsibly instead of spending it all childishly on penny candies. 

Wylan thinks of all the things he wants. A new coat, mainly. A warm one to protect against the rain and Ketterdam’s harsh slushy winters. New shoes too. Proper boots and a thicker quilt. But he’s allowed to think bigger now. Daydream about frivolous things, like velvet pillows and art supplies. Fancy ink pens and sketchbooks, just like he used to own. Any instrument he wants to play. 

The answer spills from his lips before the idea fully forms. “I think I’d like to replace my flute.”

“What happened to—oh,” Jesper says as his mind catches up with his question. 

Wylan nods. The fact that he was allowed to keep his flute as long as he had was impressive. Unfortunately, no amount of money will ever repair the instrument, even if he did have all of the pieces. Still, it would be nice to get a new one. He could finally learn how to play a silver concert flute. Better late than never…

“We’ll get you the shiniest flute in Ketterdam.”

Wylan smiles and squeezes Jesper’s hand back. “I’d like that.”

When they arrive, the estate’s front gate is thrown wide for three stadwatch wagons. Lined up along the circular lane in front of the mansion, the unadorned paddy wagons stick out sorely among the artfully crafted landscape. Too dark and plain beside the bright yellow daffodils, clipped hedges, and decorative stonework statues framing the entrance to the house. Kaz skillfully directs their carriage beside the stadwatch wagons in the narrow path in front of the door, as close as reasonably possible. 

This is it. Wylan takes a deep steadying breath and lets go of Jesper’s hand as two of the officers stationed outside the grand doors approach. 

“This is the fun part,” he remembers Jesper saying with a half-smirk the other day. “It’s just a little bit of light roleplay.”  

Wylan doesn’t understand what’s so fun about soaking his undershirt in sweat while he lies through his teeth. 

Undeniably, Jesper loves the thrill of the heist, the excitement of running a con. He’s insane. 

Wylan throws open the carriage door, feigning confidence. “What is going on?” he demands, biting back the embarrassment threatening to take over. He will not turn pink over this. True merchers don’t flush with mortification. “What’s happening here?”

“This is private business, sir. You’re going to have to leave—”

“This is my father’s house. I will not go anywhere,” Wylan says with just the right level of contempt, climbing down from the carriage and straightening his suit. 

Very quickly, Wylan realized in the early stages of their plan that he’s been on the receiving end of many commands—he knows what they sound like—he’s just never given them before. So they practiced. Nina and Jesper spent all day prodding him to boss them around until it almost became second nature. Jesper kissed him silly that evening, murmuring how attractive Wylan was when he ordered him around. Nina must have shown herself out that night. Too busy thinking of ways to use this new knowledge to his advantage, Wylan doesn’t really remember her leaving. 

“There is an ongoing investigation,” the officer responds diplomatically. “If you would please wait—”

“I will not!” Wylan says, offended. “We have traveled a full day to be here. If my father is in trouble with the law, I have a right to know. I knew we should have come back sooner,” Wylan tells Jesper for the benefit of the officer. “His actions have been growing more and more erratic.”

“It’s not your fault, darling,” Jesper says supportively. “You’ve been busy.”

Wylan turns back to the stadwatch officer expectantly. “Where is the warrant? What are the charges?”

The man he’s speaking to ranks too low to have that information, Wylan knows. But he can take them to someone who does. With a quick glance between them, noting the tailoring of their suits and the prominent shade of Wylan’s mercher black, the man urges them both to follow him inside. 

Wylan has spent far more time opening the front door than walking through it, but he swallows down his unease and strides inside like he was born to walk across the tiled hall instead of scrubbing it. 

He was, he reminds himself. He can do this. He can. 

Except his heart races walking inside these wide stuffy halls again. He feels the leash that once bound him threatening to tug him back to the servants’ hallway, the kitchen. Wylan clenches his teeth and resists it. Step after stubborn step, he reclaims ground between the very walls that tried to hide him in shame.

His skin itches at the sheer amount of people swarming the house, but Wylan forces himself to ignore it. He’s never seen it so full before. Even before his mother’s death, his servitude, Wylan’s father kept all visitors as far away as possible. 

Stadwatch infests the house like ants. They cross through the hallways in a chaotic flurry. Some coming, some going in a parade of bureaucratic formalities to report to one of the senior officers, a captain with more mustache than upper lip, before being sent in a new direction through the numerous rooms of the house. 

The stadwatch exists to enforce the status quo, Kaz said with disdain when they initially went through the details of his plan. Highly corrupt, they serve the men who make the law, not the laws themselves. He assured Wylan that none of them cared about the skeletons in Van Eck’s numerous closets unless he upset someone who paid better. 

And there’s only one family with more power, more authority, more status than a member of the Merchant Council. 

“What is the meaning of this? Who are they?” the captain barks sharply.

The grunt escorting them inside salutes him. “Sir, he says that he’s Van Eck’s son. He wants to know the charges.”

The leading officer turns his full scrutiny on Wylan. “I wasn’t aware that Jan Van Eck had a son.” 

It stings. His father tried so hard to erase Wylan from everyone’s memory, and he nearly succeeded. 

“Then you weren’t aware that I traveled all the way from Belendt to be here,” Wylan says smoothly. This man doesn’t scare him. He can act as gruff and intimidating as he wants. Wylan knows what real threats look like, and this man posturing with his ugly mustache isn’t one. “What is the reason for this?”

Just as he opens his mouth to answer, a shout echoes from the second floor. Every purple-uniformed head in the vicinity turns, following the sound. Most of the stadwatch in sight race up the carpeted staircase. 

Just like Kaz predicted. 

He must be smiling from his roost on the carriage, if he hasn’t snuck away yet to watch the officers comb the mansion from the shadows. Wylan can only imagine the wicked, scarred grin stretching across his face right now. 

The stadwatch were only competent at someone else’s expense, Kaz remarked dryly, and for once it could work in their favor. During the break-in, he placed several of the stolen items in easily found locations. Not even the stadwatch would miss them, Kaz reassured him. The rest, he guaranteed, would be discovered when they thoroughly searched the estate. 

“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!”

It takes everything in Wylan not to flinch. Cold terror begins to flood his veins on instinct. He’s far too familiar with his father’s voice, the cutting sharpness of his tone that carries down the landing and through the whole house. Jesper must sense his fear. He casually puts his hand on Wylan’s lower back, a reminder that he’s no longer alone. 

Two stadwatch officers march downstairs. A woman hands the captain the tiniest porcelain box Wylan has ever seen. One of the palace’s missing snuff boxes. Plump little children beside dogs and expensive toys painted in fine detail cover each side. The man cracks the lid open, peers at the tobacco grounds inside, then closes it before giving the fragile box back to the woman for safekeeping. 

“As of right now, the charge against your father is theft and treason. Were you in attendance at the masquerade too?”

“No, I was in Belendt,” Wylan lies. “I wrote to Father, but he told me not to return for the party.”

“And you can prove it?”

Wylan can’t, but he has no doubt that Kaz has the falsified letters and three fake witnesses at his beck and call. He nods. 

“Of course, he was with me at the university,” Jesper agrees. 

The snuff box disappears, and the mustached stadwatch captain waves several more men and women to follow him up the carpeted stairs to his father’s office. He’s unbothered that Jesper and Wylan accompany them. 

Wylan has never entered the office without permission, nor has he ever wanted to go inside even when it was granted. Too many times he stood in front of his father’s grand desk, staring down at the carved laurel wreath of his family’s crest, humiliated and shamed. The memory of being shoved through the office door by his nanny at eight years old flashes intrusively through his thoughts. The beginning of the end …

Wylan enters and fights a lifetime of experience telling him to shrink back, to not draw attention to himself. 

His father stands behind his desk, far less composed than the last time Wylan saw him. He’s seething. His usual calm composure gone, traded for clenched fists and the tight line of his jaw while he grinds his teeth with rage. Unable to pace properly, he moves in short sharp steps, then pivots, unable to release his full anger on anyone in the room the way Wylan knows he wants to do. 

“This is an invasion of property,” Jan Van Eck spits, staring at the door to his private safe in the wall. The portrait that usually keeps it hidden must have been removed by the stadwatch in their initial search of the office. It rests on the floor beneath the safe. “Do you know who I am? I sit on the Merchant Council. Get your men out of my house now.”

To Wylan’s surprise, Alys sits stiffly in his father’s leather desk chair, paler than any day caused by her pregnancy thus far. Her hands lay folded delicately across her flat stomach. Worried, she glances between her husband and the stadwatch captain. Rufus must be locked away somewhere, judging by the faint yet frantic barking. Her new handmaid is nowhere in sight either, probably dismissed amid the brewing conflict. 

The captain shakes his head, mustache twitching. “It doesn’t look good for you, Van Eck. My officers found two of the missing items from the palace. Do you want to confess to robbing the palace the night of the masquerade?”

“Of course not! This is insanity. I’m being framed!”

“By who?” the stadwatch captain asks, unamused. “By your own admission, the door to your private office remains locked at all times, and you hold the key. Not even your staff have access to the room. All evidence of theft points to you. I’m placing you under arrest and charging you with the palace robbery.”

