The weeks since Kyrian was banned from the House had been hard ones. Loir and Davide kept telling her that it was acceptable, that it was encouraged, but all Mena could feel was the time slipping through her fingers. She needed the time to sit with her thoughts and feelings, but somehow that time was not available to her.
First, it was the trip to the City Guard in the early morning hours of the next day. When she had arrived to make her formal complaint, she was shocked to discover that Kyrie had been let go almost as soon as the dye merchant had left. It seemed that despite the man’s statement, the event was brushed off as a dramatic adept, an over-protective merchant looking to curry favor, and an apologetic Earl. When Mena sat down with the Captain and explained the whole story, the man had the good grace to be horrified that his men had let Kyrian go. When he heard the story from Mena—not just the victim, but the Second of Heliotrope—he immediately called the men in and gave them a full dressing-down. He reminded them that the policy was to hold the person until the full story was received, no matter their social status. The Night Court had rules, after all.
Unfortunately, Mena learned it was too late for charges to be levied because he’d been let go without the proper paperwork being filed. She’d left, both glad that she’d come alone and regretting it. This way no one from the House witnessed her step into a tavern just outside the Night Court, tuck herself into a corner, and cry into a mug of beer and a homemade lunch.
After, she spent a few days clearing paperwork, getting orders in for what the House would need for the upcoming seasons. Though it was hard, she also ordered what they’d need for the funeral and mourning period for Olivier. She scheduled the visits to Namaah’s temple for the young ones, made arrangements for the two pregnant adepts to be moved to downstairs rooms, and made appointments with the marquist. While this was paperwork and management that the House needed, normally she did not do it all at once, choosing to handle it instead as it came up. However, she had bruises and a split lip that needed to heal without worrying the patrons, so all the paperwork for the month got done.
As luck would have it, she was healed enough to go out when her appointment with the Dowayne of Bryony came. She dressed carefully, her shoulders still sore from Kyrie’s hands, and made her way through Mont Nuit to the door of Bryony. Even from outside, she could hear the laughter and loud conversations, and it made her smile. Bryony was always full of laughter and high spirits.
The door opened and a smiling novice beckoned her. “Second Philomena! Welcome, welcome! Dowayne Arietta is expecting you!”
Mena smiled in return and followed the young woman through the door and deeper into the House. “Thank you, I appreciate the warm welcome.”
The young woman looked over her shoulder and beamed back at Mena. “You are always welcome here, Philomena.”
They reached the open door of the Dowayne’s office and the young woman curtsied and took off with surprising speed back to the public area of the House. Mena laughed and shook her head, feeling her mood finally lighten. She knocked on the door as a courtesy and went in. Dowayne Arietta was seated on her couch, going through paperwork, but she looked up and smiled.
”Philomena, it’s been too long! Come, come, sit, tell me what’s brought you here today.”
Mena approached the woman, leaned over to give her the kiss of greeting and then sat in one of the chairs Arietta indicated.
“It has been too long, Arietta. And it’s been a long time since you’ve come to one of Olivier’s parties.”
Arietta shook her head. “It truly has been a long while, at least a year. How is he faring? I heard that he’s out of the city to convalesce?”
By now, the exclusion of the truth was so normal she didn’t even flinch. “He is indeed out of the city. He’s under the care of his normal chirurgeon, and the newly minted Count Shahrizai of Angiers kindly sent one from his family as well. He’s in good hands.”
Arietta looked at her quietly for a long moment. Mena did not squirm under the scrutiny, though it was more of a struggle than normal. The silence stretched, while the Bryony Dowayne searched Mena’s face for….something. She seemed to find it because she nodded and looked back at the papers in her hand. “That is good to hear. I know that he’s had trouble since he broke his leg. I’ll make sure to light a candle to Eiseth and ask her to keep him in her gaze.
Mena bobbed her head. “Thank you for that. I’ll be sure to let him know when I go see him next. That actually brings me to the reason for my visit. He asked for his son to come see him, and I promised that I would come here and make that happen.”
Arietta set her papers down with a laugh. “You’ve got to know that you’ve agreed to a fool’s errand, dearest Mena. Belisario will never agree. Are you in my office to ask me to order him to go?”
Mena shook her head. “No, Dowayne, I would never ask for that. It would make the visit unpleasant for Olivier, and I will not be party to that. I am only here to ask to see Belisario privately and to let you know that I will be asking him and doing what I think is necessary to try to convince him.”
”So you’re here to see him and to let me know to ignore all yelling and noises that come from the room the two of you are in?” Arietta threw her head back and laughed. “Thank you for that courtesy, my dear. I can see Olivier and Geraldine’s raising in you all the time, but at times like this I can almost hear Olivier’s voice coming out of your mouth. He did a good job training you for this, my dear. A very, very good job.”
Mena laughed quietly. “Thank you for the compliments, Dowayne, it is good to hear. And I will certainly pass on your message to Olivier when I see him next.”
