Aslan still chewed clove rocks and cracked the window, but now his bedroom smelled like lavender, too.

He kind of hated it. But he’d told Malachi he would … and he’d gotten under his skin enough to find the parts of him that missed not living a lie. Parts that had settled easier undisturbed, unquestioned by anyone he felt particularly inclined to answer to. He also hoped it would have some sort of cosmic effect on Malachi, compelling him to cover those edges or at least start a different path.

… No more lovers, but especially no more older men. He’d never had this problem with men, or even women his own age.

Speaking of women his own age – Nisa. It was time to pick up Nisa, and pray she’d found a friendship that couldn’t be tossed out and cleaned up as easily as another maid. The last circumstances had been worse than usual: she was donned in a bragging black, with a fresh hire in tow. The new woman … he wasn’t sure what to make of her, let alone whether to. Not like he could save every bird who fluttered through Nisa’s domain, after all.

Aslan was often the first of chaperons to arrive, probably on account of most of the others’ not being worried about someone disappearing if he ran a little late. He had noticed a couple of women who seemed to walk home on their own … and that put him on edge most of all.

So, Aslan knocked on the host’s front door to announce himself, and was let in by the butler. Hung his bowler hat on the hat stand (for it could be a while) to the sitting room in front. He could hear women talking, laughing, up the stairs as he passed.

There were chairs and sofas, and all the chaperons thus far had been too polite to claim said sofas rather chairs. He half-hoped the impropriety of sitting dead center in the most comfortable one would launch Nisa into an adequate kin-slaying rage, and so there he sprawled.

Malachi had killed his father, too. He wondered what his father was li-… bad, Aslan. He was determined not to look back.