The captain turned his gaze toward Alys as she shrinks herself into the large chair, nervously watching the men in the room. “Now, it’s only a question of whether we also arrest Lady Van Eck. Did you accompany your husband to the palace the night of the masquerade? Do you have any knowledge of your husband’s criminal actions?”

Alys’ lip trembles. She looks like a child in the middle of a scolding, just a little girl ready to burst into tears. Wylan feels sorry for her. Alys doesn’t deserve this. 

But neither did he. 

“Ghezen’s Hand, you know she’s innocent,” Van Eck snaps. “And she’s with child. If any harm comes to my heir due to the stress—”

“Yes, yes,” the captain says dismissively, waving away the concern. “Save us the speech. Until any of the evidence suggests she aided in the robbery, she is allowed to remain here comfortably. Now, if you’ll come with us, Van Eck.”

The captain nods to his officers. Two of them surround Jan Van Eck, and one takes a pair of thick handcuffs from his uniform. 

Insulted, he yanks out of their grasp as if the law has never applied to him. Wylan wonders if it ever had before today. 

“Unhand me, you barbarians! I sit on the Council, for Ghezen’s sake. I will not be degraded like this in my own home. When the other members of the Council—”

“The authority of the crown supersedes that of the Merchant Council,” the mustached captain says with a voice of steel. “And the stadwatch are under direct orders from the king to follow any lead to catch the thief responsible for the robbery that occurred the night of the masquerade. A tip from a reliable source inside this very house brought us here. We found one of the stolen items in your library, Van Eck, and another in your personal office, and I’m sure we’ll find more as we keep searching. Now, you can walk out the door with dignity or my men will drag you out. Either way, you will come with us.”

For the first time, Wylan finds his opportunity to interject himself into the conversation. 

This is it. Now or never. Playing the part that’s required of him. 

“I’ll take care of everything, Father,” Wylan says, drawing the attention of every eye in the room. “Alys is safe here. I’ll contact your lawyer and handle it all; you don’t have to worry.”

For the first time since Wylan entered the office, Jan Van Eck takes notice of him. He stares in confusion, unable to comprehend why the brunette young man with coffee-colored eyes referred to him as father. Their gazes meet, and Wylan sees the exact moment recognition dawns. His father’s eyes widen ever so slightly in shock, in horror that Wylan—his useless, illiterate runaway son who should be beaten blue and purple—is in the room uninjured and respectably dressed in mercher black. 

Then Jan Van Eck’s eyes narrow dangerously, two thin icy blue slits as cold and unforgiving as Fjerda’s frozen tundra. His mouth twists into an ugly, vicious snarl. 

Make him mad, Kaz instructed. Easy, Wylan can do that. His mere existence fuels his father’s rage. All he needs to do is stand in his father’s sight. He will be volatile by the time you arrive. Push him so far that he becomes unstable. 

That’s even easier. All Wylan needs to do is be successful, be happy. Live a life full of the music he hears in his head and the color that inspires him. There’s no doubt he’s thriving while wearing the trimmed black suit of the merchant class and side by side with a man that loves him. 

Van Eck looks murderous. 

“You,” his father spits with disgust. He’s about to say more, but he’s had years to speak his mind, and Wylan no longer has any interest in hearing his hateful words. 

Though his stomach swoops nervously, Wylan looks him straight in the eye and his lips quirk into the smallest hint of a satisfied smile. “Who else did you expect, Father, the serving boy?” 

Usually when Jan Van Eck speaks to him, he grimaces and wrinkles his nose, treating Wylan like a particularly disgusting bug that crawled into the house despite everyone’s best efforts to keep it out. His father remains calm and aloof while he delivers scathing insults. 

Not this time. He lunges. 

It’s so unexpected that the stadwatch officers at his father’s side do nothing to stop him. Wylan gasps, expecting to be grabbed by the lapels of his suit and shaken like an overdressed doll. 

It happens so fast. Suddenly, Jesper’s in front of him. A shield. A barrier between Wylan and Jan Van Eck. Tall and strong as any wall, Jesper holds his father back. Wylan didn’t even see him move. 

His father struggles against Jesper, attempting to shove his way past the Zemeni man to wring Wylan’s neck. But Jesper’s not as dandy and useless as his ruse today suggests. He’s Barrel tough. Unafraid to get his hands dirty and jump headfirst into a fight, especially to protect someone he loves. 

“Don’t patronize me, you little idiot! What are you doing here? I didn’t give you permission to come back. Do you think you can put on another costume and trick them, you stupid fool!”

The stadwatch officers finally pull their wits together. They jump forward and drag Van Eck back, off of Jesper and away from Wylan. His father’s usual pale face burns red. He breathes heavily, huffing with exertion. Blonde hair falls askew from the oiled, neatly combed style he wears. The officers manage to tighten a pair of metal handcuffs around his father’s wrists before he even gets a chance to push it back into place and straighten his clothes. 

For once, Wylan isn’t afraid of his father’s anger. He watches the man he was once scared of like he’s a new species of animal, an unstudied mystery slowly revealing itself. Wylan observes him with fascination. He’s never seen his father so disheveled before. So unkept and informal. It’s the furthest thing from the man he’s grown to fear that Wylan wonders if he’s the same person at all. 

Jan Van Eck glares at his son. The smoldering hatred that’s always been there now dangerously aflame for all to see. 

“Control yourself, Van Eck,” the stadwatch captain warns. “Your behavior is disgraceful and unbecoming.”

Jan Van Eck sneers. “Disgraceful? Disgraceful? This entire farce is disgraceful. You’re accusing a respected Council member of acting like a common criminal.” Attempting to keep the thinnest veneer of civility, he rounds on Wylan again. “What have you done? You’re not clever enough to set up this charade yourself. Who are you working with?”

Wylan swallows the lump in his throat and tries not to look as anxious as he feels. Instead of addressing his father, Wylan looks to Jesper, then the stadwatch, confusion and concern clear in his dark eyes before he speaks to his father. “I don’t understand; this isn’t like you at all. Are you alright? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“Don’t act dumb! You were there at the palace that night! I saw you! For all we know, you could have stolen it all and hidden it in my home.”

“What are you talking about?” Alys asks her husband in confusion. “Wylan wasn’t there. I asked you if he should join us for the ball, but you told me he was too busy with school.”

“Yes, what are you talking about?” Wylan speaks slowly, the same drawn-out tone so often spoken to him by anyone that believed he was as stupid as Jan Van Eck claimed. His voice carries a newfound worry for his father’s state of mind despite the very true allegations. “You know I was in Belendt during the masquerade. That’s where I live. Why would I have been here, Father?” 

Under Wylan’s false concern, there’s a challenge, and he knows his father hears it. 

Tell them, Wylan dares. Go on, tell them how you lied to them. Tell them what you did to me.

Van Eck seethes, face twisting, turning an alarming shade of scarlet until the vein across his forehead, visible, throbs. He’s trapped in his own lie. Too proud to reveal the truth that Wylan lives in Ketterdam and has never stepped foot into boarding school or the University of Belendt. Not without admitting his own shame of having an illiterate heir. That he quietly attempted to dispose of his son by hiding him in his own kitchen and the narrow corridors of the servants’ hallways for years until everyone outside of the house forgot that Wylan Van Eck existed at all. 

“You,” he growls, voice dripping with contempt. “You’re behind this, you little rat. I don’t know how, but you are.”

At his side, Jesper shifts his weight subtly, preparing to fend off another attack. Wylan’s heart swoops with affection. 

“That’s enough.” The captain commands the other stadwatch to take Van Eck away. Two of the officers attempt to redirect him, but he digs his heels into the carpet and stands his ground, refusing to move. Jan Van Eck is not a man used to taking orders from others. 

“If you’re arresting me, then you’d better investigate my son too! His story will fall apart instantly. He’s not who he claims to be. You’ll see he’s an imbecile and a liar. That’s why I disowned him and sent him away. He’s trying to frame me in revenge!”

“Father, please calm down, the stress is upsetting you. You’re speaking nonsense,” Wylan pleads, trying to make his voice as gentle, as reasonable as possible as his father continues to yell. He’s never been a particularly good actor, especially in front of his father. But this time he doesn’t need to be. He no longer cares what his Jan Van Eck thinks. If the lie angers his father, all the better. He only needs to convince the stadwatch.

“Quiet!” Van Eck barks. 

The familiar command in his tone makes Wylan snap his jaw shut instantly against his will. Over a decade of conditioning too hard to ignore. Self-loathing simmers just beneath his skin. He hates himself for obeying. Jan Van Eck still has power over him, and the truth is that he always will, no matter how much Wylan wants to believe otherwise. 

Wylan bites the inside of his cheek. He’s so stupid for thinking he could stand up against his father and not let the man get into his head. He’s so stupid for thinking he’d be unaffected. Just as Wylan’s thoughts begin to spiral, he feels Jesper’s hand slip into his and squeeze. Gentle, but firm and reassuring.

It’s enough to interrupt the mess of emotions swirling through Wylan’s mind. 

Jesper believes in him. 

Wylan can do this for himself. For Jesper. For his freedom and millions of kruge. 

He doesn’t have to outwit his father or even speak to him. All he has to do is anger his father. Guarantee the accusations he’s spitting at Wylan make him look as insane as they sound. 

