Disclaimer: includes mild use of cursing/profanity ________________________

“That bastard!”

Her sudden shout made the old coachman jolt from his seat. 

“Well, that’s not very ladylike,” Irwin commented. “You know getting angry will elevate your blood pressure and then a heart attack will hit you when you least expect it.”

“I’ll hit you when you least expect it,” Aris retorted, not missing a beat. 

Apparently, this was not the time for a joke, Irwin mentally noted. 

“I take it that was Lincoln?” He tried to clarify.

She only nodded, gritting her teeth.

The marquess let out a low whistle. “At least you know he’s not rotting in a dungeon.”

She turned her glare to him. What else was apparent was his inability to comfort someone. 

“I can’t believe I trusted him after all these years,” Aris continued to rant. “I thought we were close friends but he’s actually a noble? If I see him again, I’ll kill him myself.”

Irwin thought it was best to keep his mouth shut for now.

“Did he think he’d just go play village or something?! He told me he wanted to help people– and that’s all he’s ever wanted. Well, I just ate that right up, didn’t I? Yeah right, the next archduke in line wanting to be a doctor for the greater good. What a load of b-”

“Do you hate him?” 

Aris stopped talking and looked at Irwin who was sitting across from her. The only thing that could be heard was their breaths as she repeated the question in her head.

“Did you not hear me at all? Of course I-”

He cut her off again. “No, you’re mad at him. Understandably. But do you hate him?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. He betrayed her. Or at least, that’s how she felt. Surely she hated him now. 

“If you saw him again, what’s the first thing you would do?” 

“I’d wring his-”

“Second.”

“...I'tell him I was glad he was okay.” 

Irwin gave her a satisfied smile and allowed her to reason with what she’d just admitted. When she didn’t speak, he decided to give her more of his ‘brilliant advice.’ “With everything you’ve told me about him over the years, I doubt he was simply playing the part of the ‘good doctor.’ Lycan von Sane had been missing for nine years. It takes a lot to hide from the forces of an archduchy. Doesn’t that say something about who he is?”

She leaned back against the seat and stared at the carriage ceiling. 

“You’re right,” she finally said. Aris didn’t have to look at him to know the smug smile he had on his face right now. 

“For someone stating the obvious,” she added. The girl had made up her mind about Lincoln– or Lycan or whoever he was– for now. Their next meeting could change that. 

If there is a next meeting… 

“By the way–” Aris straightened her posture, moving on to a more serious topic. “--what land rights are you holding over the archduke’s head?”

Irwin’s demeanor darkened. 

“A little more than seven months ago, there was this nasty dispute in the West. Two farmers were arguing about this large plot of land that Baron Leno owned. They each wanted the rights but the baron refused to give it to either of them,” he explained. “So they polluted the river and blamed it on him.”

Aris’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s awful.”

He nodded. “The people in the neighboring town depended on that water. Not to mention they used the forest for foraging and hunting. They all started getting sick and rioting against him. Baron Leno is old. His wife died without giving him any children so it’s just him living on the land. He did his best to leave the land untouched and protect it because he knew how important it was. I overheard the situation from one of the maids at the estate. It’s her hometown and she was beside herself because her parents had gotten sick from the pollution. I volunteered to take some of the house’s knights and investigate. Long story short, it wasn’t hard to prove who actually caused the sickness when you bring some scary-looking knights.”

“And you now own the land?”

“The baron gave it to me as a thank you. He said ‘there was no one else he could trust it with, so why not the people’s savior?’” Irwin put his hands up in mock surrender. “His words, not mine.” 

“Why does the archduke want it so much?”

“Who knows? Maybe another vacation home.” The marquess rolled his eyes. “All I know is that I can’t let him have it. It won’t be the first or last town he’s destroyed for a plot of land.”

“But you were going to-”

“I was never going to give it to him,” he corrected her. “The moment I mentioned ‘Lincoln Ashton,’ I knew the archduke knew who I was talking about. I just needed him to take the bait.”

“And you didn’t think to let me in on this plan of yours?” Aris crossed her arms.

He merely shrugged. “It felt nice to know something you didn’t.”

In return for that comment, she gently kicked him in the shin and shook her head with a smile. “He can’t make you hand over the land rights, can he?” 

“No, not in the meantime at least,” he admitted. “He doesn’t have any grounds to object to it.”

The carriage came to a halt; they were back at the Basileus manor. The sun was high in the middle of the sky and yet, it already felt like she had gone through enough to last an entire day. Irwin had stepped out of the carriage first, and as usual, didn’t bother to lend her a hand. 

As she descended the stairs, she stopped and looked at him. “Hey Irwin, you wouldn’t hide anything from me, would you?”

He turned and gave her a radiant smile as bright as his eyes. 

“I could never.”

________________________

Three weeks flew by in a hurry as if time was chasing the beginning of autumn. The prince’s engagement party was tomorrow and the dresses and jewels had been delivered last week. During her trip into the main square earlier that day, she noticed that the royal family had gone all out to celebrate the engagement. There were red banners and streamers hung on each street light with the La Pyrea family crest: a phoenix centered between two silver broadswords. Stall vendors were getting ready for one of the biggest nights of the year and children were bouncing up and down for the promised fireworks show at the stroke of midnight. The only one not celebrating with joy was Dowager Marchioness Rivona Basileus, who was currently in the dining room cursing out the prince. 

