5. Adair

Chapter 5

Adair

I had retreated to my room for the afternoon when I left Titania in the foyer. When I managed to get an afternoon to myself, the household staff always brought me a bowl of soup or a sandwich, for which I was grateful. Oberon and his damned protein bars were a constant annoyance, and when I was with him, I was expected to follow suit.

It was like he wanted to suck all possible joy out of life, chewing on the tasteless little dry bricks instead of eating something with any flavor or texture.

I thought maybe if some overeager scientist boiled all the essential nutrients for life down to a pill, Oberon would happily forgo all food in favor of a handful of pills every day. It sounded like a nightmare to me. There weren't a lot of joys in the life of a Gloombringer vassal, but living in a castle with one of the finest chefs in the world counted at the top of the list for me.

The things the woman could do with sauce were almost criminally good.

So I'd been rather looking forward to what she served at the summit, since it couldn't be Oberon's usual "whatever we have to eat, I suppose."

Whatever was never going to impress the Dawnchaser family, who were well known for their refined palates, and impressing people was always Oberon's first goal.

What did the Moonstriker like?

I wondered.

Hopefully not fucking protein bars, despite their reputation for cold precision and common sense.

I was heading down the stairs toward the dining room when there was a heavy knock on the front door.

Odd. The butler hurried to answer it, and a maid hung back in the doorway that led to the kitchen. In fact, she'd been standing there when I'd started down the stairs, looking like she was waiting for something.

Odder and odder.

The door opened to reveal a riot of colors, and I had to blink to adjust my eyes. Someone had arrived early, I realized. Since it was time for dinner, we'd assumed no one else would arrive till morning. So who would arrive without warning literally two minutes before dinner?

I looked back at the maid, who was looking between the doorway and me, and realized what she was doing. She was there, waiting, watching the door for exactly this situation. I gave her a sharp nod, holding up four fingers, the number of people Rhodri was telling me were at the door, and she turned and rushed toward the kitchen.

Oberon's staff was ready for anything, just waiting for the self-important fuckwits they knew were on the way to cause the trouble people like them always caused.

I turned back to the doorway in time to watch three men and a woman come in .

The Dawnchasers, I was sure.

Huxley Dawnchaser couldn't possibly be mistaken for anyone else. He was in the center of the group, in his forties, with shiny ash blond hair held in a black silk tie at the nape of his neck. His eyebrows were too utterly perfect not to be plucked, and frankly, I was jealous of the clear skill of whoever did them. He had an aquiline nose, too prominent to allow him to be truly beautiful like...oh, like Rain Moonstriker with his perfect straight nose. But there was a certain gravitas to the feature, nonetheless.

A gravitas Dawnchaser was certainly aware of.

He was difficult to look at, but not because he was unattractive. No, he was handsome, in a hard, unpleasant sort of way. The problem was his threads. They were...there were thousands of course, like every family head. But his were every color of the rainbow and a dozen more. I could swear there were some shades in there I'd never seen before.

I'd never seen anything like him in my life.

My head gave a threatening throb, reminding me of the awful headaches I'd gotten when Rhodri and I had first found each other, and I cursed myself for not carrying painkillers in my pocket. I'd known the summit would bring the headaches back, if anything would, so I should have prepared.

Too late now, but I would remember for tomorrow.

I braced myself and continued looking over the arriving Dawnchaser party.

The man on Huxley's right had to be related to him, his shortish hair a few shades darker than Huxley's. He had a slightly smaller version of the same nose and a similar array of threads. Oh, he had fewer threads and the colors were less dramatic, more silver and gray among them, a color that wasn't to be found among Huxley's, but still more color than the average person ever had.

They wore the same exceptionally fashionable suits, too. It looked too much like Gloombringer style for my liking, loose flowing jackets and pleated trousers that didn't quite hug the body, though admittedly, theirs had quite a lot more color than anything Oberon owned. Huxley's suit was bright royal blue, and even though it was too strong a shade for his coloring, it worked for him. His—son?—wore a pastel sage green, and that worked better with that soft blond hair and cool Dawnchaser coloring.

The woman behind them was Huxley's age at least, beautifully dressed in a dark gold pantsuit that almost matched her hair, but something about her was off in a way I struggled to put my finger on. She seemed almost downcast, staring at the marble tile floor in front of her instead of challengingly at the world, like the others.

Humble? That didn't seem like a terribly Dawnchaser descriptor. She didn't have many threads, though, almost completely overshadowed by the people around her but for one strong crimson-purple thing that looked like just the sort of unhealthy I expected from a Dawnchaser.

The other man was . . .

Breathtaking, in exactly the wrong way.

He had stark white hair cut short on the sides, with a forelock so long it fell all the way into his eyes—I thought they called the style a fauxhawk, but what I knew about trendy hairstyles was...not terribly much. His suit was in a strange cut and style I'd never seen before, fitted, with the jacket barely reaching the top of his trousers, and the entire outfit was a deep, bloody crimson.

More important, he wore a dueling blade at his waist .

I'd have thought it hung wrong, on the left side as though he was right handed, but at a strange angle that seemed inconvenient to draw it with his right hand. I'd have thought perhaps it was for show, but for the threads.

The cut threads that waved in the air around him like strands that should be woven into his clothing. A dozen. Maybe two. Snapped red threads that led away from him, but not to another person.

Huxley Dawnchaser had shown up to Gloombringer Castle with a professional duelist at his side.

A hired killer.

When I looked back to him, the Dawnchaser was watching me, a knowing smile playing across his lips. Nausea bubbled up in my gut. This wasn't simply wrong, this was horrifying.