The captain frowns at the growing complications. He’s reluctant to get involved in the middle of a messy domestic dispute. “Do you have any proof your son stole the items and planted them in revenge?”

“Take these wretched things off and I’ll show you my will. The fact the boy is written out of it should be enough motivation for him to want to destroy my reputation,” Van Eck hisses, loath to admit any ounce of conflict within the family, but finding it more palatable to reveal than the fact he’s embarrassed by Wylan’s existence. 

Reluctantly, the captain nods. One of his men removes the handcuffs. 

Van Eck grimaces and approaches his safe. He turns his back to the room as he begins rotating the complicated dials left, right, and left again ... 

“I don’t understand where any of this is coming from,” Wylan informs the captain, sowing the seeds of doubt. “He’s not … in his right mind. Unless my father made a very recent decision, I wasn’t aware he planned to disown me or change his will. This is all news to me.”

It’s not though. Shortly after Wylan turned ten years old, Jan Van Eck informed him that he was unworthy to carry the family name and that he’d never receive a single scrap of their family’s hard-earned money. In the absence of a proper heir, his father ranted that everything he owned would go straight to auction, the proceeds given to the Church of Barter. His father told him that he’d rather dump the family’s entire fortune into the harbor than allow it to exist in the possession of a moron that would squander it. Wylan suspects that his father changed his will again after Alys’ pregnancy, but he can’t know for certain.

The mechanism on the safe snaps open, and Van Eck swings the door wide. He freezes.

They all see it too. A string of pearls and another necklace of diamonds glints in the reflected sunlight on top of the folders and documents stacked inside the secure lockbox. There’s also a pair of large silver candlesticks lying haphazardly on their side in the back. All items stolen from the palace.

Alys gasps.

Wylan stares in shock. He knows that Kaz planted two of the stolen items in easily found places. Kaz said that the rest of the missing objects would become obvious when the stadwatch searched the house, but Wylan thought that meant opening a cabinet, not opening his father’s expensive Grisha-made safe: the most advanced locking system money could buy. 

Wylan’s shock is genuine. How did Kaz manage to get inside it?

The stadwatch captain pushes past his father and takes out the priceless jewelry, the candlesticks before Van Eck can slam the safe shut. 

“This is all the proof I need,” he declares, turning them over in his hands. “Arrest him.”

“That’s impossible!” Van Eck shouts wildly. He marches toward Wylan with murder in his eyes. “It was untampered! How did you do it? You’ve never seen me open it, how did you get inside!”

This time the officers in the room hold him back, but it doesn’t stop his father from struggling against them, thrashing in their grip like a rabid animal trying to tear free from its handlers to attack.

Wylan shakes his head, bewildered but telling the truth. “I didn’t.” 

“You’re not smart enough!” Jan Van Eck shouts in a desperate attempt to gain control. An ugly effort to hurt Wylan one last time. “You can’t even read, you cretin! You couldn’t even pull off something like this if you tried!”

Wylan’s breath catches. Fear claws at his insides. He feels like his feet have been kicked out beneath him. He’s falling. Again. And he’s going to crash headfirst because his father admitted it in a crowded room, revealing Wylan’s greatest shame. 

“Go on,” Van Eck continues. He smiles, viciously triumphant despite the handcuffs locking around his wrists. “Hand him a piece of paper! Watch him hold it upside down like the little fool he is! He won’t know what it says!”

Wylan’s stomach rolls with sour acid. He feels the tips of his ears redden beneath his newly dark hair. More than once, Wylan remembers embarrassing himself right here in this very office when his father handed him numberless pages to read. 

Orienting a book is easy when it has page numbers. Those, he knows, he understands. Numbers come to Wylan as easily as music, as breathing. Words are an impenetrable foggy mist, a locked door in his mind. But numbers are akin to a clear afternoon, the sun shining upon a blooming garden. Understanding his mathematics lessons was his one saving grace during his short years of education. 

This time, Wylan squeezes Jesper’s hand, holding onto it tight like a lifeline. He prepared for this accusation, and he doesn’t have to face the truth of his secret or his father’s cruelty alone.

Wylan can’t let himself slip up now, not when he’s so close to escaping his father’s control forever. Jan Van Eck can’t hurt him ever again if he’s in jail. If all of his power, influence, and wealth disappears. Wylan will finally win his freedom. Real freedom to exist, to live outside his father’s control. Never hiding again. Never making himself smaller or invisible. 

The weight and warmth from Jesper’s hand gives Wylan the courage he needs. His father can shout any insult he wants. Wylan refuses to let them hurt him anymore. 

The stadwatch captain huffs. “Get him out of here, he’s lost his mind. Get a medik to speak to him while he’s in holding. Find out how far this lunacy extends.”

Not getting the reaction from Wylan or the officers that he wants, his father’s face twists in rage. “I’ll kill you, you worthless ingrate!” Van Eck spits at Wylan. “I’ll kill you! You can fool everyone, but you’ll always be a scullion. Wearing black won’t change who you are. You’re a stain on this family!”

Clenching his jaw, Wylan steels himself against his father’s hateful words. They’re nothing more than the desperate, pathetic, ramblings of a man losing control.

Van Eck continues to yell poisoned, spiteful things as the stadwatch officers shove him out the door and into the hallway. “Unhand me you slobs, I can prove it. Make him read! He’s an imbecile, you’ll see. Make him read! Make him read!”

And then he’s gone. Jan Van Eck’s voice echoes through the halls in a last effort to haunt Wylan. 

Leftover nerves swirl with disbelief, leaving Wylan in shock. His hands begin to shake, trembling ever so slightly with anxiety he doesn’t even realize he carries until Jesper stills them with a single touch. His heart still thunders through his chest, pounding hard enough that Wylan swears it could break through his ribcage. 

And yet … he did it. His father is gone. Arrested. 

Wylan is free. 

Well, there’s the legal mess to wade through now. Transfer of property, power of attorney, etc. as the bank and lawyers settle Jan Van Eck’s affairs after he’s deemed guilty and mentally unfit.

Proud, Jesper places a chaste kiss on the back of Wylan’s hand. It’s comforting and so startlingly intimate despite all that they’ve already done that Wylan feels his cheeks heat. Just moments ago, his father tried to throw Wylan away, but Jesper wants to claim him as his in front of witnesses like Alys and the captain. It warms his heart. 

Filled with gratitude, Wylan squeezes his hand again, this time in thanks. He wishes he could do so much more to convey his appreciation, but now is not the time. Wylan needs to finish securing his future first. 

The mustached stadwatch captain shakes his head. “At least Van Eck will be able to claim insanity.” 

Alys begins to cry, sobbing loudly. From her seat in the ornamental desk chair, she looks more out of place in the house than Wylan’s ever seen her before. She’s frightened, lost in the wake of her husband’s sudden lunacy, his arrest. Wylan wants to comfort Alys, but he’s not entirely sure how as her wailing grows louder. He also remembers that he’s supposedly never met her before either. 

The stadwatch captain turns to her awkwardly. He attempts to nod respectfully, clearly uneasy with comforting a grieving pregnant woman. “I’m sorry you had to see that, ma’am.”

If his words were meant to be consoling, they have the opposite effect. Alys sobs harder. Ragged keening hiccups escape her throat, and as much as Wylan wants to stuff his ears with cotton and run out of the room to celebrate his own success, he refuses to leave her alone in her misery. 

He still flinches at the ear-shattering sound. 

“Alys,” Wylan says tentatively. Then louder to catch her attention. “Alys. Alys … why don’t you call for your handmaid now. You should rest, but there’s no need to be alone. I’ll speak with the captain and sort everything out. Please don’t worry about anything. I’ll find you again as soon as I’m finished.” A moment later, Wylan adds, “I’m sorry we have to meet like this.”

She nods quickly and attempts to wipe her eyes. 

It hurts to see her so distressed. Alys, though oblivious, has never been cruel to Wylan, not deliberately like so many others. 

Jesper offers her a green paisley handkerchief whose pattern matches his Barrel attire more than his Zemeni suit, but Alys accepts it gratefully. He waits beside her and holds her hand as Wylan goes to the wall to ring the unobtrusive little bell that’s called him across the house so many times. A brief moment later, as if waiting nearby, her new handmaid appears in the doorway. 

“Keep her company,” Wylan instructs. Jesper peels himself from Alys’ side to join him again as the two women leave. This charade only works if Jesper feeds Wylan the correct documents to bluff their way into his father’s fortune. 

The captain of the stadwatch pulls the stack of files from the opened safe and starts looking through them, quickly flipping through Jan Van Eck’s most personal, most important documents until he finds the will in question and scans through it. 

Wylan takes even, steady breaths to calm his racing heart and fetches the folder of his falsified academic records and numerous expenses from living in Belendt that he knows Kaz added to his father’s shelves. Third file on the bottom row from the right. Jesper nods ever so subtly, confirming it’s the correct one. 

“Is everything in order?” Wylan asks. The captain turns another page of the will, then turns it back and forth again before handing the sheaf of papers to Wylan. 

It’s a test. Wylan can’t interpret it as anything else. His eyes scan the absurd scrawling mess of text sliding back and forth on the paper in the rhythm he’s practiced to mimic reading since he was a child. 

