The rest of the day at Dandston was painful. The actors at the amphitheater had been in training for a different production than the one she demanded, but they were able to put it together on short notice. Her demands were unpredictable, arbitrary, impatient and grueling, with a nasty sense of perfectionist criticism. She would pay well wherever she went, but from the reactions we were seeing I don't think that most interactions with her were very positive at all.

  I really hope she's just some verbally-abusive turbo-karen and not actually having people drawn and quartered for overdone eggs.

  Lunch and dinner were as bad as breakfast, and Vancy and I held hands in commiseration as we watched her acting like such a bitch. Larianne seemed amused by it, Rinnie seemed entirely unfazed- she's been working as Elica's servant for months now, she's inured to this. The guys all seemed oblivious to it in their own ways- Nunxio just seems like he's habitually unaware of people around him, Yheta acted like this was all quite natural, and Trazom was fixated on every detail of every part of our outing.

  After lunch he had scampered off with Vancy to see the actors frantically trying to reassemble their costumes from last year's production, and I hung back with Yheta.

  "Party after this?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said. "The debutante. I'm supposed to drum up interest in some of the Snairlin cadet branches. You?"

  "Congratulatory dinner for the new president of the fall festival planning committee," I said, sipping a glass of water. He and I leaned against a plastered wall and watched people, both with a practiced eye, talking just loud enough to be heard by one another. Just shop talk. Water-cooler. "It's small-time, but the guest list is well-reviewed. Still establishing myself ahead of spring Fashion Week, after all. Gotta manage my image. Approachable but not promiscuous."

  "Cheers," he said, gesturing with the paper cup of beer that he was working on. I tapped it with my water. The water was real, but I was using conjured glass so I wouldn't feel bad about taking it from the restaurant.

  "Shame I can't go to the debut," I sighed. "They're using that caterer from the symphony event. Those were damn good nibbles. But it's bad form for a marriageable girl to attend someone else's debut, and this is one of the only circumstances I'm considered marriageable."

  "You're still marriageable in my eyes," Yheta said.

  "That's sweet," I said, but without real feeling. He chuckled.

  He paused, watching the bustle across the plaza. "You're taking Trazom again?"

  "He's a hell of an asset," I said calmly. "He doesn't really do society events, not to talk to people. So when he can stand around holding champagne and talk to people, everyone goes gaga. And since he doesn't know what to talk about, I can just feed him whatever I want. Over the next few months I'm going to be using him to shape a lot of discourse."

  "Good thinking," Yheta said. "Also, I don't suppose he's all that bad to look at."

  I shrugged. "At this point, I'm sure you'd know better than I would. I barely notice. I'm always so deep in my thoughts, you know? I've got so much going on, I don't really have time to just enjoy being a teenager. I'm wealthy, young, well-known, in some circles popular, powerful, respected by some, and I already feel like I'm going to be looking back on all this when I'm thirty and marveling at how good I had it back then and how little I appreciated it."

  "You forgot to mention that you're very pretty," he pointed out, and sniffed a laugh as he took another drink.

  "I gotta leave something for you to do around here," I quipped.

  "So that's all with Trazom? Just a tool to use?" I can feel the caution in his voice, the tension. He's phrased it very innocuously, but he's paying a lot of attention to how I answer.

  I should flatter him. I should tell him that everyone else in my life is just a tool to use and that he's the only one I have any real connection to. That there's no emotional element for any of the people in my life, but that I am looking forward to courting, marrying, and boinking him in short order as soon as we have the legal permissions. I don't want another you were supposed to understand after he kills someone for me. I also don't want him drifting off away from me like Kurumi Lautan has started to do. Like her, he's got someone else actively competing against me for his attention. I should say whatever he wants to hear. That's how his route plays out, obviously.

  Treat it like the game it should have been. Make it a visual novel again. His sprite on the right of the screen, my portrait on the left. Multiple-choice dialogue options, three branching paths that will trigger different boolean flags. Maybe an optional fourth option if I've got the right skills or abilities. A cursor blinking for my input, mousing over each option.

  Yheta is going to believe even the most transparent lie, if it's what he wants to hear. I can feed him any kind of line. If he doesn't like my answers he might get agitated or unpredictable, maybe doing something unusual to try to get my interest again. Or even dangerous. I'm not having a hard time figuring out what the right way to manipulate him is, that's for sure.

  Is it my conscience? I don't want to lead him on? Likely. I don't want to lead anyone on. It's cruel, at the very least, and potentially very dangerous. Maybe I'm looking to try to let him down easy before things get too serious. But, this guy has been stalking me for a decade. He's already too serious and has been for a while. I've been encouraging his interest for a long time, like it or not. Partly because he was one of the only people who would talk to me regularly during those three years in prison. Partly because I needed his help. Partly because it was nice to be liked. But for whatever reasons, I have been letting him get closer. Sure, maybe most people would not consider this to be "encouraging him". I've pushed him away gently and friendzoned him to his face. But also I know damn well that whether or not this would be encouragement to most people, it definitely was encouragement to Yheta Snairlin. Pushing him away gently just means I'm not pushing hard, and let's-be-friends is not now-we're-enemies. So by those lights, I've been leading him on for a while already.

