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I didn’t know what to expect for the rest of the night. I thought I'd known what to expect from the baking portion, but then Gilbert, Silvio, Keith, and Arianna had shown up, and Silvio and Rio had nearly gotten into a fight. Now, they were all in the lounge, along with Chevalier’s brothers, Belle, and Theresa, and I was getting more nervous the closer we got there.
“We don’t have to go,” Chevalier suggested.
I shot him a glare. He’d made it clear he’d rather spend some one-on-one time with me than join the group in the lounge, even offering what had sounded like a teasing request to enter my room when we’d stopped there so I could change. Except I’d known it was only half-teasing, and I’d also known what kind of trouble we could get into if I said yes.
So, I’d made him wait in the hallway.
“This night is for Licht and Nokto, not you,” I reminded him. “And since I put it all together, I really should be there for the rest of it.”
Chevalier's smirk remained firmly in place. He leaned in and murmured in my ear, “I hope you aren’t planning something similar for my birthday.”
Well, that hadn’t stayed a secret for long. Not that I’d thought I could keep it a secret from him, since he was far too observant for that, but I’d barely begun to plan.
“No, you don’t have to worry about that,” I reassured him. “But could you please at least pretend to be surprised about something on your birthday?”
He chuckled and kissed my cheek, and I giggled, too. His facial expressions were so subtle and understated that simply imagining him feigning surprise was comical.
The lounge was up ahead, marked by a general murmur from the crowd inside and a small line of golden light shining through the crack at the bottom of the door. We were in for some teasing when we arrived, and since Chevalier still had to change into his pajamas, I’d have to deal with it on my own for a few minutes. I steeled myself as he opened the door.
And watched Leon punch Jin in the face.
I stared, frozen in shock. The only movement came from Theresa, storming toward the door, and Leon, shaking his hand out. I stepped aside just in time to avoid Theresa knocking me over.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped at me.
If her green eyes hadn’t been flashing so angrily, maybe I would have run after her, but I knew she needed her space. And I was still too stunned to move.
“I told you to keep your mouth shut,” Leon said to Jin, his voice as relaxed and good natured as ever. “Man, you’ve got a hard head.”
“And you’ve got a mean right,” Jin commented, rubbing his jaw. “Oh, hey, Ivetta.”
Why did this sound like a normal conversation?
Licht stood from a lounge chair and walked toward me and the door, his face as impassive and his dark crimson eyes as cold and empty as the day I’d first met him. A horrible sense of foreboding settled in my gut as he brushed past me without a word. Tonight was supposed to be for him, to give him a reason to smile and to keep his mind off the violent events on the eve of his tenth birthday party. Now, he was leaving, and I had a feeling I knew what he was going to do.
I took off after him without a second thought.
“Licht,” I called, my heart clamoring in my chest. “Licht!”
His long, fast strides had already taken him to his door before I caught up to him. I grabbed his sleeve with his hand halfway to the doorknob.
“Ivetta—”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “None of this is going right. I didn’t plan for Gilbert, Keith, or Silvio to show up, and then that fight with Rio, and whatever’s going on with Theresa—I just didn’t want you to be alone tonight, and I thought—I thought maybe this would help, but it’s all falling apart, and maybe I shouldn’t have even planned it in the first place, because maybe you weren’t even ready for something like this—”
“Ivetta—”
“But you’ve been so much happier lately, and I at least wanted to celebrate that you’re…you’re starting to feel better, and when I saw how you were with the Stotts kids—but I messed that up, too—”
He cut short my uncontrolled torrent of words with a sudden embrace. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in his chest, hugging him as tightly as I could, afraid of what would happen if I let go.
“Please don’t hurt yourself,” I whispered.
I felt him stiffen, and my heart sunk. My instincts had been right. Even if he hadn’t consciously realized it until this moment, that’s what he had been planning to do. Now, more than ever, I could not let go of him.
“Even if you can’t go back to the party, can I stay with you? So you’re not alone?” I begged, looking up at him.
The uncertainty wavering in his crimson eyes made my heart twist in my chest. But then his eyes moved past me, and a gentle hand rested on my shoulder, pulling me back.
“I’ll stay with him,” Nokto said quietly.
