And the Lord of Murder shall perish.
But in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny.
Chaos shall be sown from their passage.
- Prophecies of Alaundo
Kythorn, the Time of Flowers. 1367 Dalereckoning.
—
The four maidens, adrift in a sea of fluttering voile and lacy drapery, mounted the steps to the Grand Dukes' ball in Baldur's Gate. Pherenike fidgeted with the blue stone on her necklace, then realised what she was doing and dropped it. She looked around at the scene, curious and interested, taking in the violin music and the feathers and jewels and frippery, the bards and politicians and the Flaming Fist captains in civilian garb, their swords peace-banded to scabbards as they sipped red wine.
Many of lower social status were already here, and now four trumpets sounded in Candle Balduran's honour. Four were the best one could hear short of being a Grand Duchess herself rather than simply the daughter of a three-times-elected Grand Duke. Candle's family claimed to be descended from Balduran himself, and even if that wasn't strictly true they had been noble and rich for enough generations to believe it. Candle swept into her grand entrance, head held high, and as part of her entourage of three Pherenike slipped through in her wake.
"Lady Candle Balduran!" Candle deliberately paused at the top of the stairs, raising a gracious hand to the masses below. She lifted the trains of her red and purple gown. She stopped at exactly the right angle for the lamplight to catch her holy symbol, a diamond and glass pendant in the shape of Siamorphe's divine chalice, encrusted with gold and rubies. Siamorphe was the goddess of nobility, preaching the rightful rule of those with birth and gold and might. As both a priestess and a noble, Candle had all those things in great abundance. Calculating her pause to a nicety, Candle moved onward to take her place at the head of the ball.
"Lady Yarrow Blaine!" Yarrow tossed back her golden hair, almost the same colour and thickness as Candle's, and smiled and waved to the crowd in almost the same way as her. Tall and athletic, Yarrow could out-dance any dancing-master you could find in the entire city of Baldur's Gate. She'd been Candle's closest friend since they were children together, and despite her family's troubles she had birth and beauty to spare. Her family was, if anything, even older than Candle's, with holdings in the Undercity that dated to before Balduran the explorer turned his tiny home harbour into one of the richest ports in Faerun.
"The Honourable Livia Hellebore!" Livia was a quiet sort, bookish and gentle like Pherenike herself. She was a difficult girl to get to know closely, for she was so shy. Candle considered Livia a little beneath them, since her parents were immensely riche but also nouveau. Her mother was a sea captain who'd proven tremendously successful in half a hundred rich voyages, and her father was a talented mage and even better investor. Livia was slender to the point of emaciation, small-boned and fragile looking in a much-petticoated green dress that looked far bigger than she was. Her gaudy, thick jewellery seemed to weigh her down. Masses of emeralds and jade bound her russet hair, and a huge clawlike gold and green ring struggled to stay on her left hand. Livia nodded and blushed slightly at being announced, and moved on as quickly as possible as if she wished not to be noticed.
"Mistress Pherenike Medomai!" On Pherenike's turn, she smiled and briefly paused, doing her best to look like she belonged there. Which she did, at the moment, but she hadn't always. Although the Medomai family had lived in Baldur's Gate long enough to be respectable, Pherenike's father Demetrius worked for Candle's father. Lately, his trading on his own account had prospered almost as much as his paid work. The Grand Duke Balduran was his patron and it was vitally important to keep the relationship strong, even if Demetrius was now closer to a secondary partner than a hireling. When Demetrius and Pherenike were invited to dine one night with the Grand Duke and his family, Candle had for the first time seen something in the daughter of her father's servant that marked her worthy of notice. Perhaps it was the Medomais' new prosperity, or perhaps it was that Candle saw Pherenike's looks as an adequate foil for herself, dark locks and pale skin as a background to set off her extravagant red and gold beauty. And so now Pherenike was a socialite trailing in Candle's wake, wearing a deep blue divided dress Candle had helped her select, the blue and silver necklace clasped about her neck reminding her of the bond they shared. All four of them wore the same neckpiece, in four colours to match.