It truly would’ve been an entertaining sight, had she not been holding a butter knife and waving it around without regard for whoever was standing or sitting around her. 

“That disrespectful boy has absolutely no regard for anyone else!” She exclaimed. “Two days before one of the largest parties of the year, he decides to change the theme. Two days!” 

Sae had arrived at the dining room first, saw how worked up the marchioness was, and decided to take Aris’s usual seat. This left Aris to be the person sitting closest to the woman holding a knife. 

“-masquerade at that! How are we supposed to have four perfectly finished and matching masks made by tomorrow, when everyone in the capital is as well?!” 

Aris gave Irwin a look while taking a bite of her fish.

Can’t you calm her down? She seemed to say.

Don’t you think I know better than to do that? You calm her down, his eyes seemed to convey.

You’re her son.

Which is why I know better!

“Stop staring at each other like you’re deciding who draws the short straw,” the marchioness sighed, looking between the two. 

“Mother, we have perfectly good masks at home from the last masquerade. We can always redesign them,” Irwin suggested. 

Marchioness Basileus looked at her son like she was going to disown him. 

“Or I could go to Vestida’s at the crack of dawn tomorrow to put a rush on the masks,” he offered.

“What a good idea that is, dear.” 

The rest of the meal was silent until the marchioness got up to leave. Something about “the rotten prince giving her a migraine of the century.” Sae followed behind, led by Leta who decided it was time for the child to sleep because tomorrow was a busy day. 

“G’night, sister. G’night Sir Irwin,” Sae said to the remaining two.

Her sister responded similarly while Irwin gave her a smile and a wave. 

“She doesn’t like the new names,” Aris revealed, eyes not leaving the back of her sister. 

“It isn’t the first time you both have had new names,” Irwin reminded.

“I know… but she hears new names more often than her own.” 

Which is the price to pay for who we are, her mind reminded her. 

They finished the rest of the night in silence. 

________________________

Irwin had truly left the manor at the crack of dawn. She would know, because he made a big deal about it outside her door before he left. Her mind still sluggish from having been abruptly woken up, she wasn’t sure what he was rambling about; something about being such a good person while she was still in bed. And with him being a good person, he would never sell her out because he was a good friend as well.

“What is he on about?” Aris asked herself, faceplanting back into her pillow. After a few minutes of no response from her end, he begrudgingly left.   

The dowager marchioness had taken a separate carriage with Sae on their way to the palace. This left Aris and Irwin in their own carriage that trailed behind theirs. When the carriages arrived at the front of the palace gates, the coachmen got off the boot to open the door for them. From the window, she saw Dowager Marchioness Basileus step down first and wait for Sae. She held onto her hand like she was her daughter and turned to wait for the other two. 

Once they stepped out, Aris looped her arm through the marquess, the soft fabric of his suit meeting the skin of her arm. Sae walked a couple of steps ahead of them, her head tilted up as she stared at the magnificent decorations on the castle exterior. Every guest was to walk through the halls of the palace to enter the ballroom. Knights were posted almost five feet apart outside, around the palace, and through the halls. During such an important celebration, Aris expected an announcer at the front of the doors to announce the guests. However, guests would remain anonymous due to the prince’s last-minute request to change it to a masquerade. The married couple in front of them walked in front of their children and descended the stairs first. 

The House of Basileus was next in line to enter. After Irwin’s early morning trip to Vestida’s where, apparently, he had gotten an earful from the clerks from barging in before they were even open. The mask Aris wore had a black frame and purple feathers that matched the color of her chosen dress. Sae insisted on a big butterfly mask, which she received in a blue darker than her dress with bronze trimming. 

“These masks are going to make it harder to know who’s who,” she mumbled to Irwin. 

“I’m aware,” he responded. It was hard to tell what he was thinking or even saying. His black mask completely covered his face with the mouth and nose outline specifically shaped for him. “We’ll just have to try our best.”

Tonight wasn’t just a masquerade for them. On top of Lincoln’s arrest, finding out it wasn’t an arrest, and trying to keep Aris’s cover as a scholar, they haven’t had much time to put the first steps of their plan into action. Before the masquerade announcement, she and Irwin had decided it was time she integrated herself into Nereys’s high society of noble ladies– maybe make nice with the daughter of a viscount or come under the mentorship of someone besides Countess Holden. She had memorized the profiles of the leading ladies and families two weeks before today, but the more she looked at the sea of masks the more she felt dejected.

Aris descended the stairs, arm holding on to Irwin's tightly as people began to murmur.

“Look at him! That must be the young marquess!”

“Oh my, that’s Marquess Basileus, isn’t it? But who’s…?”

“Is that the dowager marchioness’s grandchild?”

“How dare she cling to him like that!”

"The crab cake is really good."

She clutched the marquess’s arm tighter to pull him closer. “I don’t understand the point of you wearing a mask when everyone already recognized you.”

“That is the unfortunate price of being the kingdom’s most handsome bachelor,” he snarkily replied.

Oh what a scene it would be to push him down the remaining stairs, Aris threatened in her head.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he interrupted. “And you should be lucky I’m not pushing you down the stairs for throwing me to Countess Holden.”

She scratched the back of her neck awkwardly at being caught. This man had faced so many enemies, yet he hides whenever her etiquette lessons begin. The girl shook her head disappointedly at the thought.