The melancholy tune together with Seregil’s overall restlessness were familiar weather signs. Hoping to lighten his lover’s mood, Alec said, “You know, you once promised me you’d never say it again.”

“I haven’t said a thing in the past hour,” Seregil said, brows arching over sea-grey eyes.

Alec snorted softly. “And we haven’t accepted a nightrunner job in nearly a month.”

“There haven’t been any worth our time. They’re all so—” Seregil threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Go on, then. Just say it.”

“Boring!” Seregil hung the harp back on its hook and faced Alec with his hands on his hips. “If I have to deliver one more love token or look for any more compromising letters, I’m going to hang myself!”

“We spend time at court.”

“Yes, we do—and as much as I care for our young queen, I’ve made about as much polite chitchat as I’m capable of.”

Alec couldn’t argue that point. It had been a long, hard winter, burying Rhíminee in treacherous slush and ice that had curtailed riding and outdoor shooting; the last hunt had been just after Mourning Night.

They were relative newcomers in the royal inner circle, and favorites of Queen Elani despite their lowly rank, so naturally they were despised by a good many of the more established members of the entourage. Seregil won so consistently at the bakshi table, and Alec so consistently defeated other would-be archers—soft-handed nobles who’d never had to shoot true or else starve—that few would take them on anymore. Some had taken to calling them the queen’s lapdogs behind their backs.

Their detractors might have had a great deal more to say if they could see them now, lounging in their hidden rooms at the Stag and Otter in decidedly unfashionable Blue Fish Street behind the Harvest Market. Seregil secretly owned the place, and it was their true home and refuge from the endless round of social obligations their public reputations demanded: entertaining at the Wheel Street villa, attending salons of their remaining friends, evenings at the Orëska House with Thero and Magyana, the requisite keeping up with the latest fashions via their tailors and jewelers. With the end of the war a year and a half earlier, luxuries were once more abundant and the black-market dealers were going hungry. Many people still decried the state of theater, since Master Atre and his marvelous company had abruptly disappeared near the war’s end. The Golden Crane stood empty, but the other companies around the city were still suffering by comparison.

“Well, what do you want to do?” asked Alec.

“Get out of the damn city!”

“Then let’s go out to Watermead. We haven’t seen Micum and the family in ages.”

Seregil looked out at the rain, and his thin lips tilted into a doubtful line. It would be a wet, cold ride, and he avoided being wet and cold as much as possible. “Maybe in a few days, if the weather breaks. Anyway, we’re due back at Wheel Street in time to appear for Korathan’s birthday.”