  And I am going to need him by my side for a while. I had been concerned about The Mafioso. But listening in on his conversations, and after Frantlin and Quarl have taught me to read between the lines, I understand Yheta's capacities a lot better. He's got access to a small army of enforcers, leg-breakers and gangsters. A network of loan sharks and bookies. Smugglers, dealers, fixers, spies, couriers, and blackmailers. Power-brokers, influence-peddlers, deal-makers, lawyers, informants, and all the strings they have to pull. He's deeply embedded in this web of house politics that I'm negotiating with, jeopardizing my relationship with Yheta could convolute the deals I'm making with the Federalist and Independent factions.

  If I turn him down in a way that matters, he could also go full yandere like Skeici Gianwen.

  So I know what the right answers are. But I'm just not that into him.

  Contrary-wise, I'm also not that not into him. He's okay, I don't hate him. I used to. He used to be the pushy, presumptuous know-it-all that would talk over me and had no respect for anything or anyone and could be counted on to do something immature if he didn't get his way immediately.

  He's not changed that much, but some. He doesn't grab me as often unless we're at a party. He doesn't talk over me unless he's in a hurry. He doesn't respect much but he has learned a degree of fear for things he can be threatened by. He's terribly immature but he's learned more patience before lashing out.

  Frankly, not much worse than most of the fifteen-year-old boys I see in my life, he's a couple years older and that seems to benefit him.

  The funny thing is how many words it takes to lay all this out. How much background and shorthand and insinuation and things well-known but unsaid, all tangled up together. Putting it into thoughts takes ages and pages. But the knot of emotions I got hit with only took a half-second. Barely a pause in our conversation. So I know what I need to say.

  "Of course he's a tool to use," I said, keeping it light. "He's talented but naive. If I don't use him, someone else will. Don't worry, I know you've got dibs." I gave him a smile and almost a wink.

  He smiled, and took a sip of his beer. He mouthed the word 'dibs' and smiled to himself, eyes twinkling as he watched the other side of the street.

  Yheta needs to think that he's got a promise I can't say out loud. I have a few years to figure out what to do. Hell, my feelings have already changed a lot in the past four years, who knows where I'll be once we're done here?

  Maybe the world won't end.

  The party was good enough. One of the more down-tempo appearances on my calendar. The Greifir feast was meant to be very high-impact with my allies, after a few weeks of making big moves and big impressions on several echelons of the Hearstcliff society and the Houses. This event was much less dramatic and more low-key, but this part of my schedule is about making an impact on lots of different people. Not just being seen by the same dukes and merchants over and over, but really spreading my image around. And the planning committee for the fall festival may be a much less elevated venue than some of my events, but it does put me in touch with important people.

  Middle-aged busybodies.

  That's tonight's constituents: empty-nesters who need some engagement and accomplishment in their life and cannot live vicariously through spouses and children. Not a glamorous crowd, really. In most galas they're background players. But they're the background players. They're always there. They're always moving and watching and talking and doing something. They've got a dozen meetings planned this week and the interlocked chains of gossip and opinion are woven to the fabric of House politics.

  I need that grassroots appeal.

  When I RSVP'ed this event, I responded that I would need to check my schedule but that I or a representative of mine would be happy to attend. What that means, nine times out of ten, is that I'm handing off this invitation to someone else, and you'll be lucky to get a second cousin. Probably I'll just leave this with my vendeuse and let her sort out which family relation should attend in my stead. It's a polite beg-off, thanks for thinking of me, but sorry the princess will not be attending, and instead a Harigold cadet will be arriving to eat hors d'oeuvres in her place and make stilted conversation. So nobody is expecting me to arrive, but I haven't lied to anyone when I do show up.

  The shock value alone will make them talk for weeks. And these are people I want to have talking about me.

  The empty-nesters almost always throw events at home, they like to show off their place and their things to each other. So this winds up being structured a lot more like the hosted events I'm familiar with from Meadowtam, aristocrat functions. In Hearstcliff I've needed to get used to churches, audience halls, and rented venues- it's nice to show up to the driveway, present an invitation to the butler, and then go sit in the parlor with other guests while the steward works out the introduction procession. It's familiar.

  I had Enefiat with me, The Famous, the cello prodigy celebrity. The butler took our invitation and added notes for my plus-one, and handed it off to a footman to run back to the steward. He escorted the two of us up the front stairs, and through the double-doors to the parlor, where a nice fire was warming the space. The night out was chilly, and we closed up the parlor quickly so the cold of the vestibule would not penetrate.

