Chapter Text
Tevta is waiting for him when he returns.
His foot skims across the sill; he has to grab the sash to steady himself. “So soon?” he asks, sliding easily to the flat’s floor. His hands are barely washed of the last job, but here she is.
“A better one,” she tells him, and flourishes a knife. Its blade scatters rainbows across the floor as the sun’s light passes through.
His mouth is suddenly dry. “I’ll say.”
“This is your ticket into the big leagues.” With a quick flick of her wrist, two knives bury themselves in his table. Two shots. That’s all he gets. “Don’t fuck it up.”
The Second Prince is to choose a bride.
Clarines is a flurry activity; second born he may be, but Prince Zen is first in the hearts of his people.
A week of balls, people say, leaning over fences and through windows, jawing on as small folk do. Obi listens with a smile, nods as they say, a hundred of the Fortissia’s finest brides for our young prince.
It sounds like opportunity.
The key is patience. If a man doesn’t need to act in the moment, he should not.
Tevta didn’t teach him this, but – someone did.
The collar of his uniform is starched to within an inch of its life; it itches mercilessly against the soft skin of this throat. A distraction, but he’s had worse. If a dagger in his shoulder doesn’t keep him from making a mark, a little itchy collar is not going to keep him from holding wine glasses perfectly flat.
It’s amazing what rich people won’t see as long as its dressed as a servant.
He turns the corner, straightening the lines of his waistcoat with one hand as he holds his third tray of glasses aloft – one works up quite a thirst while dancing, he’s told – until he’s not.
Something slams into his stomach, air driven from his lungs in a painful burst as his back is shoved against the wall. The tray leaps out of his fingers, and it’s only instinct that catches it flat, his hand clutching the braided edge with hardly a tremble.
“Oh!” says the thing at his chest. It is a woman, younger than him, with nothing to recommend her above any of the fine gems he’s seen tonight besides the red of her hair. She stares at the tray, eyes wide, lips parted.
One of the glasses, still trembling, tips. Merlot pours right down his shoulder.
“Oh no!” she gasps, hands spreading in distress across the smooth satin of his waistcoat. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t – I wasn’t looking where I was going. Oh, I am – I’m so, so sorry!”
“It’s no trouble at all, my lady.” He realizes only now that he needs another hand to hold the tray properly that his arm is wrapped around her, steadying her small form. She’s pressed so closely to him that he feels the tremble in her breath, the warmth of her body through its hundred layers or moire.
It’s – nice.
He releases her with a smile. “If I had known I was to be accosted in a hallway, I would have positioned myself much more amenably.” He lets his lips pull into a charming smirk. “I would have at least put the tray down.”
She blinks at him, slow, uncomprehending, before stepping away. Her fingers pluck at the purplish splotch on his shirt. “Ah! And this stain is – not small. I am so sorry.”
“It’s – fine,” he assures her. Why is she still worrying over him? Shouldn’t she be trying to catch the prince’s eye, like every other girl here? “Please, don’t let it ruin your night.”
She mutters something like too late, and proceeds to nearly yank the tray from his hand. “Do you have – ah, yes, here.”
She lifts a glass of chardonnay up with a grin, and them promptly pours it right over his sleeve.
“What –?”
“A moment,” she tells him, and then pulls his pocket square right out of his waist coat, scrubbing against the stain.
It’s as if magic is being done in front of his eyes. Barely a minute later, there is nothing left by a wet patch on an otherwise pristine shirt.
“It dissolves the anthocyanin,” she explains, as if any of those words should make sense to him. “Impressive, right?”
“Yeah,” he agrees, oddly breathless. “You’ve saved me from getting a real dressing down by my boss.”
She blinks at that, like she has somehow just realized the man carrying the tray is a server, not a guest, and he braces for her derision.
It doesn’t come. Instead she flutters back, her pale skin suffused with vibrant blush. “Oh, I’m so sorry. You probably –” Her gloved hands clench over her skirt. “I didn’t mean to disturb you while you were working. I –”
She bows, a quick bob, and bolts down the corridor.
She’s already gone when he calls out, “The ball’s the other way, miss!”
A hundred fair brides, the servers say, at least to look at. The staff shares a chuckle at that one. Most of the ladies are as rude as they are beautiful; tonight alone Obi has been sent back to a dozen rooms to fetch this pin or the other, or told to bring them something special from the kitchen. None of them have seemed to made any distinction between his job and a footman’s.
