LTSV - Lost & Found 55 (Patreon)

This time, they didn’t wait for Anna to assemble Mira’s attendants. Adra tore open a portal, looped one arm around her waist, and they jumped in together. The portal let them out in a different grotto than the one Andrei had been talking to Viola in.

Mira could hear raised, angry voices coming from—well, from somewhere. Having only one useful ear made it difficult to tell what direction sound was coming from. Fortunately, Adra had been spying on Andrei already and so he knew where the altercation was going down.

Adra led her to a space in the middle of the central parterre that made up the central ‘hub’ of the Garden Complex, where all the garden paths converged in a six pointed star that was framed by geometric garden beds and low boxwood hedges. There was a tall fountain in the center, surrounded by follies, that depicted a bevy of mermaids playing on a half-sunken boat.

Mira had been afraid that Andrei had laid hands on Cecily, but, when they arrived, she found Andrei and Randall had each other by the collar and were this close to blows. Cecily had managed to keep William and Alan back, but Randall had a bright look in his eye and a sharp, wild smile that reminded Mira of the cutscene where he burned down Rousseau House.

Not good.

Viola was standing on the other side of the combatants, fist held up against her lips as she looked nervously from side to side with a pale face. She wasn’t nearly as well turned out as she had been at the Blood Temple. In fact, Mira was pretty sure she was still wearing the same dress with a different jacket over it that wasn’t anywhere as nice as the green velvet one. Her hair was a little frizzy, like she hadn’t been able to care for it as well, and her complexion was abysmal—although that last part could be because Andrei was about to fight someone in front of her and that was never as exciting or flattering as romance novels made it sound. 

About the only thing Mira could say in Viola’s favor was that her expression said this conflict had escalated past anything she’d imagined, but she was also looking around at all the possible exits so it was entirely possible that she was about to cut and run.

“...done enough already and more than anyone should have ever asked of her,” Randall was saying when Mira and Adra got into earshot. “What? You’ve decided Cece is your new mortal enemy now that you’ve run out of things to accuse Senior Priestly of? If you’re so desperate for a nemesis, I’ll gladly step in and you can find out what it’s like to have someone who’s really out to get you.”

Andrei looked no less crazed. His emerald-colored eyes were feverish and his pupils had contracted down to mad little pinpricks. He looked like he wanted this fight and couldn’t wait for Randall to give him the excuse. “Look, I can tell you’re eager for the opportunity to pick up my trash,” he said silkily and meant to be just loud enough for Randall to hear except he wasn’t being as careful as he could have. Mira was still having to half-read his lips in order to understand what he was saying, but even she caught a few of his words on the air. Hopefully, Cecily was too occupied with holding the other two boys back to overhear. “It must be exciting to think you finally have a chance with her, but this isn’t about you. It’s about me and her. Step aside, Zorander.” 

“Adra, get the Crown Princess,” Mira hissed. “I’ll separate them.”

Technically, Andrei was still a Prince. He was going to be demoted, but that hadn’t happened yet. If they started throwing fists, then Randall would be in real danger of Lese Majeste 

That was a real law in Avenon and it applied to all the royal children, whether they were heirs or not, until they retired from life as Working Royals. Mira, meanwhile, had been elevated to Princess, First Rank, in private during the first spare minute that Princess Millica could find to lock her down as a Lady of the Inner Court before anything else could happen to threaten the coronation. She outranked Andrei now and thus could throw hands with him as much as she liked.

Adra looked back and forth between them and Mira until he came to the same conclusion she had; they needed the only authority figure Andrei had to answer to and they needed her fast. He tore open a portal with a snarl and vanished—although not without leaving the majority of his shadow matter hidden on her person.

A red flush crept up the back of Randall’s collar and he said something back to Andrei. Mira couldn’t read his lips because he was facing away from her, but whatever he said must have hit home because he went white and then turned a blazing shade of red. He pulled his fist back and took aim at Randall’s face. 

“Randall! Andrei!” Cecily shouted. She spotted Mira bearing down on them and added, “Stop this right now! Or else!”

They did not stop. Andrei’s fist landed in Randall’s jaw and Mira decided that Cecily’s shout would have to do as a warning. She called up her lightning chains and dropped first Andrei and then Randall. 

“Everyone always wants to do this the hard way,” she growled as she bore down on the two idiot teens. She puppeted them onto their knees with her lightning and pulled their arms over their heads. She really was getting a lot of use out of this spell, lately. Andrei opened his mouth and she shut it again with a gesture. “Don’t you dare to think that I'm interested in hearing excuses.”

Randall shut his mouth on his own.