The formalities concluded, the four ladies swept into the fray together. As a coordinated group, they made more of an impression than any one of them could make on their own, even Candle. Candle was the undoubted leader, but she gained strength from having followers. The dancing proper had not yet started and the wine and canapes freely flowed. Pherenike knew that none of the four of them would eat anything; it was unwise for a lady to do so in public, and one had to watch one's hips.
Madeline Castellas had no such pretensions. Pherenike watched her with maybe a little envy as she happily took one of the candied almond tarts, festooned with glittering tendrils of spun sugar. Madeline was older than Pherenike, well into her mid-twenties, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. She was fat. Pherenike could have used euphemisms and said pleasantly plump or similar, but it was hard not to look at Madeline and think unkind phrases like really let herself go or was her mother a beluga whale or doesn't she know how she looks to other people. Madeline was also very tastelessly dressed in bulging pink silk that did her no favours whatsoever. But it would be awful to be cruel to her. Pherenike knew Madeline a little bit, had seen her on the fringes of parties ever since she'd been a child, and Madeline had always been kind in a distant way. Now the tables had turned and perhaps Pherenike was her social superior these days.
"Madeline Castellas is an eyesore." Candle clamped a hand around Pherenike's upper arm rather tightly, whispering in her ear. She pulled Pherenike to join the others in a corner, where they were somewhat hidden behind a tessellated pillar with glittering mica tiles. "I need your help, Pherenike." She pried open her gold-embroidered chatelaine bag for just a moment, showing a flash of a small perfume vial. Pherenike suspected the liquid inside wasn't perfume. "It disintegrates silk. We need Madeline to believe it's good for her. Write her a love letter from Conradin - Darling I give you this love-gift, dab it on the beautiful skin of your shoulder tonight, you know the sort of drivelling sentiment I want."
Conradin Cordenstein was here tonight; Pherenike had seen him in the crowds. He was a Flaming Fist captain at only five-and-twenty, who'd achieved it through blood rather than any kind of ability. His family and Madeline's had long been tied together through business, and rumours still floated of an impending betrothal between their two heirs. Madeline was supposed to pine after Conradin, while he'd been heard comparing her to a pig in public.
"Madeline's never been anything but kind to me, Candle," Pherenike said.
"She's insolent to me," Candle returned. "The Castellas are jumped-up peasants who deserve to know their place. And besides, the joke will be on Conradin too."
It was tempting. Candle had hosted an intimate gathering with her friends, Conradin, and several other eligible society men. Pherenike had danced with Conradin, foolishly walked out into the hanging gardens with him, and found that made him feel entitled to force his tongue down her throat. She was still fiercely angry at how long it had taken him to understand that her no was serious.
Candle brandished parchment and pencil at her. Yarrow and Livia were covering for them, concealing them on either side of the pillar, around an ornamental fern. "Do it, if you love me," Candle said casually. And there was the implied threat below her words: if I drop you, you will return to the nothing that I plucked you out of. "You'll need something to write on. Rest it on Livia's back."
Livia gave Candle one mute look of protest, but let the parchment fall against her priceless gown anyway. Pherenike picked up the pencil. One of her secondary abilities from her studies was a good hand to imitate others' writing, a talent that Candle made her use a lot more than her real expertise. She knew Conradin's writing from a letter he'd sent her after that disaster. Penmanship, grammar, and even basic spelling were absolutely awful - and the sentiments in it had been worse than disgusting. She'd never written him back.
As Pherenike wrote, she looked up for a moment at a crowd just now entering one of the lesser doors to the ballroom. These didn't merit the formality of announcement. A family of six, happily joking with each other and goggling at the chance to look at high society, a pair of plump rosy-cheeked parents and four girls holding each other's hands. Pherenike never had the chance to have a family like that. Two old men leaning on canes, finely dressed in red-and-blue checks in the florid fashion of sixty-odd years ago. Behind them was a young man who stood out from the whirling crowds, wrapped in a thick black cloak, different to the bright colours of everyone else. He had dark skin and piercing dark eyes, and seemed to meet Pherenike's look coldly, as if he could see right through her.