  A valet and a maid here gave bow and curtsy and took our coats, whisking away to the fur closet to add notes indicating which guests they went to. That part's important: once when I was much younger I insisted on doing that part for my parents because I wanted to be helpful and they let me do it because they thought it would be adorable. It was adorable but I did make a real mess of it.

  "Good heavens!" blurted a surprised lady old enough to be my great-grandmother. "Lady Natalie Harigold?!"

  "In the flesh," I said, offering her a smile. "And I've brought with me Enefiat Trazom. I've never been to the Hearstcliff Autumn Festival before, what does the planning committee do?"

  That is three hard swings straight at the hornet's nest. Yes I'm a high-stationed noble that nobody expected to see but did technically have an invitation. And yes here is the most famous and important celebrity of our century, whom nobody had any reason to expect. And yes, I would like to hear all about the minutiae and picayune details of your committee that you are all so excited about.

  And like that, I am forgiven for murdering five dozen people. In the eyes of this parlor, I'm a golden child now. I sat down near the fire, and kept my best attentive-daughter face fastened in place while I absorbed names and repeated rote small talk, and accepted the glass of punch that Enefiat brought to me. He tried to stand by as the dutiful escort but a ring of excited ladies formed around him, and then a second ring around that, and he was crowded back away from me to hold court on the far side of the room. The crowd here skewed about three-quarters female so I had about a fifty-fifty mix on my side and he was entertaining almost entirely women.

  He's good at it. Charismatic, striking, young, and well-trained in both charm and wit, bantering readily and making it look natural and unaffected.

  I'm okay at it. I do my best work when I say little and just volley back easy set-ups for the other party to talk at length. I'm a good listener, and that's always a welcome addition.

  Meanwhile, the footman has given my information to the steward, who's keeping the list and calling out new guests to bring in by a measured cadence. The steward sees that this convention of knight-banners and dowager-baronets has been hit by a ducal princess, and sent the the footman to the head of the caterers. The head caterer finished whatever he or she was doing, and, went to visit the steward at the entrance to the ballroom. The steward has written out a card for one of the waiters to pass to the host and hostess, and now that card gets brought back to the kitchen and handed to a waiter to bring out on a tray, by a senior server with experience in tracking and pursuing the elusive socialite through these velvet jungles.

  And after reading the card the host and hostess will hastily excuse themselves from whichever conversation they're in, dodge a couple more entreaties as they go, and disappear through a servant's door because it is not done for the partygoers to head up the stairs towards the parlor and entrance- once you allow that, you lose all the protocol of timed introductions and hierarchical announcement. So then they're trotting through the side corridors just a little faster than is seemly, holding a hushed but intense conversation before they pop up near the washing-rooms and hold a brief conversation with the butler before making their way up to the vestibule and then into the parlor to meet me.

  It's all very predictable. Imagine being a ballet dancer, you've spent years in the chorus at the back, learning the choreography. And eventually you make principal dancer and take a leading role in the spotlight. You don't need to look at the chorus, you know where they are going to be at any given moment.

  So when the parlor doors behind me opened with a little more verve than usual, I stood up from the settee and stepped with a swirl to the front of the room, with a lovely poised smile already in place and a "thank you for welcoming me into your lovely home".

  It was a slam-dunk.

  The man of the house stood back a bit, awkward now that everyone was looking in his direction, but the lady bustled up and dropped a curtsy that was too quick before she recalled herself and then gave a better, more graceful curtsey which I returned in kind, the husband bowing belatedly. She rushed up and took both my hands in hers and I let her stand very close breathing brandy on me while she told me several times how excited/honored/surprised/overjoyed she was to have me.

  Lady Hanje picked just the right party for me.

  I smiled benevolently and serenely, the way that very minor gentility expect very major gentility to smile, and used my most inflected alto to thank her again and respond to her comments. When she lost momentum I brought out a couple of prepared questions about the decor-

  "Lovely wainscotting, I think I recognize the era. Did you have it brought over from another estate?"

  "Oh, no, this was original to the house! I think this beechwood came from the Meerjay forests just north of us, and-"

  Everyone brings up the crown molding, the mantelpiece and the lintels. Wainscotting, picture frames and decorative vases are the way to go. People that collect antiques can talk about them all day.

  As she grew animated the husband finally reeled in, adding his own contributions and growing comfortable talking in front of me. I kept the host and hostess for about ten minutes, during which time a footman came and awkwardly stood by with a card in his hand.

  "I would be delighted to pick this up later, my lady, but," I lowered my voice, "your other guests are waiting for you at the receiving line."

  They made cute sounds of dismay, and with a fast clatter of we'll-speak-soon, they rushed about to take their place at the receiving so that the steward could start bringing down the invitations. Someone brought me more punch, and I sat back down, and a handful of ladies who had now decided I was one of their own all mustered around me to give me well-intentioned advice on how to run my life.

  I had more fun in that parlor than in the whole time I spent at Dandston Town.