Chapter 19: Falling Owls

Scene 90

The King’s entourage took control of the situation. Monique and her surviving minions were securely arrested. Cynthia was returned to her grateful, sobering father. The King himself took his daughter to a private room to catch up on everything that had happened.

Soon, there was nothing for Valerie to do.

She made her way to an upper balcony and sat with her legs dangling over the edge. The view of the garden was much different now that the festivities had been cleared out. Still bright, green, and beautiful, but so empty. So quiet.

She heard Liz coming a moment before she sat down beside her. “You’re brooding,” she observed. “A copper for your thoughts.”

Val looked up into the sky. With how exhausted she was, the brightness of that blue was almost the only thing keeping her awake. She’d had time to examine herself, to sort through her feelings and actually have an answer she could put into words. “I feel like a fucking idiot.”

Liz said nothing. She just scooted closer and hugged Val’s arm, her simple attention a prompt to continue.

“I’ve always thought of it as a game. Master-slave play, I mean.” She sighed at herself. “I’m even still calling it play right now. But ... did you hear Zofia? To her, it’s not something to just start and stop. It’s part of who she is, a part she’s proud of.”

Liz just nodded along, her cheek resting on Val’s shoulder.

“Pita too.” Val looked down at her own swinging feet. “You should have heard her, should have seen the look in her eyes while Zee was talking. Like it was some kind of religious epiphany.” Her voice grew softer. “If I’d understood, if I’d taken it more seriously ... would she have still thought she needed the Owls?”

“I don’t know,” Liz confessed. “But whatever she thought at the time, she still made her choices.” She touched her neck, where she’d felt the collar that started the whole mess. “We’ll all have to deal with that when we see her again. If we see her again.”

Val closed her eyes. “Maybe when, and if, she wants to be seen.”

Scene 91

“After that, there was no escape,” Zofia said. “So I duelled her. You arrived soon after that concluded.”

They’d moved to one of the sitting rooms inside the mansion. She kept herself sitting straight-backed and alert, not just because the opulence still felt wrong, but because the long night was catching up with her.

“And that’s when she ... cut your dress?” The King kept his eyes studiously away from her chest.

Even though he’d already loaned her his cape. It didn’t close all the way, the folds still leaving a window that showed the tear, showed the inner slopes of her breasts. She could have closed it all the way, but it didn’t feel right.

Zofia just nodded her answer.

King Magnus sighed, looking down at his hands. It was a lot to process, even though she hadn’t shared all the lurid, intimate details.

Eventually, he looked up. “I’m sorry that all this has happened to you.”

“I’m not.” She smiled. “I understand our subjects better now. Their plight, and why I need to fight for them.”

He smiled back at her. Even through his blush, through his determination to look no lower than her chin, paternal pride shone in his eyes. “You’re not coming back to the capitol with me, are you?”

She shook her head. “There’s too much work to be done.”

“I can’t argue with that,” he said. “But I will give you all the help I can. Including a base to work from.” He glanced around them. “This mansion will soon lack a mistress, after all.”

That took a load off Zofia’s planning mind. “Thank you, Father. I’ll make good use of the space.” She would not fail women like Tiffani.

“But for now ... you need to get some rest.” He injected firmness into his tone, anticipating resistance.

But Zofia just nodded. “Yes, Father.” She rose, one hand carefully managing her borrowed cape. “Though I think I’d prefer to go back to Lady Margaret’s for today. This place isn’t mine yet.”

He blinked with surprise. His gaze turned shrewd and analytical as he stood up beside her. “This Valerie, this Lizabet you’ve talked about. The way you’ve talked about them.” He looked deeply into her eyes. “One of them is your lover now?”

“Both.” She could halt neither her blush nor her smile, even as she nervously watched her father’s face.

Surprise first, of course; enough that he coughed. Scandalised embarrassment in the blush on his cheeks. Then a sigh, and if not quite acceptance, at least resignation. “Even with what we were talking about, you’ve smiled more in the past hour than I remember seeing in months. So whatever it is that’s changed in you, I’m glad for it.”

She relaxed, that smile returning in full. Whatever the rest of polite society would think of their princess, she had her father’s love still.

A yawn struck her. She really did need to go. One hand went to the cape’s clasp—

Her father held up a hand to forestall her. “Keep it? Please? For my sake?”

“If you insist, Father.” She could indulge his sense of modesty for a little longer.

Scene 92

The rest of the Owls fell like something between a house of cards and a line of dominos.

Monique confessed everything she could to soften her sentence into ‘merely’ life imprisonment. Dutifully following their leader’s example, her compatriots raced to pull one another under the oncoming cart that was Somerville, Exeter, and Zofia.

It kept them busy. Zofia barely had time to visit Lady Margaret’s, or keep up with the Wright twins — she’d tasked them with a copy of the old journal, reverse-engineering the collars to see what could be done with and about them.

But as soon as she saved one group of slaves and arrested their master, they learnt of two or three more dens to raid.

Scene 93

Melisa didn’t know about any of that. She knew that the third night of Darlinalia was cancelled, and her master Jay took her back to her normal, everyday life. She knew he rented Tiffani to take back with them ... and then Tiffani stayed for longer than expected, for some reason.