elegantly dressed gentry stood out in the gardens, glancing up at our entrance.
“Your majesty, I present Eugenie Markham, called Odile Dark Swan, daughter of Tirigan the Storm King.”
I winced. Yikes. I’d had no idea I’d had that much appended to my name now.
The soft conversation dropped. Apparently I should get used to having this effect while attending social events in the Otherworld.
From inside, I had expected a small courtyard type of garden, but this looked like it stretched out indefinitely. The grass was still green, but many of the trees had leaves in orange, yellow, and red. None were the dying brown of late autumn. These showed the perfect, beautiful hues one saw at autumn’s finest. Heavy apple trees laden with fruit clustered in corners, and in the air, I could just faintly smell a bonfire and mulling spices. It was earlier in the day here than when I’d left Tucson. The end of the afternoon was giving way to twilight, the sky painted in shades of gold and pink that rivaled the leaves’ splendor. Torches on long poles were set up to offer light.
The group parted, and Dorian strode forward. His red hair streamed behind him, and over a simple shirt and pants, he wore a robe-type garment made of wine-colored satin and gold brocade. I approached him, and we met in the middle. My spirits waited near the doorway.
“My, my. What a lovely surprise. I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”
Dorian reached for my hand, and this time I let him take it. A flicker of mischievous amusement glinted in his eyes at this small concession, and I knew I had already piqued his curiosity.
“I hope you don’t mind me dropping in like this.”
He kissed my hand, just as Kiyo had yesterday. Only Dorian’s kiss was less of a hope you get better kiss and more of an imagine my lips in other places kind of kiss.
“Not at all.” He drew his lips back and laced his fingers with mine. “Come. Join us.”
I recognized a couple of the gentry standing there from dinner. The other two people hanging around looked like servants, waiting anxiously with long mallet-type things in their hands. I peered at them, then at the wickets spread out in the grass.
“Croquet? You’re playing croquet?”
Dorian’s face broke into a grin. “Yes. Do you play?”
“Not in years.” The gentry played croquet? Who knew? I supposed it was technologically simple as far as games went. It made more sense for them to play that than video games.
“Would you like to now?”
I shook my head. “You’re already in the middle of something. I’ll just watch.”
“As you like.”
He took a proffered stick from one of the servants. Watching him line up a shot, I could see he intended to hit his ball and knock out an opponent’s near a wicket. A faint breeze ruffled his hair and the folds of his robe, and he had to take a moment to brush the fabric out of his way. When he finally hit his ball, it went wide, considerably away from his opponent’s ball.
“Ah, well. It was close. I nearly had it, don’t you think so, Muran?”
Muran, a lanky guy dressed in lavender, jumped at being addressed. “Er, uh, y-y-yes, your majesty. Very close. You were almost there.”
Dorian rolled his eyes. “No, I wasn’t. It was an abominable shot, you wretched man. Let Lady Markham have your turn. Give her your mallet.”
Now I jumped. Lady Markham?
But the aforementioned Muran practically shoved the thing at me. Hesitantly, I approached his ball. I was pretty sure I’d been ten the last time I’d played, off visiting one of my mom’s aunts in Virginia.
Remembering Dorian’s hang-ups on his robe, I paused to slip off my coat. A servant immediately raced over to take it from me, folding it neatly over his arms. I turned back to the ball and mallet, sizing up the shot. I tossed my hair back over one shoulder and hit. The ball half-skittered, half-rolled through the grass and went through one of the wickets.
“Exquisite,” I heard Dorian say.
I glanced back at him but saw he wasn’t watching the ball at all. His eyes were all over me. I tried to return the mallet to poor Muran, but Dorian wouldn’t hear of it. He made me finish the game in Muran’s stead. As we played, I immediately picked up on something peculiar.
Dorian was a terrible player-too terrible to be real. He was obviously faking it, but his subjects could not bring themselves to do better than their king. So they too faked their own sort of appalling game play. Watching it was comical. I felt like I was in a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Having no such qualms about winning, I played normally, and even with aching muscles and no practice, I won pretty handily.
Dorian couldn’t have been happier. He clasped his hands together, laughing. “Oh, outstanding. This is the best game I’ve played in years. These sheep won’t know what to do now.” He glanced at his fellow players and beckoned them toward the building. “Go, go, your shepherd is tired of you all.”
I watched them go. “You don’t really treat them…respectfully.”
“Because they deserve none. Did you see the preposterous way they acted in that game? Now imagine that happening every second, every day of your life. That’s what it’s like to be royalty, to live at court among courtiers. Be happy you have no true throne yet. It’s all simpering and groupthink.”
I almost heard a touch of bitterness in his light voice. Almost.
A servant handed my coat back, and Dorian addressed her and a couple of guards. “Lady Markham and I are going to take a walk now through the eastern orchard. Seeing as she’s dressed for business, I imagine she wants to speak alone. Follow, but keep your distance.”
Turning, he offered me his arm again and led me off into one of the garden’s winding turns, into a dense apple orchard. Like the other trees I’d seen, these were filled with fruit. Still more apples lay on the ground, round and red and waiting to be eaten.
When we were sufficiently alone, I said, “I’m not dressed for business, not in these shoes. I was dressed for business the last time I was here.”
He gave me a sidelong look. “Women who show up looking as lovely as you do after barely stomaching my presence last time do not come on pleasure. They come for business.”
“You’re a cynic.”
“A pragmatist. But, business or pleasure, it becomes you.” He sighed happily. “I do so wish more of our women would wear pants like those. The warriors often do but not nearly so tight.”
“Thanks…I think.”
We walked on at a leisurely pace while the sky turned orange and scarlet.
“So I imagine you’ve changed in other ways since our last encounter. The very fact that you’ve come here so congenially indicates as much.”
“Yes.” I narrowed my eyes. “You know, I don’t appreciate you telling me that Storm King bedtime story when all the time you knew I didn’t know what was going on.”
“Mean, perhaps. But also amusing-were you in my place. Besides, I did you a service of sorts. I provided necessary background information, Lady Markham.”
“Don’t say ‘Lady Markham.’ It sounds weird.”
“I’ve got to call you something. Our normal rules of etiquette don’t exactly outline anything for your situation. You are the daughter of a king without a kingdom. You are royalty but not quite royal. So you are addressed like a noble.”
“Well, then, only use it in public. Or stick to ‘Odile.’”
“What about ‘Eugenie’?”
“Fine.”
Silence fell between us. The orchard seemed to go on forever.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re here yet? Or should I think up some other pleasantries to discuss?”
I repressed a laugh. Dorian played flamboyant and scattered, but he wasn’t a fool.
“I need a favor.”
“Ah, so it is business after all.”
I stopped walking, and he stopped with me. Looking down at me, he waited patiently, his face pleasantly
