Myshtal frowned. “Are princes that uncommon here?”
This elicited more than a few chuckles, with Li responding a few seconds later, saying, “They are somewhat rare.”
“Then a double-prince must be singularly unique,” Myshtal announced conclusively.
Her statement caused almost everyone except me to display a look of confusion.
“A double-prince?” Smokey echoed a few seconds later.
Rather than respond Myshtal merely gestured towards me.
My thoughts raced furiously as I wrestled with what to say. Most of those in our current circle were my close friends and knew many of the intimate details of my life. Vestibule and Atalanta, however, were acquaintances at best. How much did I really want them knowing about me? Then again, I had spent the early part of the evening in a receiving line being introduced as Indigo’s grandson. Thus, the cat was out of the bag to a large extent where my background was concerned.
Mind made up, I let out a sigh and then quickly summed up how I was both Caelesian and Fleodin royalty. There was stunned silence for the most part when I finished.
“Wait a minute – you’re a prince in not just one but two interstellar empires?” Kane finally said after a few seconds. “How’s that fair? Someone please explain to me how that’s fair.”
He asked the last two questions in a tone of mock frustration, causing all of us to laugh.
“Truthfully,” I said with a grin, “it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Yeah, right,” Smokey stated sarcastically. “We’re not buying your uneasy-lies-the-head-that-wears-a-crown routine.” He turned to Myshtal. “Anyway, what did you say to the Pelagic Prince to get him to leave?”
“Nothing much,” Myshtal replied. “I just asked him if he would get me something from the dessert bar inside.”
“There’s a dessert bar here?” Kane asked, obviously intrigued.
“No, there isn’t,” Myshtal replied.
Her comment was met with perplexed looks – and then a raucous outburst of laughter as everyone figured out the joke at about the same time. Myshtal had sent her would-be Romeo on a snipe hunt.
“That’s awesome!” Gossamer chirped between giggles.
“You think so?” Myshtal inquired.
“Oh, yeah,” I insisted, grinning broadly. “That was classic.”
“Do you think he’ll be back?” Myshtal asked.
I shrugged. “Who knows? But if he does, just tell him he needs to put on a shirt if he wants to continue the conversation. I doubt that’s an option for the Pelagic Prince.”
“More like the Pectoral Prince,” Myshtal harrumphed.
This caused even more chuckles. Or rather, I thought it did, but after a few seconds I realized that Myshtal and I were the only ones laughing. Everyone else was just staring at us as if we were speaking gibberish – especially Electra, who was suddenly giving off an unsettling vibe.
“Oh, come on,” I said, trying to reestablish a congenial atmosphere. “You have to admit that was funny.”
“I don’t know, Jim,” Electra blurted out testily. “Maybe if we’d heard it in English.”
I blinked, trying to make sense of her statement – and then it hit me. The last bit of dialog between Myshtal and me had actually been spoken in Caelesian. Somehow we had switched to my grandmother’s native tongue without me even noticing.
I opened my mouth to explain – to say anything – but had seemingly taken too long to gather my thoughts, because at that point I was looking at Electra’s back as she stormed off.
Chapter 25
I took off after my girlfriend, urged on by Kane making a surreptitious shooing motion with his hand and Smokey doing something similar with his eyes. It didn’t take me long to catch her, as she only had a few seconds of a head start and never got out of my line of sight.
She hadn’t marched towards the mansion. Instead, she had gone past the pool, heading for the expansive, lamplit grounds of my father’s estate. Needless to say, she was fitfully irate, and it was visibly evident on her face.
I initially tried to talk to her – asked her to speak to me, why she was so angry, and so on. She essentially ignored me, continuing to walk without breaking stride. After a few minutes, I gave up on trying to engage with her verbally and attempted to hold her hand. The first time, she shook my hand off like it was more disgusting than a dung beetle. The next time I tried it, she gave me a mild electrical zap that had my fingers stinging for about thirty seconds. Following that, I just fell into step beside her, following where she led and keeping my hands to myself.
She didn’t seem to have a particular destination in mind – just away from the pool area where I had seemingly committed the unforgiveable sin of speaking in another language. At this juncture, however, we were well away from the site of my transgression and had just begun walking down a path that I recognized.
“Um…” I began, thinking I should tell Electra what lay ahead. However, a withering look from her made me reassess, and I stayed quiet.
After a few moments, the path we were on began to bisect a pair of well-trimmed hedgerows. The shrubbery comprising them was initially about four feet tall, but within a few steps had stretched up to about seven feet in height. Moreover, the path we were on (which was well-lit by lamps) began to fork every five or ten paces.
I smiled to myself, thinking how distracted Electra must be not to realize what was happening, to not recognize where we were. Nevertheless, I kept my mouth shut, understanding that sooner or later she would notice what was already obvious to me.
She got her first hint when the path we were on suddenly came to a dead end at a wall of hedges. She frowned for a second, plainly confused, then tried retracing our steps. Moments later, we hit another dead end, causing me to smile momentarily. When we hit our third dead end a minute