Licht’s arms left me, and he pushed me away. That hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, my voice trembling. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“No, this isn’t your fault,” Licht finally said. “It’s just…” He trailed off and looked past me to Nokto for help.
“It’s just that we need some time alone,” Nokto supplied.
I looked up at him, but the light from the lounge was at his back, so I couldn’t make out his expression. His long fingers reached out and brushed across my cheeks.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he murmured, wiping away tears I hadn’t known were there. “This has nothing to do with you, or with those two. We’re brothers. We fight all the time. That was nothing.”
“A-are you sure?” I asked, looking to Licht for confirmation.
He nodded. “You haven’t messed anything up, Ivetta. You…” He closed his mouth and opened it again, struggling to find words, and then he took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
That small gesture made the weight in my stomach feel just a little lighter. I nodded and opened my mouth to reply when an explosion from the lounge shook the ground beneath my feet. If Licht hadn’t caught me, I would have fallen. Running footsteps behind us preceded another hand on my shoulder, yanking me away from the twins and swinging me around before I could do more than yelp in surprise.
“Sorry, I need to borrow her,” Clavis said breathlessly.
“You have the worst timing,” Nokto grumbled as a cloud of smoke, curses, and coughing emanated from the lounge. “And you need to stop using her as a shield.”
“I-I’m fine. You two had better go while you can,” I warned the twins, even though I did not feel fine or comfortable with Clavis’ arm around my waist, holding me flush against him. The entire group from the lounge was pouring into the hallway, and I couldn’t see Chevalier in all the chaos. Maybe he’d gone to his room to change, and I hadn't noticed because of Licht?
“What in the…”
Luke’s exclamation died in the air before he finished it. He and Arianna had rounded the corner beyond the lounge. They stopped in their tracks. He was carrying the coffee, and her hazel eyes were wide with shock.
I heard the click of Licht’s door closing and glanced back to confirm he and his twin had made their escape.
“Um, Nokto has a point,” I told Clavis. “When has using me as a shield ever worked for you?”
“Every time,” Clavis said cheerfully, his voice and warm breath directly in my ear. “I only need a minute’s head start.”
“There he is!” someone shouted between coughing fits. Somebody else hiccupped.
Hiccupped?
“In case you haven’t noticed, they're blocking the only exit,” I said to Clavis. “So, how about I distract them while you deactivate the traps for your room, and you can—”
“You’re right! We can hide there!”
“No—Clavis—”
The coughing, hiccuping, and now laughing crowd behind me wasn’t much help when Clavis steered me toward his room. I almost wished I hadn’t told Licht and Nokto to leave. Under normal circumstances, I knew I probably would have found this funny, but the emotional turmoil of the last few minutes had erased my sense of humor.
“Clavis, I really don’t—”
A door slammed nearby, and a hand grabbed my arm just as Clavis made a strangled sort of sound and loosened his grip on me. I collided with Chevalier, who gave me a moment to regain my footing before he strode purposefully toward the lounge, keeping me at his side and dragging Clavis by his collar behind us.
“Hey—somebody—your brother’s getting strangled,” Clavis gasped out.
The smoke had cleared enough to reveal everybody doubled over, laughing and hiccuping, and though some of his brothers looked up at us as we passed, not a single one offered any assistance. Their smiles widened, actually. Meanwhile, Luke and Arianna were still standing past the group, Luke now looking resigned and a little annoyed, Arianna clearly questioning her life choices.
I knew the feeling.
“Clean up your mess,” Chevalier ordered, tossing Clavis into the lounge toward the shattered remnants of his smoke bomb on the floor.
Clavis coughed and adjusted his collar. “You didn’t have to choke me.”
Chevalier ignored him and took me to a sofa in front of the blazing fireplace. He sat down, pulling me with him, his arm still firmly around my waist.
“Um, thanks, but…” I trailed off at the reappearance of his smirk and felt a heat rising in my cheeks that had nothing to do with the fireplace.
“Is there a problem?” he asked, amused.
If we had been alone, no, but everybody was following us back into the lounge, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable cuddling up to Chevalier like this in front of others. Except this was comfortable. And I was tired. And the last few minutes had been enough for me to feel like this had been the longest day ever.
“No, I guess not,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder.
“Aw, isn’t that—hic—cute,” Jin said, dropping onto a sofa to our left and retrieving a bottle of some sort of alcohol.