He flips to the correct page, which Jesper affirms by gently pressing his fingertips into Wylan’s lower back where his hand rests. 

Wylan wets his lips and begins to read, reciting the page he practiced. “… I nominate and appoint Wylan Van Eck of Ketterdam, currently residing in Belendt, as personal representative of my estate …” Wylan allows himself to mumble, trailing off until he pretends to find the next relevant paragraph. “I devise and bequeath both real and personal property, including all business property and assets shall be inherited by my firstborn son, Wylan Van Eck and distributed fairly between my spouse Alys Evelien Steenwelle Van Eck and any children formed in the union as per the following agreements …” 

Wylan continues for another few sentences before stopping. 

Jesper’s hand snakes its way across behind his back and rubs affectionately between his shoulder blades. “Clearly you’re still his executor, darling. If he wanted to disown you, he hadn’t officialized it,” Jesper says conversationally. “What a strange idea he latched onto.” 

“Don’t think about it too hard,” the captain advises. “Van Eck clearly didn’t know what he was raving about.”

“Of course,” Wylan agrees sadly, remembering that he’s supposed to act more distraught than pleased. His father is on his way to jail, after all. A good son should be heartbroken. “Here are my records from Belendt, if you’d like to see them. I can also read them too if you think it’s necessary.”

“It’s not, lad,” the captain waves the idea away, but takes the file. “Only Ghezen knows why he spouted that gibberish.”

Wylan nods. Of course, why would anyone think that a wealthy, privileged man from one of the oldest families in Kerch, currently attending university, couldn’t read. 

For all the time Kaz’s forger must have spent on the documents, the stadwatch captain merely glances at them. People usually don’t fake attendance records, tuition payments, transcripts, and the rare disciplinary action for skipping classes or, to Jesper’s delight when he read it to Wylan, getting caught “participating in unseemly behavior with another student.”

It’s that easy. The captain hands the paperwork back to Wylan and heads downstairs to continue looking through the house. 

By the time the last stadwatch officers leave several hours later, they only manage to thoroughly search the first floor of the estate. Nothing else is found. Three stolen paintings have yet to be recovered, so Wylan agrees to cooperate with an extended investigation, as much of a headache as it will be to have officers combing through the entire house for several more days. 

Alys stops crying eventually after hugging her little dog. When Wylan finds her again, she throws her arms wide and welcomes him home with a crushing, but genuine embrace that makes him freeze before he realizes he’s not being attacked. “Oh, this is such a mess, what a dreadful time for you to return! You’ve been away too long, but I’m so glad you’re here now, Wylan. I wouldn’t know what to do without you!”

She prattles about how stressed his father has been since the masquerade while they wait for her handmaid to prepare a pot of tea. “The harbor shut down and he was miserable,” Alys laments, catching Wylan Van Eck, the music student in Belendt, up on the latest news as if they were old friends. It’s strange. 

“There’s been one tragedy after another. The staff just lost their minds. First my handmaid, the previous one, stole one of my dresses and tried to destroy it. And to think, Marlies—that was her name. Oh, she was always so sweet. I never would have guessed she’d do something so horrible! And then the serving boy ran away, but he was a bit, well … simple. So it was odd, I suppose, but not entirely unfounded. Then your father’s men quit, and ugh, we’ve been so short-staffed. Honestly, I don’t know who we can trust anymore! No wonder Jan was stressed! It was so embarrassing that the stadwatch stormed in here, and the floors hadn’t even been swept. We’re normally so much more put together. I wish you had come earlier before everyone went crazy …”

“I’ll hire new staff,” Wylan reassures her. “Please don’t worry, Alys, I’ll handle everything.”

Both Jesper and Wylan manage to convince her to return to her family home where she’ll be more comfortable while the estate continues to be turned upside down by the stadwatch. 

“Do you really think Jan is guilty?” Alys asks earnestly once her handmaid brings the tray of tea. “It’s such a surprise. I never imagined he’d do anything so extreme.”

Wylan grimaces into his tea cup. Once upon a time he thought the same. “We don’t always know what someone we love is capable of doing,” he says, choosing his words carefully, slowly. “I think … I think that my father made bad choices, and the consequences are finally catching up with him.”

Shortly after Alys and her handmaid head upstairs to pack, Wylan rings for the remaining staff, just Diggory and Sannes, who huffs at being summoned away from the kitchen in the middle of preparing dinner. Wylan fires them on the spot. 

They look at him in confusion like he’s grown a second head. Or maybe they’re truly seeing Wylan Van Eck for the first time. Attempting to compare the meek boy they insulted to the new master of the house who supposedly is the same person standing confidently in front of them now. Whether they recognize him or not, Wylan doesn’t care. 

He meant nothing to them all these years, and they never showed him a scrap of kindness. Now they mean nothing to him. 

“Get out of my house,” Wylan commands.

He gives them half an hour to pack their things, which is extremely generous considering the number of times Sannes whacked him with a wooden spoon. He never deserved to be hit by her or anyone else. Wylan was a child. And even after he grew up, she and Diggory chose to mock him. Spit on him and laugh. They didn’t need to be caring, but they never needed to be cruel. Now it’s Wylan’s turn to watch their helplessness. He barely hides his satisfied smile as Jesper escorts them to the attic to collect their things and they leave without complaint. 

Maybe they’re too shocked by the day’s events. Maybe the cook and groundskeeper simply know they deserve to be booted out the gate for their treatment of him throughout the years. Either way, they leave quietly. 

By the time Wylan reaches the parlor, he’s ready to collapse. His legs ache, and his emotions feel stretched out like spun sugar and just as brittle. He wants nothing more than to sit and rest until the prickling sensation of over-excitement beneath his skin fades. 

Reclaiming an inheritance through lies, trickery, and deceit is taxing work. He thinks of Jesper’s warm inviting room at the Slat and wishes he could crawl back into their bed. 

Jesper stretches out onto the couch in the parlor. He carelessly puts his feet up on the plush cushion seat, still clearly riding the joy from their victory. 

For a second, Wylan just watches him, then remembers that he’s allowed to sit on the good furniture now too. So he does, sinking into the soft upholstery. Jesper looks over at Wylan and lets his eyes rake up and down the line of buttons on his waistcoat. He lingers at the loosened tie and popped button that exposes the top of Wylan’s collarbone. Lazily, he grins and opens his mouth to say something, no doubt flirty and witty, but his stomach rumbles instead. 

Jesper looks down at himself in betrayal. 

Equally hungry, Wylan frowns. “We’ll have to get our own meal. I fired the cook.”

But Jesper isn’t put off by the idea. “Leave it to me. If there’s food in this house, I can fry it,” he says confidently, jumping to his feet and pulling Wylan to stand also. “You can give me the full tour along the way.”

Wylan rolls his eyes. “You’ve already seen the house, you’ve been here for hours.”

“Yes, but nothing is less fun than being followed around by the stadwatch. It’s your home; show it to me.”

Surely, Jesper wants to see the mansion in all its glory. Spacious rooms filled with luxuries, Useless fixtures meant to be seen and admired, but never touched other than by the hands that clean them. Who would be interested in the small, unadorned spaces Wylan inhabited? Nothing about the laundry room and servants’ halls is glamorous, especially compared to the fine porcelain in the dining room and galleries of priceless art lining the walls. Two parallel worlds tucked inside the same walls and yet so vastly different. 

But Wylan wants to show him his home as he knows it. Because Jesper cares. He makes Wylan feel seen, and for the first time ever, it’s not a bad thing. He wants to share his life with Jesper, all of it, even the dull and ugly parts.

Wylan bites his lip. Hesitates. “Really?” 

Jesper seems to sense that Wylan’s asking something more, gentle and considerate as always. “Of course, love.”

Taking his hand, Wylan leads him downstairs to the kitchen first. The meal Sannes started spreads across the counter. Spices, utensils, and a board of half-chopped vegetables beside a large knife lie abandoned. Wylan wrinkles his nose at the scent of something burning on the stove and quickly moves the pan outside, not even bothering to check what’s in it. Jesper salvages the roast in the oven and they raid whatever they find in the pantry, cobbling together the best meal Wylan’s ever eaten. 

Nothing in the kitchen has changed since Wylan last stepped foot in it. The same hearth he cleans every morning glows red with smoldering ashes. Dirty dishes wait stacked inside the washtub. But the kitchen is now bigger, brighter. More welcoming than it’s ever been with Jesper here beside him. 

They could eat in the formal dining room, but Wylan’s content here, sitting shoulder to shoulder at the small kitchen table savoring every bite off the fanciest porcelain plates they could find and drinking from crystal wine glasses. 

Kaz appears again from seemingly nowhere. He nods to them, acknowledging their success, but says nothing to congratulate them on all becoming millions of kruge richer. He simply tells Wylan that he’ll be back for his payment once the bank accounts transfer to Wylan’s name. 

“I’ll contact you if I need either of you again.” 

And with that, Kaz leaves. Wylan watches the Bastard of the Barrel pick up a peach crème tart—one that Sannes made earlier in the afternoon—by the fingertips of a black glove on the way out. 