Pherenike finished the note.
"Yarrow, get this to some servant trying to help Castellas stuff her face some more," Candle ordered. Yarrow took it up and quickly departed.
Candle did like to test all three of her friends, and it looked like she'd designated them all a special role in this prank. Pherenike collapsed back to lean against the pillar. Disintegration, Candle had said. The potion would melt Madeline's dress off her in a crowded ballroom. She would be completely humiliated. Madeline would blame Conradin, if she believed the note, and so he'd get a well deserved punishment. And if Madeline traced it back to the true culprit - she'd never dare any repercussions, because nobody would ever go against Candle Balduran. That applied even more so once people understood what Candle was capable of.
Pherenike's despairing eyes met the stranger's again. Was he looking at her, or something else in the distance? Or was he merely short-sightedly squinting at something five feet away? She didn't feel like she could look anyone in the eyes at the moment. The man in black moved forward, his glance shifting as if he were carefully taking inventory of all around him.
Yarrow whispered in a servant's ear, slipped her a handful of coppers, and the bottle and the note rested on the corner of her tray. Smiling cheerfully, Yarrow walked back to her group. "You have a new admirer, Pherenike," she whispered. "The man in black's watching you."
"Riff-raff, no doubt. He was never announced," Candle said.
"There's a blue emblem on his shoulder," Yarrow said. Pherenike quickly turned her head for a brief look, then back again. The small flash of blue was the only part of the stranger's clothing that wasn't black. Maybe he thinks it's a masquerade ball missing a stage Mephistopheles or he's a bard who forgot to take his costume off, Pherenike thought sarcastically; but he pulled off the look well. "I know that's the Blue Shale merchant house," Yarrow explained. "They're Sembian. One of their representatives, Albescu Demirci, is here in Baldur's Gate to trade. This man is a bit young to be the lead, but I heard the merchant has a son. Only an adopted son, though, and his father's a widower," Yarrow gossiped. An adoption would make someone of lesser status in Candle's and Yarrow's view, Pherenike knew; circumstances such as remarriage, a trueborn child, or even a change of mind could intervene.
This was Yarrow's special skill, to talk and hear and gather information about anyone who was worth knowing anything about in society. She was cheerful and bubbly and not particularly bright, but she was an excellent listener with a better memory for minute details of other people's lives than anyone who'd tried to teach her history dates had ever suspected her of possessing.
"Some people don't know their place. You can do a lot better, Pherenike," Candle told her. "Even if you wish him removed by the guards, just say the word ... " That seemed drastic and silly for someone who'd only looked at her, and even that was only a probability rather than a fact. Pherenike shook her head, and Candle became quickly distracted as the perfume bottle and note reached Madeline. Candle dragged them onward to get a better look.
Madeline read the note carefully. Conradin was on the other side of the ball, amidst a thick crush of people, and didn't look back at Madeline. Madeline smiled - she had rather a nice smile, genuinely warm and gentle - and tenderly touched the potion vial.
Then she dabbed it on her shoulder, and the liquid began to eat away at her dress. Candle smiled, and all Pherenike could think was that she looked like a lynx baring its teeth at a triumphant kill.
The man in black was near Madeline. Pherenike looked at him again, as if her gaze couldn't help falling on him. He saw what was happening to Madeline's dress - perhaps even before Candle had seen it, surely before Madeline herself saw it. Then Madeline must have felt it and looked down, distress starting to appear in her face and red colouring of panic and shame mapping itself first over her neck, then crossing to her face.
And that was when the man in black stepped forward.