Adra slid around a corner down the path leading out of a tall hedge maze with Princess Millica and Vesper hot on his heels. He must have used the hedges to cover the portal.

“This again?” Vesper asked as she took in the sight of Randall and Andrei in the same penitence pose that Mira had put Cecily and Adra in earlier.

“What’s happened?” Princess Millica demanded, not giving Mira time to answer her sister. She stopped and noticed the bit of blood dotting Randall’s lip where Andrei’s ring had snagged his lip. “You’re one of the Zorander boys, aren’t you?”

Randall limited himself to a nod. 

“I caught them brawling,” Mira explained. “Neither stood down when the Saintess ordered them to, but Prince Andrei threw the first punch.”

Princess Millica’s lips thinned as she looked down at her stepbrother. “I think I made myself very clear when I explained the terms of your house arrest to you, little brother,” she said coolly. “You were to speak to no one and cause me no trouble. I’ve already done you the courtesy of ignoring your incessant appeals to the Saintess. How much further do you plan to try my patience?”

Mira released Andrei’s mouth so he could answer.

“I didn’t seek them out,” he said, shortly, “I just happened to cross paths with Saintess Cecily and Zorander was the one who confronted me. I was merely defending myself.”

Why, that lying little…!

The thing was, he sounded convincing. If Mira hadn’t been there, if she didn’t trust Cecily (and, by extension, Randall) as much as she did, then she might have been willing to hear him out just on the basis of his delivery. 

Mira recalled Hurandel’s flawless acting skills during the confrontation in the reception room and found herself looking at Andrei with new eyes. Everything he’d done to Violet was sort of pardonable, if not forgivable, when one took into account what he did and did not know at any given point. Part of her still saw him as the game character, who had both pride and prejudice, but was ultimately one of the good eyes. The Andrei in the game could be taught and redeemed. He had no hidden depths. He didn’t lie because he couldn’t do it. He was too intrinsically honest. Every criticism he had for Violet or anyone else was something he truly believed and he didn’t believe the truth should be hidden or distorted. 

The boy in front of her, however, had just lied to Millica without so much as a flicker of an eyelash or the smallest speck of anxiety. He’d looked her in the eye when he spoke. He had not faltered or hesitated. It was the first time when Mira had ever looked at Andrei and seen his father’s son. 

Had he always been like this? Had Peleon? 

Mira was uncomfortably reminded of Cecily’s recounting of how Melody had been ignored by Peleon when she expressed her concerns about King Huron. It made more sense when the other boys didn’t necessarily agree with her. They didn’t have the same access to the Palace that Peleon did after he was adopted as the new Prince, but Mira’s father wasn’t as good of an actor at home as he was from his throne or a podium. Peleon should have had some inkling of what kind of monster he’d thrown his lot in with by the time Melody noticed anything was wrong. 

The Crown Princess didn’t react to Andrei’s statement. 

“And you think this counts as ‘causing me no trouble?’” she asked in an almost bored tone. Actually, something about the way she was looking at Andrei and slowly circling around him as she spoke caught Mira’s attention. Millica didn’t sound like she trusted Andrei either. 

She was acting like she’d expected this scenario, or something like it.

Millica turned her attention to Randall. “Zorander, tell me your side of the story,” she ordered.

Randall turned pale and dropped his gaze. “I was escorting the Saintess back to Rosepark with the young Lords Greenwood and Noir, following a tour of the Garden Complex. We crossed paths with the Fourth Prince and he approached our party. He wanted to have a private word with Saintess Cecily, which she declined. He insisted and I stepped in to prevent him from getting closer. That was when Senior Priestly…”

“Lady Priestly,” Millica corrected, absently.

While Mira was legally a Princess, it wasn’t common for the Queen’s Ladies to actually use the title outside of formal occasions or to even be referred to as a Princess outside of state documents, which was how it had taken Mira so long to understand what it meant when Vesper had told her that her mother was one of the Ladies of the previous Queen’s Inner Court or even what an Inner Court meant in this country. It turned out the ‘Inner Court’ was how one referred to the Queen’s children and the surrogates who bore them. 

Mira had been doing a lot of reading, lately, to catch up on all the holes left in Violet’s memory.

“....that is when Lady Priestly arrived,” Randall finished, with a swallow. He didn’t have amnesia and knew what it meant when Millica corrected him. 

Mira noticed Viola’s chin lift in surprise, just a hair, as Randall told his version of the story; a version that had left Viola out. Mira could see the moment Viola made her decision; a flash of determination in her cool eyes as she stepped smoothly backwards and vanished around one of the tall box hedges.

Hmm.

Mira summoned Penny with a frown and gave her a quiet order, “Follow her.”