Chapter Eleven
Taro was waiting for me when I returned to the residence. He was lingering in the parlor and jumped out as soon as I was through the front door. “What did you tell him?” he demanded.
I was annoyed to be assaulted so quickly. I looked through the correspondence deposited on the table in the foyer, surprised to find a letter from Trader Fines addressed to me. I was tempted to read it right then, an indication that I didn’t appreciate his behavior, but that was just a little too rude.
“I made it clear that you and I were—” What? I hated all the descriptors that immediately leapt to mind. They were either too saccharine or too coarse. “Together.”
“And?” he prodded.
“That any plans he might have had for the two of us were to be put out of his head, because they weren’t going to happen.”
“And?”
I just looked at him. And what? I had had nothing more to say.
“And you’re not going to see him again?”
“I didn’t say that.” And I wouldn’t say that. “I’m not going to talk about this anymore, Taro. I’m not going to be told who my friends are.”
“He’s not a friend, Lee! He loves you!”
I grimaced at the melodrama. “That’s an exaggeration, Taro.” Doran had never said so, and had given me no reason to believe that was the way he felt. And I respected him for it. He really didn’t know me well enough to fall in love with me. “I told him that any kind of romantic relationship between us was over. He argued about it for a bit, and then he accepted it and asked if we could be friends. And I was happy to agree. I’m not like you, Taro. I don’t have a lot of friends.”
“You can’t be this naive! No one wants to go from lovers to friends.”
“We were never lovers,” I reminded him in a sharp tone. “And are you saying you don’t stay friends with the people you’ve had as lovers?”
“Not usually,” he muttered.
“Really?” I said, my surprise evident in my voice. That was a bad sign for us.
We were still standing in the front foyer, which meant we were in the way when Stone and Firth came clattering in. “Hells, not another argument,” were the first words out of Firth’s mouth.
“We don’t argue that much,” Taro objected.
“You argue constantly,” Firth snapped. “And it is much more bitter than it was before you left.” She poked me in the chest. Hard. “This is one of the many reasons why partners should never sleep with each other. It was incredibly foolish for you to let things go that far.”
I stared at her. Why was I, of the two of us, responsible for letting things go anywhere? And where was this censure coming from? All the Pairs had thought we were sleeping together, I was sure, from the moment they’d come to High Scape, and there hadn’t been a hint of disapproval. Annoyance and a lot of eye rolling, certainly, but not actual disapproval.
And Firth was always going on about sleeping with everything on two legs in her long, adventure-filled life. She tormented Taro every time she saw him, about how delicious she found him. What had all that been about, if it didn’t demonstrate a certain flexibility in her morals?
And yes, sexual relations between partners was discouraged by the official policy of the Triple S. We were lectured about it the whole time we were in school. But while it was considered an extremely bad idea, it wasn’t illegal or even really immoral. I’d met a Pair who were married to each other, for Zaire’s sake, so how wrong could it really be?
“Ignore her,” Stone said to me. “She’s just upset that Prince Albert died.”
Hold on, the Empress’s husband had died? When?
“Don’t tell her to ignore me,” Firth snapped. “What they’re doing is disgusting.”
Disgusting. Disgusting? Seriously, where the hell was this coming from?
“We’ve talked about this,” Stone said to Firth.
“No, you lectured me about it. And where did you get the idea that you could lecture me, I wonder? You’ve been spending too much time with this one.” Firth nodded at me with a sniff, before turning on her heel and striding away from us, ascending the stairs with an uncharacteristic heavy tread.
“She’s actually disgusted by us?” I asked Stone.
Stone shrugged. “I believe so,” she said. Which surprised me. I had been expecting her to discount Firth’s accusations as an aberration.
“But why is she only getting upset about it now?” Unless she had always disapproved of us and had been able to hide it better before.
Stone frowned, looking puzzled. “She’s disapproved of it since she realized the nature of your relationship,” she said. “This is fairly new, is it not? At least, you weren’t sleeping together before you went on your trip.”
There were too many surprises happening in a single conversation. I had really thought the other Pairs had thought Taro and I had been sleeping together all along. They’d certainly acted as though that was what they believed.
“I’d felt like she’d been avoiding us,” Taro commented. “But I’d thought it was just me.”
“But she’s always talked as though she enjoyed . . .” Sleeping with a lot of different people. I wasn’t comfortable saying that about someone so much older than I. I wasn’t sure why.
Stone rescued me. “She likes to talk,” she said. “And she likes to tease. But her morals are actually very firm.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” I asked. “She really thinks what we’re doing is immoral?” That was a stupid question. I knew it as soon as it left my mouth. I just couldn’t believe she actually thought what we were doing was wrong.
“Yes,” Stone answered, with no hesitation.
“And do you think we’re immoral?”
It took her a little longer to respond that time. “Not immoral, precisely,” she said finally. “Just incredibly foolish. I have to say I expected better of you.”