"Did someone call for a magic show?" he asked in a strong, carrying voice, and people immediately stepped away from him to stare. He whipped the black cloak from his shoulders, flapping like a giant bird of prey, and flung it over Madeline Castellas. Then he cast something, and the cloak changed to a rainbow of colour and patterns, wrapping over Madeline to replace her old dress. That was real magic, not stage magic, Pherenike could tell; a transmutation spell. But it passed muster as a spectacle with the crowd. He took Madeline's right hand gently as if to thank her for volunteering, then reached behind her ear with his left hand. A bouquet of flowers seemed to burst out of Madeline's ear, colours matching her transmuted gown. He handed it to her with a bow. Madeline, uncomfortable with the spotlight, blushed with her hands full, hiding behind the huge bouquet.
Then the man in black stopped a servant offering boiled imported Shou duck eggs, stole several, and juggled three of them fluidly. All eyes were on him now. He saved Madeline, Pherenike thought, and let her get out of everyone's attention. She didn't dare look back at Candle. She could sense Candle's tangible rage, almost feel her vibrating with fury that someone - a nobody - had thwarted her joke that was never really a joke, her piece of precious cruelty.
The man in black seemed to make the eggs disappear in a flash of light. A flame came into existence on his right hand, then he mimed throwing, and his left hand lit up as if he'd sent fire from one to the other. It was probably some sort of flashpoint hidden in his gloves, skill rather than spells. He repeated the trick twice more so that you could tell how it was done, then theatrically blew out the fire. It wasn't particularly good stage magic, Pherenike thought; there was no way this was planned. But he managed to pull the act off with banter and a cocky grin, and a presence that called all eyes to him. A deck of cards seemed to appear from thin air in the palm of his glove. He shuffled and juggled the cards in mid-air, then thrust the ace of spades into his mouth and seemed to chew it up. He pulled the same card out of his sleeve, intact and back in place.
"Some knife throwing is in order at these events," the man in black announced. The cards disappeared into his sleeve and were suddenly replaced by a sheaf of wicked-looking black daggers. "One needs an aesthetically striking volunteer for this - a pretty lady who stands out from her background. Such as, the lady in red."
The direction of his cold eyes was obviously on Candle Balduran, who was around no other lady in red. Normally, Candle didn't tolerate other ladies who imitated her signature colour, and perhaps, Pherenike thought, she was now regretting this. The crowd all naturally stared at Candle, and the force of their expectation to play along was tangible.
Pherenike had to look at Candle as she made her move to the man in black. Candle's fury was masked for now, but no less visible to those who knew her well. She was icily livid, and there would be a terrible vengeance for this outrage. But Candle offered her right hand to the man in black, who lifted it up and got her the crowd's vulgar cheer, and he asked her to stand against a plastered wall. She was clearly visible in her red and purple gown, standing out like fire against her background. Candle stood very still.
The first knife landed by her ear. She clearly wasn't hurt by it. The crowd clapped at the man in black's skill as he outlined Candle Balduran in daggers. One slip would mean serious injury to her and probably death for him. Pretty sure that accidentally stabbing a Grand Duke's daughter gets you hanged, even if you didn't know she was a Grand Duke's daughter. For those in the audience who didn't know Candle, it was an interesting death-defying act; and for those who did know Candle, perhaps they too fantasised about Candle's death.
If Candle were dead, we would be free from her tyranny and endless demands, Pherenike thought, and felt appalled by how dark that thought was.
Candle's outline sprouted in black knives around her. She kept completely stiff with a false smile on her face below her blonde curls, as beautiful and still as a porcelain doll. It looked like the man in black had one last knife left, and he threw it to land by her right wrist.
The audience clapped. It had been just an act, after all, which had ended in no disasters. Candle pulled herself away from the wall, and they could clearly see the pattern of knives in her shape. The crowd gave a new cheer at the skill of it. The man in black took his bow, then gestured at the crowd to ask them to give Candle even louder applause. He couldn't have hit on something that would anger her more if he'd tried; Pherenike knew Candle hated vulgarity. She took it with a stiff smile, standing straight-backed and glaring at her friends with eyes like steel-blue nails.
Pherenike thought that she, perhaps, was the only one who'd seen that the last knife had done damage after all. The man in black had made a jagged rent in the sleeve of Candle's expensive gown. Judging from his skill and what he had seen Candle and the rest of them do, he had probably done it on purpose. Candle held her arm so as to conceal something so embarrassing as a tear, but Pherenike knew she would extract a price for that as well in time.