After Wylan and Jesper stuff themselves with dessert, Wylan leads Jesper through the mansion, passing the laundry room. Surely it’s been cleaned and safe to enter again, but he’s not ready quite yet. They head upstairs through the narrow servants’ hallways tucked into the walls. Wylan can navigate it blindly; he’s traveled this hall so many times. Step after step through the dim unfurnished corridor tells Jesper better than words ever could, this is how I lived. 

When they reach the second floor, Wylan shows Jesper his old bedroom, back when he had toys, fluffy pillows, affection, and drawing supplies. It’s empty save for the neatly made bed and bare desk. 

“It used to be mine,” Wylan explains, thinking about all the ways he used to fill the room, his ink pens lined up neatly on the desk beside his sketchbook. A closet full of polished shoes, starched white button-up shirts and little suits. Proof he existed before it was all thrown out, like him. 

“It can be again,” Jesper reassures him, stroking his thumb along the back of Wylan’s hand. 

He nods, imagining it too. Once the paperwork is finalized, the house will be his. The linen closets and the study, the parlor. Every creaky floorboard and hand-carved cabinet. Wylan doesn’t know what to do with it all, but he has Jesper and all the time needed to figure it out.

Next, Wylan leads Jesper to the music room. The grand piano sits alone at the center, as always. Wylan walks towards it hesitantly, heart in his throat. 

Jesper runs a dark hand over the polished wood. “Do you play?” 

“I used to,” Wylan says quietly. Slowly, he lifts the fallboard with the same reverent care he used to open his mother’s letters. His fingers hover above the gleaming keys, not daring to let himself touch them. “My mother used to play with me sometimes. We’d duet together. But I wasn’t allowed to after …”

Jesper sits on the bench, inviting Wylan to do the same. There’s no one left to stop him or beat his hands for daring to sit at the piano again, but he fights against the familiar fear warning him to get away from the instrument as he gently lowers himself onto the seat. 

“You can now,” Jesper suggests, intuitively giving Wylan the permission he wants to hear. He wants to play, wants so badly to lose himself in the music that was denied to him for too long. 

Wylan licks his lips nervously, and the fingertips of his right hand brush lightly over the keys before he presses down into a simple three-note chord. 

The sound echoes through the room, loud and ringing. It’s beautiful. He lets it linger until the chord nearly fades to silence. 

It’s everything he wants. 

A single tear slides down Wylan’s cheek. Then another and another. 

He plays a new chord, this one lower than the first, stronger. It resonates through the room saying everything that words are too unreliable to express.

Years of fear, of repressed anger that manifested in hot tears and screaming silently even though the sound never once left his mouth. The raw wound of grief that hadn’t healed. Shame. So much shame. Sadness. Misery which nearly tore him apart and the ever-present loneliness that followed. Anxiety that clawed at his skin sharper than the bitten stubs of his nails. 

Wylan’s fingers dance clumsily over the keys, clearly unpracticed. But it doesn’t matter because he’s finally playing music again. 

Jesper rests a hand on Wylan’s knee and lets Wylan cry as note after note resonates through the room, one after the next until he has no more tears to shed. 

“Thank you,” Wylan mumbles when he’s done, embarrassed. He ducks his head and wipes the wet stains from his cheeks. 

Jesper shrugs, unfazed by the show of emotion. “I feel like I should be thanking you. People pay good money to listen to the concerts in the Staves and you just let me sit here for free.”

“You’ve already paid,” Wylan reassures him, resting his hand atop Jesper’s on his leg. Jesper has a hundred times over as far as he’s concerned. No one has ever managed to be as kind, as considerate. The fact that he sat here with Wylan, listened as he played and waited patiently is more than enough. 

Jesper knocks their shoulders together lightly. “Wanna continue the tour, love?”

Wylan nods. He entwines their fingers and leads Jesper up another flight of hidden narrow stairs until they reach the attic. As expected, the wooden floorboards of the servants’ quarters creak underfoot. They pass several doors before stopping at Wylan’s, which looks no different than the rest. 

Nothing inside distinguishes the room as his, either. Wylan’s not surprised to find it stripped bare. Hurt perhaps, but not surprised. Looking at the empty room, he concludes that his father must have meant to kill him this time. If the bounty succeeded in dragging Wylan back to the estate, his father never intended him to stay long enough to need the meager possessions he left behind.

It probably took no effort to clean his room out. Wylan owned so little, just a spare change of clothes. His aprons hanging from the bedpost and a useless tin of charcoal stubs for drawing. 

Oh. 

It suddenly occurs to Wylan why his father tasked him with washing his art from the walls. He assumed it was just a punishment, but his father needed him to prepare the room for whoever moved into it next. Wylan briefly wonders what happened to his quilt, his pillow. If they were washed and saved for his replacement or his father ordered them to be burned to snuff out the last signs of Wylan’s sorry existence.

Only the gray walls, discolored from his sketches, give any indication he ever lived here at all. Wylan touches the wall and looks at the faint smear of gray charcoal residue on his fingertips. 

“It used to be much more beautiful,” he says wistfully. “I wish you could’ve seen my drawings.”

“I do too,” Jesper says, taking in the entirety of the tiny space. How a room so small, so empty can say so much. “I’m sure they were lovely.” 

Holding his breath, Wylan lets go of Jesper’s hand and kneels to push the trunk away from the wall. The portrait of his mother is still there, right where he hid it. No one found the drawing. He relaxes. Smiles. 

“This was the most important one, so I kept it hidden,” Wylan explains, suddenly shy. It’s the most personal part of himself he can share. And while he knows Jesper will never make fun of something so important to Wylan, he can’t help but feel a bit silly introducing him to a sketch on the wall. “This is my mother, at least what I remember of her. I knew they would all be erased one day, so I hid her portrait. It worked,” he says proudly. “All these years, they never found her.”

There’s not much room, but Jesper folds his long legs in to sit beside Wylan on the floor to get a proper look. “She’s lovely, like you. You have her eyes.”

Wylan shakes his head. “I have my father’s eyes.”

“The color maybe, but you have her kindness. That’s what matters.”

Wylan flushes. “It’s just a drawing. I didn’t want to forget what she looked like.”

“I have it on good authority that the artist is incredibly talented and captured her better than any stuffy painting could,” Jesper says playfully. “You’ll have to make another to hang downstairs.”

Wylan nods, though his gaze never leaves the sketch. “I should,” he says thoughtfully, imagining removing his father and Alys’ massive portrait along the grand staircase and replacing it with the loving face of his mother. He would have to practice playing with colors, but he thinks he could bring her vibrancy to life again. The perfect shade of shimmering blue for her dress in the new portrait crystalizes in his mind. 

Wylan scans the rest of the colorless room. It’s strange being back, though he hasn’t been gone long, less than a week. The last time he sat on the floor he’d been locked in here and so sore, trying to stand in order to climb into bed. 

He glances back at the door, checking that he left it wide open. He did. 

Wylan never actually spent much time in his room, too busy working. It’s where he slept, where he sometimes drew on the walls, cried privately, or touched himself to satisfy his needs, but it was never home. The walls never felt like safety or security or even a place where he chose to return. 

Yet he lived here. Wylan carved out what simple joys he could and scraped together an existence in this claustrophobic space. And though he had next to nothing, it was his. Full of his memories, from those first awful days of trudging up the stairs and curling up miserably in the tiny lumpy bed in exhaustion. He recalls eavesdropping on the surrounding rooms over the years whether he wanted to or not. Of whitewashing the walls and that moment of excitement the first time he drew on his new canvas. When Wylan was younger, he hid under the bed to avoid working. Those attempts were futile. He later learned to hide in better, less obvious places. He remembers his horror the first time he discovered evidence of the housekeeper rifling through his things. He thinks of Marlies, the only person he ever invited inside. She sat on his bed the night of the masquerade to sew the hem of his waistcoat. 

He wishes that he could tell her how attending the ball saved his life. Her one act of kindness helped him find freedom. 

Eventually, Wylan speaks again. “Do you think Kaz would be willing to do one more favor for me?”

Jesper tilts his head in curiosity. “Probably, but it’s Kaz, so it won’t come free.”

“That’s alright,” Wylan confirms. “I don’t care about the cost.”

Chapter Text

The carriage rolls down the cobblestone street at a gentle pace. Wylan pats his inner pocket, checking for the stiff crinkle of paper though he knows it’s there. He tucked the bank slip inside before Giel, one of the new staff members he hired, even snapped the reins. 

Ketterdam floats by through the window. The wide Geldstraat lanes narrow as he travels deeper into the heart of the city. The further he goes, the tighter the buildings cluster together, all fighting for space like weeds struggling to survive between the cobblestones. Their exteriors grow ragged and rougher. No one cares about appearances here where the territory of the West Stave and Barrel bleed together. Where the streets turn crooked and more locals frequent the cheap bars and brothels than tourists. 

Wylan pats the paper one last time. 

It took four long days to sort through the legality of inheriting his father’s estate after the arrest. Transfer of ownership, all of the titles, deeds, the bank accounts, and Van Eck Shipping contracts, ect. Normally it wouldn’t take so long, not for a family of their status, but suspiciously the lawyer misorganized his records. Wylan suspects Kaz’s interference, though he could never prove it. After all, many of the documents needed to be doctored in Wylan’s favor—Kaz’s too if he wanted to be paid the rich sum he and Wylan agreed upon. And considering the will in the lawyer’s possession matched the one found in his father’s safe, Wylan assumes they had been. 