"You must be Adair Courtwright," he said, striding forward, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs and snatching up my hand in a firm grip. "I've been quite looking forward to meeting you. Perhaps by the time we're finished here, I'll have managed to talk you into accepting one of the many offers of employment my family has given you over the years."

"Not bloody likely," Oberon boomed from behind me, and I had never, not once in the years I'd been working for him, been so grateful for his presence. I had the distinct feeling that telling this man no might result in my death, and I could have no other answer for him. "Adair is mine."

Okay, maybe slightly less grateful than I'd thought.

Next to Dawnchaser, the duelist gave me an odd expression. Almost...understanding?

Of course. He was a hireling too, and Dawnchaser seemed just the type to lord the concept of ownership over people who worked for him. Chilling to think I had anything in common with a man who was practically an assassin.

A symbol of everything that was wrong with the dueling system, really.

Duels were awful. The occasional loss of life caused by them was tragic. But with the system as it was, someone like Huxley Dawnchaser could crook a finger, and this man would incite a stranger into a duel, insulting them until society and their personal honor dictated that they had little choice in the matter. Given the number of people the strands told me he'd killed, clearly the man was a highly successful paid duelist.

He must be very good at figuring out just that step too far that would make a person snap and lose their temper. And more than that, he must be incredibly good with the sword buckled at his hip.

I'd never once in my life touched a sword. I'd promised my mother when I was ten that I would never even learn to duel, and I'd kept that promise. Oberon wasn't thrilled with it, but he'd grudgingly said that if need be, he'd hire a duelist to defend my honor.

I'd made a point of seeing that it had never been necessary.

My personal honor was about my own actions. Nothing anyone said could sully it, to my mind.

Oberon was shaking the Dawnchaser's hand enthusiastically. He felt less insulted by his personal presence than if he'd sent only his son to negotiate in his stead, I supposed.

The younger Dawnchaser seemed...I didn't want to think him very young—he certainly wasn't a child. Perhaps twenty? But he did have the look of someone who'd been handed everything they had ever asked for in life .

Or maybe asked for was the wrong term.

Demanded?

As though reading my mind and deciding to prove me right, the young man looked at the watch on his wrist and raised a brow. "Do they eat dinner in the middle of the night at Gloombringer Castle? It's getting late."

I glanced at my own watch. Two minutes after six.

Yes, clearly the middle of the night.

In precisely the style of men who spoiled their children horribly, the Dawnchaser gave the young man a smile rather than a hard look or rebuke before turning to Oberon. "I suppose that's what happens when people get used to the clockwork efficiency of our staff back home."

Oberon smiled back, all shark teeth and cold eyes. "Fortunately for us, the staff here will wait dinner no matter how late you show up for it."

They continued to smile at each other, and I was reminded about that ancient saying of my mother's about how if I "kept making that face, it would get stuck that way." I sort of wished it were true, and the two jackals would both get trapped in those ridiculous rictus grins forever.

Behind me, I heard the sound of boots on the grand staircase and remembered too late the Moonstriker delegation. I took a large step to the side, away from the two heads of house and the Dawnchaser's minions, and turned slightly, so that I could see the three Moonstrikers standing on the stairs above.

At the bottom of the stairs, Oberon went to turn toward them as well, and his shoe caught on the edge of a tile, almost sending him sprawling to the floor, but he caught himself on the banister in time. That was...odd. Oberon had never been a clumsy man and falling down in front of important people was quite unlike him.

Was he that nervous?

Rain had dressed for dinner, slightly less formally than his white outfit, but still...quite striking. It was the same Moonstriker style high-collared long coat, layered with a muted teal, white, and gray. The embroidery was a stormy sky with clouds of silver thread and raindrops made of actual tiny crystals.

As before, it was a work of art the likes of which I'd never seen in person. The man and woman with him wore the same style coats, both in simple gray with teal trousers. Color coordinated and designed to indicate that Rain was the one in charge, without him laying some verbal claim to ownership of them.

Indeed, unlike either of the others, when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he bowed slightly to both the Dawnchaser and the Gloombringer and stood before them in that same near-military stance as he had that afternoon, then introduced not only himself, but the people with him. "It's an honor to meet you, Lord Dawnchaser. I am Rain Moonstriker, and these are Tempest and Char."

"The Moonstriker's youngest," the snide lord said, but interestingly, his tone was more thoughtful than irritated. "Yes. A pleasure to meet you as well. Is your uncle not attending?"

Rain gave an excellent approximation of regret as he shook his head. "I'm terribly sorry, but he had already made arrangements that couldn't be altered when we were invited."

"Arrangements more important than the fate of the entire Summerlands?" Oberon demanded, his eyes narrowed and hackles up, especially now that Huxley Dawnchaser had deigned to come in person.

"Not at all," Rain answered, voice smooth and calm, seamless as though it was precisely the question he'd expected. "I think the fact that my uncle and mother sent me should indicate to you that I have their complete trust, since it's clear how important this matter is. I myself felt the rumblings of Mount Slate earlier today. We are aware that the issue is not an imagined one."

That seemed to sate Huxley entirely for the moment and Oberon at least a bit. He liked being taken seriously.

Rain moved to bow to the Dawnchaser's retinue, if slightly less deeply than he'd bowed to the two family heads, and the motion tugged at something that caught my eye. A hot purple thread as thick as a finger, one of the strong kind that almost looked like multiple threads woven around each other. Hot purple? No. It was...plum. Plum and something else. Yellow? Orange?

Whatever the hells it was, it connected Rain Moonstriker...to Huxley Dawnchaser's paid killer. Even more interesting, the two men were deliberately, purposefully not looking at each other. It seemed so apparent that it had to be obvious to anyone watching, but no one other than me seemed to notice. Certainly none of them commented on it.

What in the hells was going on?