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“I am sure you know exactly what Vindar told you, but have you ever asked why Vindar sent you to make this deal?”

“I know exactly why. He caught me in bed with my bodyman. A bodyman who was in his pay and he had coached to make sure he could say I forced him to my bed. I had no choice.”

“I am not asking why you took his mission. I am asking why Chancellor Vindar, with the entire Imperial army at his disposal decided to entrust this mission to you? A youth of nineteen turns with absolutely no gift for diplomacy.”

Kerik looks as if he is about to question this assessment of him. But doesn’t and instead says, “Because the mission was sensitive.” But Perl can hear the doubt in his voice. “No one knew where I was.”

“He sent you,” Perl says simply, “because you were the deal. The Books of Alios for you.” When Kerik says nothing else, just stares at Perl, he decides to continue. “Queen Jareleezi wanted you. She had told Vindar to send you to her and she would give him the books in return.”

“Chancellor Vindar would not trade me for some books.”

“Of course he would. He would have traded you for far less. Vindar wanted rid of you. The Rose Court wanted rid of you. I am sure the original plan with the bodyman was simply to expose your sins and have a reason to exile you to Luxoria or somewhere else where you would never trouble the empire again. But then Vindar found something even better, a way to use you to actually gain something he really wanted. Books the Rose Court had discovered the existence of and wanted out of the hands of the Hevelikar. And if you simply vanished after being caught abed with your bodyman, that would be far more simple and clean than a trial that your mother would disrupt as much as possible. And who would consider Vindar had a hand in it?”

“Why did Vindar want the Books of Alios? Does he know about Ur-Durik?”

“He does not. I believe he discovered the existence of the books because of me. Because of someone I charged to continue my work on Batraous’s writings. When Vindar knew of the book's existence and that they might be in the possession of the Hevelikar, he wanted them back. Because they tell the story of the first defeat of the Bellator, the Darek’s could be threatened by those books, they proved the Hevelikar’s claims to be the rightful rulers of Azuria correct. He wanted them so he could destroy them and prevent supporters of the Hevelikar ever rallying behind them.”

“And you took me because Chancellor Vindar was trading me to Queen Jareleezi?”

Perl nods, hiding the way that name still makes him prickle with fear and shame. “I had to. When you told me what you were doing⁠—”

“I simply told you?” Kerik interrupts.

Perl swallows. “I may have ensorcelled you, just a little. I gave you something called the tincture of levelling. It is a fae potion, but designed for mortals. It makes them unable to lie, as we are. I always carry it in the mortal realm.”

“So, you drugged me?”

“I drugged you. But I had to know what you were doing. I had no information about you being in Lunatum. My sources were good, but of course, My main source of information at that time was…” Perl pauses. “The witch I empowered, I told you she was a Hevelikar. It was Jareleezi. The same queen you were traveling to. I was getting all my information about the princes from her. So when I saw you, and it was unexpected, I was suspicious that she had kept something from me. As far as I was aware, you were in Attar. When I discovered the truth, I suppose I panicked somewhat. I had to stop you reaching her. Luckily you had come to the luxoli house seeking pleasure and it was an easy matter to lure you out and into a cart on the pretext of taking you to my rooms for suck then I gave you a sleeping draught and got you out of the city.”

“And you did not suck me?” Kerik says, with a smirk, perhaps wondering if they had coupled then and he simply does not remember it.

“We did not. I was chaste then. Somehow, I resisted you.”

“And why can't I remember it?”

“As I said, it was impulsive. I was concerned your guards would be nearby. So I moved fast. I think perhaps the combination of the tincture of levelling and the sleeping draught followed by the enchanted sleep combined to affect your memories of what had happened.”

Kerik stares at Perl for some time. Then he says, “And what does this witch want with me?” He looks quite pale.

Perl sighs. He supposes he will have to tell Kerik all of this. “I told you that at first Jareleezi did not believe me, refused to accept that the Five Fae Princes would be born from the Darek line. I did eventually convince her by showing her my father’s writings and the parts that had already come true. All but one thing. You. Jareleezi accepted that four of the Fae Princes would be Dareks, but one of them must be a Hevelikar. She claimed that she was the Magician. She knew my father’s writing told that the Magician would be the fourth bastard son of the Origin. And for that reason she wanted rid of you. She wanted to replace you. But you were well protected. As you love to mention, you are a person of some importance. She could not reach you in the Rose Palace, but she found a way to get you sent to her. She meant to destroy you so she could take your place.”

Kerik nods, solemnly. “And what did she do? When she discovered that you had taken me?”

“There was little she could do. She realised it was my doing. Her scrying powers were strong enough to discover that. But I created strong wards around the Starlight Tower. I had been amassing power for my journey to Vylenor. For this journey. But I used it instead to create a place she could not breach. Or, at least, that she would not be able to breach for some time. I thought, back then, a little time would allow me to convince her she was wrong. But things did not work that way. She contacted me through a silvered glass. She offered me the same bargain she had offered Vindar. The books for you. When I refused, she was so enraged that she destroyed them. After that she refused to speak to me again. I have told no one that those books are lost. And I do not truly know if it will be possible to defeat Ur-Durik without them.”

“She destroyed them?” Kerik says this solemnly, as if lamenting that he has not completed his mission for the Rose Court.

“Are you going to blame me again for the fact you will not be made Duke of Fanost?” Perl says it lightly. But he is surprised when Kerik only smiles in return.

“Oh I am sure I will become Duke of Fanost,” he says. “Perhaps more. When I am the Magician the Rose Court will have no power over me.”

Perl looks at Kerik. “What?”

Kerik simply smiles back. “I am the Magician. Whatever the truth of your demon tales, that much I am sure of. I can do magic. In Azuria being able to do magic will give me power like no other man.” He laughs. “They do not even believe magic is real. And what will the rulings of the Rose Court matter to a Great Wizard?”

Perl feels a familiar dread in his belly at this statement. Has Kerik learned nothing of the dangers of awakening the magic in mortals? “You mean to use your magic to become Duke of Fanost?”

“Yes, of course,” says Kerik. “Perhaps more. King of Fanost, with my own sovereign land. I will decide the laws. There will be no sins of the body, no Zai. And you, Perl, you will be my consort. I will be a Wizard King, perhaps a Wizard Emperor, with a faerie consort kneeling at the foot of my throne. I think you ought to wear only a hip cloth and your wings.” He reaches out and puts a hand on Perl’s face. “Collared. You will look so fucking beautiful. I will display you before all, covered in marks from our rough coupling.” His eyes are so bright. Shining even through Perl’s glamour. Perl cannot speak. In any other circumstance he would delight in a fantasy of being Kerik’s consort, kneeling almost naked at the foot of his throne. But this is not fantasy.