Kaz returned to collect his share of Wylan’s fortune shortly after. 

As far as the bank knew, Wylan Van Eck bought access to Fifth Harbor from Kaz Brekker in a trade agreement in order to carry the mantle he had been given and expand his family’s merchant empire.

A perfectly legal, reasonable exchange worth several million. 

Wylan knows he could have pushed his negotiations with the thief harder, retaining another several hundred thousand, if not million kruge, but as far as he is concerned, Kaz earned all of it by framing his father for the robbery and giving Wylan his life back. 

Before leaving a wealthy man, Kaz shared two things with Wylan. He first warned against giving Jesper a single kruge. To be fair, Jesper had more or less shamefully confessed the same, aware of his own flaws. 

The second piece of information Kaz shared with Wylan was the name of a small Barrel brothel in possession of Marlies indenture contract. Wylan, with Jesper’s help for correspondence, contacted it immediately. 

The carriage slows and comes to a stop with a small jolt. Without waiting, Wylan opens the door himself and steps out in front of the unadorned brothel The Pink Pearl. From the outside, nothing about the building gives away the lurid business within. Unlike the expensive pleasure houses along the West Stave, this one Jesper told him, is without a gimmick. The girls come cheap at a rate even the lowliest gang members can afford. Used, then tossed out or sold again when their value ran dry. 

An ugly business practice. 

“How do you know?” Wylan asked Jesper with concern. “Have you …?”

“I’ve never paid for a partner, love. But I know the Barrel like the back of my hand. You learn a thing of two about everywhere without even trying.”

Before they left, Wylan reassured Giel, a graying coachman who probably likes the horses better than a majority of people, that he would only take a few minutes at most. The older man didn’t need to know his business, but Wylan, face reddening in embarrassment when he gave the driver the name of the establishment and its address, insisted he was there to return a favor to an old friend, not for pleasure. 

A nauseating wave of cheap perfume hits Wylan immediately as soon as he steps inside The Pink Pearl. It covers the scent of sex and unwashed bodies. The interior is just as plain as the outside. Except, to Wylan’s horror, there’s a lewd painting of female genitalia hanging prominently on the wall. It’s the only indication he’s in the correct place. Wylan quickly averts his gaze. However, he now understands the inspiration behind the brothel’s name. 

It’s not that Wylan’s unknowledgeable about women’s bodies—he knows more than he cared to learn growing up around the servants’ dirty jokes and crude conversations—he simply has no interest in them. 

If Jesper were here, he’d fall to the floor laughing. 

The heads of women in scandalously low corsets and the men they’re entertaining in the lounge entrance look at him. Clearly Wylan doesn’t belong here. He’s dressed down, not wearing the black of the merchant class, but Wylan still sticks out drastically. Compared to the worn, rugged, bold Barrel patterns, his are too neutral-toned, too crisp, too clean. 

He didn’t have to come here and embarrass himself. Any other merchant would have sent a driver to collect an indenture, but Wylan owes Marlies his presence and so much more. She deserves it after all she suffered from his father’s wrath by working here. The least Wylan can do is show her his face. 

The establishment’s owner, a portly man with a salt and pepper beard just as large, approaches, shaking Wylan’s hand as if they are old acquaintances. Considering the generous amount of money Wylan paid him for Marlies’ contract, the man would probably like to become acquainted with Wylan and his pocketbook.

“Mr. Van Eck,” the proprietor greets warmly. 

Respect is a strange thing. Wylan is still not used to it, and doesn’t know if he ever will be. Though he’s not familiar with it being directed at him, now that he has money, dark wool suits, and a surname that is widely recognized, respect is given generously by people who never would have spared Wylan a second thought weeks ago. 

“It’s an honor to have you here. Please, sit, enjoy yourself. We can discuss your purchase over a drink. Can I interest you in whiskey, brandy? I’m sure we can find something to your tastes,” he says suggestively. There’s no doubt he’s talking about the other women in the room. Wylan does not look at them. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have the time,” Wylan says with more grace than being propositioned by a man selling other people for sex deserves. “I’m here to retrieve Marlies and her indenture contract.”

The owner interprets this as Wylan wanting to spare no time fucking his purchase. He grins salaciously and winks. Wylan grinds his teeth. 

“Just a moment, let me get the girl.” The man barks at one of the women and sends her upstairs to fetch Marlies. 

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long. The brothel owner hands over the contract, which Wylan pretends to examine, then slips in his pocket. Marlies comes down the steep stairs moments later wearing a simple coat and carrying a small carpet bag full of her worldly possessions. 

At the bottom, the owner pulls her into a one sided hug. Marlies does not return the gesture, but allows it to happen. Before parting the man leans forward to whisper something in her ear. Whatever he says, Marlies keeps her expression blank, even after he lets her go. 

“Sir,” she says politely to Wylan, though she refuses to look directly at him. “I’m ready.”

Marlies doesn’t recognize him. Wylan’s heart twists. Nobody gave her the details of who bought her contract. 

Holding the door open for her, Wylan’s glad to smell the damp mildew and the putrid garbage that clings to Ketterdam’s cobbled streets instead of the choking, cloying stench of bad perfume.

Should he offer to take her bag, Wylan wonders. No, that’s unnecessary. He doesn’t want her to think he’s taking away the only things she owns. 

They climb into the awaiting carriage. Stiffly, Marlies sits on the bench opposite Wylan. She sets her bag on the floor at her feet, and folds her hands on her lap. Out of the corner of his eye, Wylan catches her watching him, but she looks away quickly. Her gaze shifts between the window and the floor, not knowing where to settle. She knows it’s rude to ignore the man that owns her contract, but she clearly doesn’t want to invite attention. 

He wonders if she has always been this reserved. In the short year that Wylan’s known her, he saw Marlies carry herself with a steady calmness. She’s always been quiet. She uses words efficiently, saying what needs to be spoken, but never more. Unlike Alys, who enjoys the sound of her own voice and assumes that everyone else does too. The quiet within the carriage is different now, Wylan thinks. Uncertain instead of peaceful. Afraid of the changes to come. 

Marlies worked at the brothel for less than two weeks, but Wylan knows the length of time has little influence compared to the pain of an initial shock. Adjusting to his first awful days of cleaning were probably worse for how new and unprepared he had been. 

The carriage starts rolling again highlighting the awkward silence. “Do you know who I am?” Wylan finally asks.

“You bought my contract,” Marlies says diplomatically. Then she surprises him. “Forgive me, but I don’t think that you are really Wylan Van Eck.” After a bet she tacks on rudely, “Sir.”

It’s such a subtle and deliberate insult to pause that long before addressing him with respect. Wylan smiles, glad that Marlies hasn’t lost herself completely. Silence is not obedience, nor is it acceptance. 

Apparently she had been told who bought her contract, she just doesn’t believe it. But Wylan can’t blame her, he hardly recognizes himself these days. It’ll be no small relief when Nina’s tailoring dyes wear off. 

“I look a little different now, don’t I? But it’s still me. I’m still Wylan.”

A suit doesn’t change that. Neither does riding in a carriage or coffee-colored eyes and brown hair. 

Confusion apparent, she shakes her head, still refusing to look anywhere but Wylan. “I don’t believe you.”

But she doesn’t call him sir. That’s something. 

“Please look at me,” Wylan asks softly.

She must not expect the gentleness of his request. All the merchers and wealthy men she’s ever met demand her time, attention, and body. The unexpectedness of asking causes her eyes to jump to Wylan’s immediately. 

Staring intently, she searches the seams of his new appearance for any sign of familiarity. Truly studying him for any hint of truth instead of the cruel joke she assumes of a stranger claiming to be Wylan Van Eck. An actor stepping in to protect the family’s reputation and continue to torture her. 

“We didn’t know each other very long, only a year, I guess. And we never really spoke until the night of the masquerade, but you probably know me better than most,” he admits. “At least, you understand me better than anyone. You know what it’s like to be a servant and wait on others.” 

Wylan pauses, chews at his lip. “You also know that I can’t read,” he says hesitantly. 

His stomach still twists at the confession. There will never be a day when it doesn’t. But if Wylan wants Marlies to believe that he’s who he says despite his new appearance, he needs to be honest. 

Marlies swallows heavily, misinterpreting his admission. “Now you want to buy my silence.”

“No,” Wylan shakes his head quickly. ”I would prefer it, but that’s not what this is …” He struggles for the right words, face reddening. If he wants her to recognize the real Wylan, the tongue-tied idiot she’s familiar with, he’s certainly succeeding. 

He takes a breath to collect himself and returns to his original point, the entire reason he’s here. An apology. “I’m so, so sorry. My father punished you for helping me, and you didn’t deserve what happened to you.”

“Thank you,” she says, though it’s clipped and clearly uncomfortable. Marlies doesn’t want to talk about it further. “I don’t understand …” she begins. Why you’re here instead of scrubbing dishes, Wylan fills in the part she left unspoken. “Has your father … changed his mind?”