Aside from one, of course. He thinks of the delicate way her skin had flushed, of the way she had taken him so firmly in hand and –
That’s not what this job is about. Two daggers, two chances. One of them has to end up in the Second Prince’s heart.
The collar on his coat is just as high but feels like a second skin rather than a distraction. Amazing the difference a few hundred florins can make.
He asks a few ladies to dance, if only to keep up appearances – a young man at a ball with this many glittering partners would have little excuse to hang by the walls, especially if he did not wish to call undue attention on himself.
It’s after such a dance that he makes his way to the refreshment table. There’s more food here than he thinks he’s seen in his whole life; more than even this crowd could feasibly eat with their starched collars and whalebone stays, and he wonders how much of it will end up in the garbage, trash too expensive to give away to people who might need it.
Someone jostles his arm, spilling punch on the pristine white tablecloth.
“Ah!” comes a familiar gasp. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to these shoes.”
“Not to worry, my lady,” he assures her. “The only victim is the table.”
He does not allow himself to think on why he is so relieved that she is seeing him in these clothes now. It’s not as if she would recognize him; ladies like her never remember –
“Weren’t you a server yesterday?” Her eyes are wide, guileless. She’s not confrontational but…confused.
He presses a hand to his chest. “Me, my lady?”
She steps closer, and he is half tempted to invite her to close the distance between them, just to be sure. But that is sure to give up the game entirely.
“Yes,” she says finally, eyes narrowed. “I spilled –” she stutters over the sentence, a blush working its way up her neck – “I spilled wine on you.”
He is trained in deception, an accomplished liar, and he surprises no one so much as himself when he blurts out, “I sometimes like to pretend to be staff. I find it gives me the measure of a person better than being a noble son.”
It is the worst lie he has yet told, if only because nearly half of it is true.
Her brow wrinkles, and when she opens her mouth to speak he thinks it must be to question his story. “I suppose I didn’t make such a good impression then. Spilling things on you like that.”
A laugh escapes him before he can swallow it down. “I think you did quite well,” he tells her. “Most wouldn’t have bothered to get the stain out.”
She blinks, as if she had never considered that particular point. “I guess that’s true.”
He should be watching the prince, he knows this.
“Would you –” He stops, clears his throat, which is suddenly dry. “Would you like to dance, my lady?”
“It’s Shirayuki,” she says. “And yes.”
Shirayuki is not a good dancer; she trods on his toes as often as the ballroom floor, and her limited expertise ends at the few country dances the orchestra lowers itself to play.
They dance for three sets. It’s two more than he should, but –
But it affords him a good view of the Prince. When he remembers to tear his gaze off his partner – she is flushed with exertion, her smile wide and eyes shining; it is easy to forget they are not the only two in the room, when she looks at him like that – he sees a ramrod straight back, a wan smile that is stretched across his face like a pelt on a rack. The Second Prince does not seem to be enjoying his ball.
Can you believe it? Obi pauses when he goes to refill his drink, letting the punch pour out slowly from the ladle. He invited his lover. A common girl.
Obi suppresses a smile. A common girl lover, a prince who must marry well: an easy situation to exploit.
It’s cruel, says one girl. It’s just showing her what she can’t have.
A jilted girl is too easy. A few flattering remarks and she’d practically stick the knife in herself.
Or he plans on keeping her, says another, and he wants us to get used to the idea.
A mistress is harder to be certain, but they are, as a breed, so insecure. He can at least look forward to bedding her; a girl doesn’t become a prince’s paramour without some skill.
Red hair is so rare, says another. I can’t see why he’d let such a jewel escape him.
Obi’s stomach gives a sick twist. It can’t – surely there has to be – there has to be someone else with red hair, not just – not just her.
It can’t be.
It’s her. The Prince’s lover.
He spends all night searching, but in the end he finds his answer in two ladies muttering behind their fans. There, say one, with a subtle flick of her fan, his lover. Shirayuki.
He scrubs a hand over his face. An easy situation to exploit. What a stupid thing to think.
When he closes his eyes it’s her face he sees, eyes wide and lips parted in a smile, and even without the warmth of her body in his arms the urge to kiss her is staggering.
He could do it. If he wants her already, what does it matter? She’ll never know the difference.
Right?