“Don’t think you’re not in trouble,” I warned him. “And you, too,” I told Leon, sitting next to Jin and holding out a glass for a refill as if nothing had happened between them earlier.
“You don’t even—hic—know what happened,” Leon said, shrugging off my threat with an easy smile. “Hey, Clavis, what the—hic—heck was in that—hic—smoke?”
“Proprietary secret,” Clavis sang out.
A frustrated sound, half groan, half sigh, interrupted by a hiccup, emanated from Yves in the corner past Jin and Leon. “Did you—hic—have to get—hic—everybody?” Yves grumbled, taking a seat in a lounge chair next to a coffee table set with tea. Keith sat in the chair beside him. I guessed Licht had been using the third chair in that grouping before he left.
“You can thank Ivetta for that,” Clavis replied, flashing me a grin.
“Yeah, right,” Luke muttered. “Anybody want coffee?”
“Yes, please,” I called out. “A little cream and sugar.”
“I didn’t think—hic—you’d need any help to stay up,” Gilbert commented, taking the sofa to our right.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, watching Silvio plop down on the same sofa as Gilbert. Neither of them were very threatening with their hiccuping, especially since the distinctive black-spotted collar of Silvio’s white pajama shirt fluttered with every hiccup. He crossed his arms over his chest, wearing a pronounced scowl that made the arrogant tyrant look like a pouting child.
“What are you—hic—smiling at?” he asked accusingly.
I shook my head, trying to hide my smile. Everybody was in their pajamas, mostly white shirts and black pants, except for Leon and Gilbert’s black ensembles, Clavis’ spotless white attire, and Jin, Yves, and Luke’s gray, pale blue, and purple shirts, respectively. No swords. And almost everybody hiccuping. It was kind of adorable.
“Here,” Belle said, offering me a mug of hot coffee. I murmured my thanks, and she spun to look at Silvio, putting her hands on her hips. “Hey! Rio and I were—hic—sitting there!”
Silvio glared up at her. “And now—hic—I am. How long—hic—until this stupid—hic—hiccuping wears off?” he demanded of Clavis.
“A few more minutes,” Clavis crowed. Other than the part where Chevalier dragged him around, he was enjoying this quite a lot. “I’m surprised you need coffee, too, Ivetta.”
I cupped the mug in both hands and inhaled the invigorating aroma. “Why? I get tired, too.”
“Rio, let’s sit here. Ivetta can—hic—just cuddle up closer to—hic—Chevalier.” Belle smirked at my blush and dropped onto the sofa next to me. “I think they’re talking about—hic—how good you were at handling the gala on—hic—no sleep.”
“It wasn’t ‘no sleep,’” I corrected her. “And I’m not ‘good’ at it, either. I just had to do it.”
“Just outta curi—hic—osity, how much sleep were you—hic—getting?” Leon asked.
I would be glad when this hiccuping resolved. It was hard to keep a straight face, let alone engage in serious conversation, when everyone was hiccuping every few words.
“Um…once the gala started, one or two hours a night, I think?”
A shocked, wide-eyed silence filled the room.
“I-it was only for a few days,” I hurried to add.
“No, it wasn’t,” Chevalier interjected. “You’d been getting progressively less sleep since you started working here.”
He would notice something like that.
“Well, it was months ago,” I said, wondering why this was a big deal. “Anyway, Clavis, do you know any party games?”
A collective groan punctuated by hiccuping rose from the room. I sipped my coffee while Clavis threw out ridiculous suggestion after ridiculous suggestion, each voted down summarily amidst moans, complaints, and laughter. Luke and Arianna settled on a loveseat in the corner to my right, past Gilbert and Silvio, a little away from the crowd. Arianna probably needed that, since she was getting a rude introduction to the informal side of Rhodolite’s royal family tonight. Rio sat next to Belle at the other end of the sofa from Chevalier and me.
Licht and Nokto returned before the candles died down. The relief I felt at seeing them again was inexpressible.
I snuggled into Chevalier’s side, watching the fire snap and crackle in the hearth as talk and laughter wove in and out of the reds, oranges, and yellows dancing across the walls and painting the shadows with warmth. He was quiet, as usual, probably wishing he’d brought a book. I was just glad the night hadn’t been a total loss after all.9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcNO4BLtUnC