Wylan’s laugh is short and bitter. No, his father changing his mind is akin to admitting error. Jan Van Eck would rather die than ever acknowledge the possibility of being wrong, much less the reality of it. He’s too proud. 

“My father was arrested for robbing the palace after the stadwatch found the missing items in his possession. It was terribly tragic,” Wylan says, unconvincingly. “I’ve taken over his estate and am trying to right some of his wrongs, starting with you. It’s a long story,” Wylan continues, watching the surprise play across Marlies’ expression, “But it all happened thanks to you sewing the waistcoat for me and letting me sneak out the night of the masquerade.”

She looks at him skeptically. 

Wylan wonders if she regrets helping him like Jan Van Eck intended. 

Actions speak louder than words, so Wylan pulls the bank slip from the inner pocket of his coat. “This is your indenture contract. It’s been paid in full.”

Stunned, Marlies takes the paper automatically, too busy trying to process his words until she looks down at it and stares in awe, reading over the payment in disbelief. The absurd amount Wylan spent paying off her debt all at once and the official stamp from the Exchange declaring the contract complete, the total money, with interest, returned to the bank. 

It should have taken her decades to pay off. Wylan did it in two minutes. 

“You are welcome to stay at the estate for as long as you like,” Wylan offers. He feels fidgety and hopes he’s not overstepping whatever strange … friendship is too strong a word … alliance … acquaintanceship they have. He just wants to help. “As a guest, of course. You don’t have to; there’s no obligation. I understand if you never want to come back at all—it’s your choice now. I’d like to repay you and help you any way that I’m able, whether it’s finding a new job, a place to stay, or just leaving you alone.”

Overwhelmed, Marlies’ breath stutters, and her hand raises to her lips. Oh no. Wylan panics, thinking the offer upset her somehow, until she says, “Thank you … I don’t … thank you, Wy—I’m sorry,” she says, scrubbing a loose tear from her cheek. “What should I call you now?”

“Wylan is fine,” he reassures her. They’ve always been equals. That doesn’t change now. 

Marlies smiles, clutching the bank slip. “Thank you, Wylan.”

”One act of kindness deserves another.” 

She nods, attempting to process how one sewing project led to freedom from her contract. The ability to keep every kruge she makes going forward. No one forcing her to work for them ever again. 

Wylan fills Marlies in on the other changes to the estate in her absence. The new staff, Alys’ return to her family home. Jesper. Wylan blushes fiercely, but Marlies has the right to know who he is before being accosted by his bold clothing and roguish charm. 

It occurs to Wylan that Jesper never moved into the mansion so much as he never really left. And that suits Wylan just fine. He wants to keep Jesper close for as long as possible. Luckily, Jesper seems to want that too. 

The awkwardness dissipates as they leave the city behind, the possibilities opening up to both of them like the wide lanes leading the carriage back to the estate. 

“What do you think you would like to do now?” Wylan asks curiously. He expects her to need time to think, or at least not have an answer immediately, but Marlies impresses Wylan once again. 

“This may not surprise you, but I’ve always wanted to become a seamstress.” Her cheeks flush rosy with the idea. “I think that I would like to try my hand at it.”

Obviously she sewed his waistcoat, but now that Wylan thinks about it, he remembers plenty of other times she kept a needle and garment in hand. Occasionally she brought one down to the kitchen, only stopping to eat supper. Marlies usually spent her time sewing during Alys’ ear-shattering music lessons. And when he delivered their afternoon tea Marlies and Alys often sat side by side, Alys chatting over her own needlework and Rufus stretched out at her feet while Marlies worked diligently, focused. 

“That sounds perfect for you.” Wylan means it, genuinely. “Please let me know how I can help you make it happen.”

Despite the scandal of his father’s arrest, the Van Eck name still carries a significant weight. A letter of recommendation stamped with the family crest and signed by him (or rather Jesper on Wylan’s behalf) holds nearly unlimited power in Ketterdam.

Perhaps she’d like to continue working with delicate fabrics. If she wants, he can arrange for her to meet with the men and women who clothe his family and the other Ketterdam elite. At the very least, she’d be paid well and respected for the suits, ball gowns, or masquerade costumes she creates. 

Bright and colorful masterpieces, like his waistcoat. Vibrant and alive. Dazzling, bold, and beautiful with lace, embroidery, and the same imported textiles that the ships owned by the Van Eck company bring into Ketterdam. More fabrics that glimmer in the light and ripple between her fingers like water.

Maybe, Wylan realizes, he isn’t the only one who wants to add more color to his life. 

The waistcoat made from his mother’s dress is the loveliest thing he owns, even now that the estate and everything inside it belongs to him. He imagines what Marlies could create if given the time and proper tools. 

However she chooses to apply her talent, he knows that she will make an excellent seamstress. 

***   ***   ***

“It’s yours now.”

“I know,” Wylan says reluctantly. 

He still doesn’t want to enter the office. It’s ridiculous, he knows that. His father no longer inhabits the room to sneer at Wylan, but his presence still haunts it. Wylan can’t help but hear his voice echo in his memories as he stood defenseless time after time on the opposite side of the grand desk. His father’s mocking insults ring just as clearly in his thoughts as the taunting bookshelves full of ledgers that he now needs Jesper to read to him. An unpleasant ghost in an equally horrible room. 

Jan Van Eck is in Hellgate until the trial. An easy conviction, Jesper reassures him, whenever he catches Wylan biting at the skin of his thumb with worry. The crown wants someone to blame for the robbery and they’re not particularly picky about who. The existence of the items on his property, in his personal safe, satisfies the king and his court. 

Then, Wylan won’t have to ever worry about him again. 

And yet … walking into his father’s former office still fills Wylan with dread. Like stepping over the forbidden threshold of the library.

It’s just a room with four walls lined with wallpaper, a carpeted floor, and a ceiling, no different than anywhere else in the house. But he doesn’t want to go in. At least he has a reason to avoid the library, he doesn’t need to use the books inside. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for the office. 

To take over his father’s affairs, both business and personal, requires him to meticulously comb through each ledger and correspondence across the True Sea. 

But Wylan would rather jump in a canal then spend another hour sorting through more contracts. 

He begins to understand why his father was always so miserable. 

When Wylan and Jesper went through the initial legal paperwork—the business records, and financial statements—they took to working in whatever room in the house they fancied. The parlor, the study. Sometimes an empty spare bedroom where they’d inevitably distract each other or the music room to allow Wylan to tinker on the piano between documents.

They had yet to work in the one room meant for it. 

And as much as Wylan loathes the office, he knows it would be nice to have a space dedicated to work. A large desk for Jesper to sort the papers and respond accordingly. Somewhere to spread out, leave for lunch, then return to without picking up all of the documents in between. 

Jesper knows that Wylan is avoiding the office. How can he not when Wylan is always so quick to change the subject or drag him literally anywhere else in the house to work. Jesper also knows that Wylan knows an empty room is a silly thing to fear. And that’s why Wylan doesn’t protest when Jesper takes his hand and leads him inside. 

His father’s office—his office now—needs a proper cleaning, that’s for sure. A thorough dusting, new oil in the lamps, and the desk could stand to be polished again. The room itself has remained untouched since the stadwatch’s arrival, other than Jesper grabbing papers and ledgers from the shelves. Wylan itches to reach out and straighten it all up. Reorganize it all and wipe the dust away just as he’s always done. 

“Go on, sit,” Jesper urges, guiding Wylan behind the desk. With an overly dramatic yet endearing flourish, he pulls out the massive leather chair.

His father sat in it as if it were a throne. The source of all his power. Wylan wishes that touching it grants him the same confidence, the same competence that always slips through his fingers like water no matter how desperately he tries. 

It’s not a throne. It’s just a chair, Wylan reminds himself with annoyance. When he was young he used to sit in it, feet dangling because his legs were too short to reach the floor. He could barely see over the desk, but he still pretended to be a businessman. Back then his father smiled with pride and indulged his games. 

Wylan pushes the memory away, rolls his eyes, and sits. 

Jesper perches himself carelessly on the edge of the expensive hand-carved desk, heels kicking against the drawers along the side that Wylan used to polish. 

“I’m fine,” Wylan insists. For whose benefit, he’s not sure. 

Jesper shrugs, casual as ever. “Of course you are, darling. I never said you weren’t. This is merely a lesson in relaxation. You look like you’re ready to bolt from the room, Wy. Let’s build some new memories in here. Put your feet up and have a good time. Let the master teach you a thing or two.” 

He nudges Wylan’s leg with his foot, showing the request is more than just a figure of speech. He actually wants him to kick back and get comfortable. 

“Jes,” Wylan protests. 

He adores the man in front of him. Kind, beautiful Jesper with his charming grin and endless patience is only trying to help. He knows Jesper isn’t trying to patronize him—he’d never—but Wylan still feels the urge to smash his own face into the wall rather than do this. 

Wylan swallows down the insecurities clawing at his insides. He’s fine. 

He’s fine.  

He puts his feet up on the desk and waits for the tension under his skin to ease. It doesn’t, even as his shoes crinkle the papers on the desk that he can’t read. 

“Oh!” Jesper says, remembering something. He does that often, changing topics as often as the direction of the wind. But Wylan hardly minds. He likes the surprise. 

