Page 81 of The Court of Venus

“Father?”

“Probably dead.”

“Mine too. Mother always assumed he was her client, but she couldn’t be sure. I understand now why you clung to Prospero more than I did. You were so young when you came to court.” He smiled as he remembered it. “A little wet scrap. Did you call him ‘Father’ when we were not there?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I did.”

“And I killed him. You must despise me.” Our eyes met. “Don’t you?”

I broke away to fetch him a cloth and soak it in water from his basin. I rested it against his forehead. “Do you want me to despise you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’re the only one brave enough to.” He sighed, limned in flickering candlelight. His head tipped back, water from the cloth dripping over his face, collecting in the seam of his lips. “Come back here.” With his eyes, he pointed to the bed.

I settled cautiously on the edge.

“Do you know why Hal and I really called you Mouse?”

I shook my head.

“We thought it was amusing because you were so—enormous. So powerful. You were everywhere. I hated you for it, for being Prospero’s favorite. His to discover. And Hal agreed to hate you too, because I did.”

I dragged myself closer to him, so I was sitting beside his knees, and removed the washcloth from his forehead. He watched me but said nothing else.

“You’re exhausted,” I said. “Let me help you sleep.”

I got up again to twist the washcloth into the basin, then climbed back into bed beside him. We both turned over onto our sides, like before. I remembered he liked when I traced his features. How it calmed him. So I brushed my fingertips along his cheekbones, around to the divot in his chin and the bow of his mouth, back up to his nose. He sighed and told me how nice it felt. “Keep doing that.”

“This?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “And tell me a secret. Tell me one that would get you killed. It’s late, and no one else is listening. That’s a rare thing.”

I had so many secrets. Which to choose? Maybe if I started small, I could face a more frightening one later. Somehow the night felt like a cloak we were hidden beneath. Once it was removed, I would not be touching him so familiarly, as I had when we were children, when touching did not hold such reverence, such meaning. “I prefer being an animal to a human?”

He snorted. “I already knew that. And it wouldn’t send you to the Tomb.”

“When I first returned to court, I told you I was not to be trusted. I meant it.”

He hummed in agreement.

“I invited myself,” I admitted. “I heard of the tourney, and I didn’t believe the story of Hal’s death. I wrote a letter in your hand, and then had it delivered to myself so the servants would see it, if ever questioned.”

“If you’re going to reveal secrets, can they not be so dull, Mouse? I already knew that, too.”

I choked out: “You knew?”

“Who else would have invited you but yourself? I certainly didn’t want you there. At first,” he added.

I cursed and pulled my hand away, and he shot me a look so severe I resumed stroking his forehead without protest. He smiled contentedly, closed his eyes again.

“What about you? Tell me a secret, Lord Chancellor. Tell me one that would get you killed.”

“Hmm.” He sighed as my fingertips swept up to his cheekbones, drawing across the sharp planes of his face. “The king wouldn’t like this one. If you were to have Venusborn powers, you’d understand that desire is layered like a sea. In the shallows are hunger, thirst, wealth. Basic requirements for comfort. I sense these floating at the top of most minds, at all hours. Sometimes that’s all there is. But sometimes, desire stretches on for miles into the darkness, hidden in the depths for no one to see or touch. That is what our soul craves more than anything in the world.”

“And?”