Logan looked at his friend on the other side of the long table heaped high with every delicacy the Jadwins thought would impress their guests. The table was near one of the walls of the vast great hall of white marble and white oak. Against the monochrome background, the nobles were a riot of color. Several of the realm’s most influential hecatonarchs, priests of the hundred gods, mingled in their myriad-colored robes. A band of minstrels in flamboyant cloaks and makeup fought for attention with lords and ladies high and low. Terah Graesin had shown up to the last big party two weeks ago in a scandalously low-cut red gown with a soaring hem. Terah was eighth in line for the throne, after the prince, the Gunder daughters, Logan, and her father Duke Graesin, and she adored the attention her position gave her. Her daring had touched off a new fashion, so this week all the gowns were either red or dared to expose more leg or breast or both than most prostitutes did. This was fine for Terah Graesin, who was somehow able to look glamorous instead of cheap. Most women weren’t so fortunate.

“I spoke with the count this morn—” Logan said when he was suddenly silenced as breasts went past. No, not just breasts. The breasts. They were perfect. Not precipitously exposed, but perfectly shaped, these floated past him, held in a gossamer embrace of fabric rejoicing to cling to such nubile curves. Logan didn’t even see the woman’s face. Then, as she walked past, the sweet curves of swaying hips and a flash of lean, muscular calves.

“And?” the prince asked. He looked at Logan expectantly, holding a plate with little samples of every delicacy on the table. “What’d he say?”

Logan face flamed. Too much time in the wilds. Except that that wasn’t really true. His eyes seemed unattached to his mind at all, controlled directly from elsewhere. He moved further down the line, trying to remember what he’d been saying, his plate still empty as he rejected a few delicacies fricasseed, flambéed, or frosted. “He said—ah, my favorite!” Logan started heaping strawberries on his plate, grabbed a bowl, and filled it with chocolate fondue.

“Somehow I’m sure whatever Count Drake said, it wasn’t ‘ah, my favorite,’” Prince Aleine said, arching an eyebrow. “If he said no, you don’t have to be embarrassed. Everyone knows Count Drake is a little off. Their family mixes with commoners.”

“He said yes.”

“Like I said,” the prince said. “He’s a little off.” He smiled and Logan laughed. “When are you going to propose?”

“Tomorrow. It’ll be my birthday. Then no one can stop me.”

“Does Serah know?” the prince asked.

“She suspects that I might do it soon, but she thinks that I need some time to consolidate my household and speak with my parents about it first.”

“Good.”