Arietta nodded as she got up and headed to her desk to look for something. “Good, good. I will have Belisario fetched for you, if you don’t mind waiting across the hall in the library. And when you go see Olivier, please take him this.” She held out an envelope full of money and slips of paper. “These are his winnings and his notes to be paid. He’s done very well with his bets on the Court, as usual. “
Mena stood, taking the envelope and tucking it into her pocket. “He usually does, no matter how unlikely his calls may seem. He is, of course, with Laurent if you wish to send him a letter. I know that he misses his friends in the City.”
Arietta smiled and went with Mena out the door and across the hall to the empty library. “I will do just that. I’ll also send in a light tea for you while Belisario is fetched.”
A few minutes later, the door swung open and in strode Belisario. Mena had found a spot to sit in a window seat and drink the tea that had been brought to her. She looked up and took in his appearance. Despite being Olivier’s son, he never came to Heliotrope. The relationship between the two was the very definition of contentious. The two were almost diametrically opposed; where Olivier was calm, calculating but never manipulative, gregarious and friendly, Belisario was brash and cunning, and without fail left Mena feeling like she had been evaluated for worth the way most people inspected a carriage.
Belisaro strode over and gave her a smile that was more condescension than kindness. “Little Philomena, Peré’s darling, what brings you to my door?” He sat down in a chair opposite her and crossed his legs. “Everyone knows that you rarely come down from his high pedestal, let alone visit a House like this fine establishment. Things must be pressing if he let his little bird out of her gilded cage.”
Mena ignored the digs. She may not see Belisario often, but he was like this every time she did. “Your father is dying. He’s asked for you to come see him.”
Belisario’s face betrayed no emotion. “Is he now? That’s interesting, he has asked for me. To what end, little bird? What benefit would I see from such a visit?”
“I see that age has not brought any mellowing of your nature, Belisario. Your benefit would be in granting a dying man’s wish, Word has already been sent to your sisters, and they are on their way. You, as usual, are the only one making this an issue.”
“Of course they would, vapid little lap-dogs. I don’t pop to when the old man snaps his fingers, I have self-respect.” He didn’t even bother to sneer, his contempt for his family was so much a part of him that he didn’t need to.
“For Elua’s sake, Belisario, why are you like this?” She felt herself getting louder, as always happened when she had to speak to him. “You don’t have self-respect, you’ve got an inflated ego. For some reason, you’ve made hating Olivier into half of your miserable personality.”
Belisario’s eye twitched, “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here into my House and insulting me, child,” he said, venom leaking into his tone. “You know nothing of the old man and how he and his insipid, vacuous, base excuse for a wife treated me. Growing up—-“
Mena cut him off. “You were raised in Heliotrope by your parents who loved you deeply, Belisario, not in some back-water hovel on the Skaldi border. For some reason, despite your baseless vitriol, they love you until their dying breath. Olivier has days, maybe weeks, left on this earth and all he wants is to see his son. No wonder Heliotrope had no place for you, all you can value is yourself.”
“Loved me? Is that what you think it was like? There was no love, they had no space in their tiny hearts for me, all they could see was Tobias.”
“Yes, yes, always Tobias. Poor little Belisario, always in Tobias’ shadow,” she mocked. “How dare they pay more attention to him when he was deathly ill as a child, when Belisario needed praise heaped on him for learning not to soil himself. Poor Belisario, no one showered him with attention, no one fawned at his feet.”
The man’s face was blotchy with rage and he spat out, “Do not mock me, caged bird. You forget who you’re speaking to.”
She surged to her feet, “Oh I know full well who I’m speaking to, you are the one who forgets. You are a base Bryony adept, taken in likely because a losing bet always makes the House more money. I am Heliotrope’s Second, I made my marque at twenty, when did you? Oh that’s right, your patron gifts were so small they were clearly given out of pity, not praise. You were what, thirty? And your father was the one that made your marque, how pathetic.”
Belisario stood and stepped towards her. “You would not be here if I hadn’t agreed to sire you on his favorite adept, Philomena Desiderio. That is the place I am speaking of, remember who allowed you to exist, me, your father.”
“And you are so low that my mother retired and fled after being sullied by your hands. She could not stand to look at her own child for the memory of you.”
“Are you sure that was because of me and not because of you? I am a Bryony, I know the worth I carry.”
Mena inhaled deeply, pulling her shawl around her. “You overestimate it, as usual. The only reason the old Dowayne agreed to take you in was because he owed Olivier money and, like I said, the odds on you always favored the House. Isn’t that also why you agreed to lie with my mother as well, to settle gambling debts? For a Bryony, you are awfully good at losing money.”
Belisario opened his mouth to reply but she held her hand up to stop him. “Go, or do not, I do not care. In fact, I would prefer you didn’t because you are so insufferably pompous that I am very sure you would start a fight with a dying man just to ensure you got the last word, and I want better than that, better than you, for Olivier.”
She swept past him to the door, which she just realized had been left ajar, and stopped. The sounds of people trying to quietly flee the hallway made her eyes narrow. Without turning around she said, “One last thing: know that I do not think of you, but when I do, it is only to wish that you had died and not Tobias.”
Slipping out of the door and down the hallway between adepts and patrons who were all trying very hard not to make eye contact with her, Mena escaped Bryony and headed back across the Night Court to her home, glad to leave Belisario behind her.