Jesper digs through his pockets, pulling out odds and ends until he finds what he’s looking for. “Kaz has a message for you. He said he found your mother …” He squints at a scrap of paper. “In Olendaal, at Saint Hilde.”

Wylan swallows heavily, though his mouth has suddenly gone dry. “He found her grave?”

He always assumed she was laid in the family mausoleum. Where else would she be? There’s a cemetery near their old summer lake house, but he’s never heard of Olendaal or Saint Hilde. 

Jesper smiles apologetically. “I don’t know the details. Kaz just told me to give you the location. He also said that you’ll want to visit as soon as possible.”

Wylan’s not sure he’s ready just yet. One day, perhaps, but not today. His grief is a raw wound that never healed. But maybe, he thinks bravely, it would be nice to bring his mother flowers and play his flute for her once again. He’d like to talk to her, a real conversation outside of the imaginary ones in his mind, even if it’s just speaking to a headstone. 

He tucks the names Jesper gave him into his memory. Something gnaws at the edge of Wylan’s thoughts. 

“Why would Kaz do that?” he wonders. The Bastard of the Barrel loathes sentimentality. Nor does he share his information freely.

Jesper shrugs, less bothered by his boss’s—former boss’s behavior. “It’s Kaz, who knows. Maybe it’s a thank you for making him a millionaire.”

“I doubt that,” Wylan says skeptically. “He’s always up to something.”

“While true, there is zero chance he’s about to have as much fun as us. He probably wouldn’t recognize a good time if it crawled down his shirt. Go on,” Jesper encourages, eyes alight with mischief. “Let the destruction begin. It’s your office now. Do anything you want. Spit on the desk. Piss on it. Tear everything to shreds. Saints know this ugly room needs to be redecorated anyway.”

Wylan huffs a small laugh. He doesn’t disagree. But as appealing as the idea is, he can’t bring himself to intentionally make a mess, no matter how small. 

Wylan shakes his head. “Someone would just have to clean it up,” he says quietly. 

Weeks ago, that someone would have been him. He removes his feet from the desk, feeling silly. He doesn’t belong on this side of the house. 

“Hey,” Jesper says softly, dropping the playful bravado meant to embolden Wylan. “Is it too much? We don’t have to be here if you’re not ready.” 

“No, you’re perfect. It’s just …” Wylan pauses, teeth worrying at his lip. He doesn’t know how to voice all the thoughts, the feelings swelling and buzzing in his head at once. “I can’t do this, Jesper. I can’t. I’m such a fraud, and sooner than later everyone’s going to realize how useless I am. I don’t know how to do anything but clean. How am I supposed to take over a business when I can’t read? Can’t write? I’m not smart, Jes. I don’t understand anything about acquisitions, revenue, and investment returns. I don’t know anything about business. I dropped out of school when I was eight.”

Marlies sews and sews well. She’s not trapped in the sphere of domestic labor, unlike Wylan who knows no other trade. Music and art are talents, not jobs. He doesn’t have enough experience with either to find any sort of respectable paying work. Besides, they’re undervalued, unappreciated. Interests for people that failed to succeed in Kerch’s cutthroat business culture. 

“You were forced to stop school. There’s a big difference, Wylan,” Jesper corrects him. “It’s not because you’re stupid. Your jackass of a father couldn’t figure out the world’s easiest solution. You can’t see letters? Fine. Let someone else read them for you! He should have paid someone to read to you; he had the money. It’s that easy.”

“Then why wasn’t it?” Wylan asks, sadness bleeding into bitterness. Familiar sensations of hurt and shame bubble raw and uncontrollable no matter how desperately he tries to stuff them down. They threaten to drown him. 

“It should have been.” 

Jesper must pull Wylan to his feet because his long strong arms wrap around Wylan in a fierce hug. His resolve crumbles. Fat wet tears slide down his cheeks. Wylan buries his face in Jesper’s shoulder, grateful that Jesper can’t see him cry even if he hears the obvious hitch in Wylan’s breath. 

He hates himself for crying so much. For being useless. Worthless. Stupid. Jesper deserves so much better than Wylan and all his anxieties. His insecurities. He can’t even enter an office without breaking down. 

“Kaz stopped school at nine and he’s one of the smartest people I know. Fuck,” Jesper laughs, and Wylan feels the self deprivation in it even before Jesper finishes his thought. “I went to university, and I’m one of the dumbest sons of bitches in the Barrel.”

That’s not true. Jesper’s incredibly smart. Wylan pulls himself away from Jesper’s shoulder, offended on his behalf. Self consciously he wipes his eyes. “Don’t say that about yourself, Jes. You’re brilliant.”

“And so are you,” Jesper counters. “Now you know how I feel every time you put yourself down, love.

“You are smart, Wylan. Saints, I wish you could see what I see every time I look at you. You’re a genius when it comes to music, and math. Regular people don’t compose music or solve complicated equations in their heads. But you do. Who cares that you can’t write when you can pick up a pen and draw better than anyone in Kerch. 

“You can learn anything you want, Wylan. You just weren’t given the chance. But now you can. Why not start school again? Pick up where you left off.”

Wylan’s heart leaps and twists at the idea. Desire fighting with the fear of failure. 

“What about the shipping business?”

Jesper shrugs dismissively. “What about it? Hire someone else to handle it and live your life.” The gleam returns to his gunmetal eyes. “This is Kerch. There’s probably already ten people salivating at the idea of the job.”

“It doesn’t matter what you choose to do with the business. You don’t owe your family anything. Sell it, burn it all to the ground if that’s what you want. The only thing that matters is if you’re happy.”

Just when Wylan thinks it’s impossible to love Jesper any more, the man in front of him provides a new reason. Wylan’s eyes threaten to water again, but this time, he smiles. A tiny ray of sunshine fighting through the rain. 

He wants to continue his education again. But … “I can’t learn, Jesper. I’ve tried,” he says sadly. 

“No,” Jesper reminds him gently. “You can’t read. There’s a difference, Wylan. You just need a teacher who will help you learn. Someone who’s willing to teach by reading to you instead of expecting you to do it yourself.” His face lights up with excitement. “I’ll do it! Hell, you don’t even have to pay me. Wait, no—you know what I mean, I’m happy to read for you,” Jesper stammers. 

It’s so heartwarming and endearing that Wylan smiles despite his worry. 

“Just let me stick around and I’ll read anything you want and then some. Plus,” Jesper ribs, waggling his eyebrows, “You’ll have the benefit of the most handsome tutor in Ketterdam.”

Wylan flushes despite himself. Being wanted is still new and thrilling. He’ll never grow tired of hearing it. 

“Just Ketterdam?” Wylan teases, feeling his heart lighten. Jesper has that effect on him. 

Jesper rolls his eyes and pulls Wylan in for a searing kiss. “Obviously not just Ketterdam. Look at this face. You think anyone across the True Sea can compete? My nose was crafted by the saints themselves. My hands sculpted from—”

Wylan cuts him off with a kiss. He already knows plenty about Jesper’s lovely hands. 

“Your lips are beautiful,” Wylan agrees when they break apart for air. 

“Consider it, yeah?” Jesper says returning to his original point. “Even if you get fed up with me and hire a real tutor, it’s never too late to start learning again.”

“I think I’d like that,” Wylan admits shyly. “I’ll try at least.”

“You’ll succeed,” Jesper says with full confidence. It’s infectious, and Wylan can’t help but start believing it too. A seed of hope plants itself in his chest again and blooms faster than ever before. 

Distracted by the nautical theming and the gaudy display of obscene wealth on the walls, Jesper frowns. “Saints, your father doesn’t have any taste. This is the ugliest room in the house. Let’s get out of here. What do you say to spending the afternoon in the garden instead, hm? At least until it rains, which could be in twenty minutes or two hours. There’s only one way to find out.”

Wylan glances out the window down below at the flowers in bloom. Velvet red tulips and blushing peonies. Pale wisteria and sleepy morning glories winding up trellises in an artful nonchalance where their vines tangle. Greenery as far as the eyes can see. The sun’s not out, it rarely shines behind Ketterdam’s cloud cover, but Wylan admits the gray skies are more than a dull background. They’re just one more color to add to the palette that now makes up his life. 

Wylan used to live in the lifeless shades between black and white. But now there’s a richness to their colors, a purpose. Black merchant wool and rainy gray skies. Music notes stark against white sheet music. 

No, gray isn’t so bad, Wylan thinks as he remembers the gunmetal shade of Jesper’s lovely eyes. They are nothing like the ashy gray existence that once characterized Wylan’s life. They’re as beautiful as the warm bronze of Jesper’s skin. Purple lilac blooms and silver flutes. The outrageous plaids and paisley patterns of the shirts Wylan dons after he picks their scattered clothes up off the floor. Moonlit gardens. Glittering ballrooms. Shimmering blue waistcoats and delicate butterfly wings. 

Wylan watches the butterflies in the garden flutter and flap their wings from flower to flower. The freedom to go wherever their whims take them. 

The same is true for himself, he realizes, threading his fingers with Jesper’s as they leave the office behind. So many opportunities are available to him now that Wylan has the ability to live in color.