Page 37 of Mistress of Lies
He had spent the last week locked away in his new townhouse, receiving letters and information from both the Eternal King and Shan—things that he needed to learn, accounts to familiarize himself with, an entire city’s worth of history and rumors spread out on the desk before him. He was to be isolated, kept safe away from the rest of the country until the proper moment of introduction. One could not simply say the King had found another Aberforth; no, it needed to be a spectacle. So for now he was to stay put in his gilded, extravagant cage.
He hated every last moment of it.
From the moment he awoke, in a bed too big and too soft to be comfortable, a serving girl slipping into his rooms to light the candles. His daily outfits were picked from the wardrobe bought by Shan, which had arrived on his doorstep the day after he moved in, the very wrapping paper it had been packaged in worth more than the clothes he was used to wearing. He was served breakfast—a damned feast—in the dining room under the portraits of the Aberforths who came before, then shuffled off to the study where he was supposed to learn. He stayed there till dinner—not able to bear three meals of such extravagance in a single day—then he was supposed to do it all again.
And again.
And again.
He had a task. To prepare. To educate himself for a life he did not want, all for the murky goals Shan had whispered in his ear. The promises she had made felt distant when he was living a life of luxury he did not deserve while so many others still starved.
He pulled the cufflinks from his suit, turning them over in his hands. They were real gold, and though he did not know precisely how much they were worth, he knew they could feed a whole family for months. Inspiration struck him, like a bolt of lightning, and he knew what he had to do.
Clenching his fist around the cufflinks, he made a decision—and damn anyone who tried to stop him. Feeling alive for the first time since he had stepped into this cursed house, he shoved aside the role that had been given to him, seizing a path of his own.
“Jacobs!” he called, throwing open the door to the hallway. Witch light shone down from the sconces above, casting the already uncomfortable home with an eerie glow. “I need your help.”
“What is it, my lord?” Jacobs inquired, appearing at his side as if he had simply stepped from the shadows. He kept doing that—appearing seemingly out of nowhere whenever Samuel needed him.
“Hells, man.” Samuel took two steps back as he forced his heart to calm. In some way, it made him a perfect servant, there but never seen, but it was starting to make Samuel deeply uncomfortable. No one should move like that. “Can you walk a little louder? Announce yourself? Something?”
“Should I wear a bell, like a cat?” Jacobs asked, deadpan, forcing a reluctant smile from Samuel. “I will try to be more aware of it, my lord. How may I be of assistance?”
“Right.” Samuel squeezed the cufflinks in his hands. “I need clothes—proper clothes.”
Jacobs looked him up and down, his normally serene expression faltering. “Is there something wrong with your wardrobe, my lord? We can write to the tailor—it would be her duty to replace anything ill-fitting.”
“No, no. I mean, like regular clothes.” Samuel pulled at his cravat, tugging at it until it came—reluctantly—loose. “Like what an average person wears—not this foppish shit.”
“I see.” Jacobs seemed to hesitate, the carefully constructed roles of master and servant slowly starting to erode as the foolishness of Samuel’s ask started to settle in. Even in this, even though he was the Lord, Jacobs was the one who knew the most—about their roles, about the rules of their society, about the lives they were supposed to lead. But he couldn’t—he wouldn’t—step out of his place, and it made Samuel want to shake some sense into the old man.
He didn’t need a servant. He needed someone who could help him, if only he could make Jacobs understand.
“I need to get out of here,” Samuel said, quietly. “Just for an evening. And not like this.” He gestured to himself, to the costume he wore—Lord Aberforth. “As myself.”
Jacobs sighed, the barriers between them starting to fall. “If I may…”
Samuel nodded. “You don’t need to fear speaking your mind to me, Jacobs. I am not my father.”
“No, you most certainly are not,” Jacobs muttered, casting his eyes to the heavens. “It is my place to do as you ask, Lord Aberforth, but whatever you are planning, I beg you to reconsider.”
Samuel shook his head. “I need this.”
Jacobs stared at him, and Samuel felt the pity in his gaze. But the old man relented—he had to, he had said as much, after all—and turned away. “I’ll bring what you requested to your rooms, Lord Aberforth. Just… for the sake of this old man, please be careful.”
“I will,” Samuel said, though he wasn’t sure if it was a lie or not. After all, the definition of careful was relative.
It wasn’t long before Samuel had shed the trappings of the Lord he was to become, dressing instead like the man he was. He didn’t ask where Jacobs had gotten the clothes, but the rough shirt and trousers felt more comfortable on his skin than the fine silks. He pulled his hair back in a loose bun, and though he still felt a little too soft, a little too clean, he was approaching the person he used to be. He filled his pockets with cufflinks and pocket watches and other pieces of finery, and then—at Jacobs’ insistence—slipped out through the back door.
It was a different world from what he was used to, this part of Dameral. It was late in the afternoon, before most of the nobility would depart for their parties and their salons, so he was able to slip down the empty streets, just another Unblooded laborer who had been called to work on some menial thing far too below them to notice. He was, with a simple change of clothes, invisible.
Samuel kept his head ducked low as he made his way back home—even now, with the title and the townhouse and the recognition, home was still the slums where he had been raised. Each step closer eased another knot of tension, the fears that had been choking him for days slipping away like water over a stone. Yes, Shan had her plans, and he would help her in them, but there was no reason he couldn’t start his own schemes. He had seen his ledgers: the Aberforths had wealth like he never could have imagined. It was more than a single person could spend in a lifetime—so why shouldn’t he try? He could afford so much—he could give so much.
Starting with the finery they had forced upon him.
There were hungry children, families who struggled to put day-old bread on the table. With the coin that he could now call truly negligible, he could stop that. He could feed entire families. And just maybe this farce he played would be worthwhile.
Stepping into the slums of Dameral, he breathed freely for the first time in days. He already had decided on the first family he’d help—the neighbors he’d left behind. They were a large family, like so many others. More children meant more mouths to feed, but it also meant that, if they lived long enough, they would become more workers. More coin. It was the worst of all kinds of math, but he understood why they made their choices.