And again, I was fairly sure the use of the word “you” was meant to refer only to me, not to Taro and me collectively. And seriously, what was that about? Why was I the only one to blame?
“If you will excuse me,” said Stone, moving away.
“Dee,” said Taro.
Stone kept moving. “I don’t care to continue this conversation.”
“No, I just want to know how Prince Albert died.”
Stone hesitated and turned back. “They say he died in his sleep. Apparently, he has been bedridden for close to fifteen years, and demented for most of them.”
Demented? I’d heard no such rumors, and I would have, wouldn’t I? If this had been going on for fifteen years? I had spent time at Erstwhile, staying right in the palace. People living in the palace, or spending their days at the court, they would have been aware of something like that, and spoken of it. Wouldn’t they?
“Thank you,” said Taro. Stone nodded and went upstairs, presumably following her Source.
I couldn’t believe they had the gall to think there was something immoral about us. “Why am I to blame?” I muttered.
“Oh?” Taro arched an eyebrow. “So you feel what we’re doing is blameworthy?”
“No, no. Bad choice of words. But why am I the only one considered responsible?”
“Because you’re the only one considered able to be responsible,” Taro said bitterly. “I’m just a Source, after all. Little better than a child.”
“That can’t be it. Firth is a Source and she holds me responsible, too.”
“She wouldn’t be the only Source to think that way. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies.”
That didn’t make sense, to think one’s own kind was inferior to another. And what did that mean, in Firth’s case? That Taro was incapable of making his own decisions, and that I was abusing a position of authority in the pursuit of sex?
I felt a little sick. I’d never been despised before. Not by someone who knew me. I’d never been thought of as something vile and reprehensible. It was a disquieting position to be in.
“Who is your letter from?” Taro asked in a welcome change of subject.
I had forgotten about the folded paper I held in my left hand. “Trader Fines.”
“The man who guided you during the parade?” Taro’s expression was flat. I had told him of my experiences at the parade, and he had read me a fine lecture about my idiocy in attending alone.
He’d been right, but it was so aggravating to be limited that way. Talk about feeling like a child. “Aye.”
“What does he want?”
We moved to the parlor as I opened the letter. It was addressed only to me, though the invitation within was for both Taro and me. It spoke at length of Fines’s laxity in not inviting me sooner—revealing that he hadn’t been aware of my absence from High Scape, though there was no reason why he should have been—but his holdings had enjoyed a sudden expansion that had left him and his staff scrambling. He owed me no explanation. I hadn’t known he existed before the day of the parade. “Trader Fines wants us to come to dinner.”
“You’re not going to refuse,” he said, because he knew me quite well.
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s likely to be deadly boring.”
“You said he said he knew your parents.”
“Aye, as business rivals. Not friends.”
“That you know of. And I wager that you haven’t even written to your parents to find out.”
I didn’t respond to that challenge, because he was right. I hadn’t even thought to do that. Why would I? “It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship he has with my parents. That has nothing to do with me.”
“They’re your family.”
“Those ties are severed once you enter the Academy.” He raised his eyebrows at me to inform me that my opinion was stupid. “That’s what the rules say,” I insisted. While any child sent to a Triple S Academy could retain his place in his family, all obligations that would normally bind him were considered eliminated.
“I know for a fact that doesn’t actually happen.”
“Your case is different. No one expected your highly titled brother to die without producing an heir. And most families wouldn’t have expected a Triple S member to take on the obligation of a title. No one’s going to expect me to play nice with merchants because of my family.” They’d better not. I didn’t know the first thing about trade, and it wasn’t fair for anyone to expect me to play the game.
“All right, then go to thank him for the kindness he showed you during the parade.”
“Won’t that be just acquiring another debt to him?”
“Not if you play it right.”
“I don’t play things, Taro.”
He winked. “That’s what you have me for.”
“Fine. I’ll send an acceptance.” Clearly, I had no willpower at all.
And then I felt Taro’s inner protections fall.
Really, I should stop expecting not to have to Shield merely because we weren’t on duty. Time was, Taro would warn me when he was going to channel in unusual circumstances. It was odd for him to desert that courtesy. I’d have to talk to him about this, after he finished channeling whatever he was channeling.
It wasn’t long before I knew what he was doing. It was an event from that place of cliffs and water. Or at least, it was the place that inspired those images in my mind, and filled my nose with the scent of salt, and my mouth with the impression of water. As with the first time, Taro let the forces rush through him too quickly, pushing the workings of his body and his mind too hard. The anger that behavior inspired in me made it a little bit easier to Shield him in the slightly chaotic circumstances.
And when the forces dissipated and Taro’s inner protections were resumed, I glared at my idiot of a Source. “I asked you not to channel like that again,” I snapped.
“No, you ordered me not to,” he responded in a cool tone. “When did you develop the delusion that you can give me orders?”
When I saw him acting like an idiot. “We are both put at risk when you—”
But he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, his lack of interest in any further conversation clear. Arrogant prat.