Pherenike's glance briefly fell on a man in a white greatcoat at the back, who stood out for having the same grim look as Candle at the performance, where everyone around him was cheerful. His iron-grey hair, cropped short like a soldier's, contrasted with his jet-black eyebrows that narrowed in an odd fury.
Then the man in black retired. There was a long moment of confused silence. And then the real bards who'd been engaged for the evening came out, dressed like gilded peacocks, and set up their instruments for a whirling dirge about a pirate who'd died for love of a siren in a storm in the Trackless Sea. It somehow wasn't as sensational or as entertaining as the preceding act.
Pherenike looked for Madeline Castellas in the crowd, but couldn't see her anywhere. Madeline must know what had nearly happened to her dress in front of everyone; she'd likely called for her carriage and left as quickly as she could. The bards changed their tunes to dances for everyone, and Candle took her place to open the ball. Candle would have to endure the rest of the night for the sake of keeping her social position, and so too would Pherenike.
Pherenike grabbed a goblet of full-strength wine from a servant's tray, and drunk it off as if it were nine-tenths water. Then she took another one. It helped, a little.
She went out to the ballroom floor, somewhere at the bottom. Pherenike danced mechanically, moving from partner to partner as the tune progressed. She barely knew any of these men, and all of them seemed to have the exact same chinless expression and gooseberry eyes as they tried and failed to spin her without treading on her feet. She didn't realise herself that all the while she was unconsciously looking for the man in black, until an unexpected turn found her face to face with him, with her hand against his.
His look at her was full of nothing but contempt, and Pherenike found herself dying of shame inside. The man in black knew very well what she and the rest of her so-called friends had tried to do to Madeline, and she deserved that dark look.
She had to do something. She'd always felt that no matter what she did on the outside for Candle Balduran, all the endless blather about hairpins and powder and gowns and finding exactly the right combination of accessories, all the vapid parties and vicious gossip and waste of valuable wines, Pherenike was still herself underneath it, a woman who thought and read and had a mind of her own.
The man in black looked like the very touch of her contaminated him. Pherenike spoke first. "You were right," she said.
His look softened a little.
"You're clearly an accomplished transmuter," she said. She placed her palm against his and circled around. He was also an accomplished dancer, she thought, but she wasn't going to embarrass herself by telling him so. "Yet they applauded your stage magic more."
"Both require significant effort to attain," he said. His hand placed exactly the right amount of pressure on her waist as she spun around.
"People don't judge by effort. They judge by flash and entertainment and lies," Pherenike said. "I've known scholars who worked on papers for ten years, and then people would rather read a broadsheet about some ridiculous masquerade ball than vital advances in the field. They prefer what's showy and gaudy." Her thoughts, and maybe her eyes, drifted to Candle Balduran in her red gown and shining jewels. Then she looked back at the man in black, because she did not want to waste this moment. He was only half a head taller than her, with messy dark hair swept back from his face. Bronze freckles dotted his cheeks.
They passed back and forth by each other's right shoulder. In this part of the dance, they needed to watch each other closely to know where to go. Of course, his act defined showy and gaudy - even though it was skilled improvisation - she thought. "I didn't mean you," Pherenike added.
"None taken," the man in black said. His voice was like honey and gravel, scraping across her like the smirk of a cheshire cat. "Feel free not to believe me, but I'm actually a shy and retiring sort." The violins changed their melody, and he reached to touch her.
Holding his hand, Pherenike realised she actually felt alive for the first time in ages, and free from Candle Balduran's constant pressure for once. She felt both like herself again and like something more than herself, as if she were changing into something new and strange. She felt the heat that burned between their hands to be a living thing of fire, growing and shifting and crackling with birth and destruction.
She felt as if she and her dancing partner were the only real people in the world, and all the crowd around them were nothing but parchment and cinders.
Then her next partner grabbed her roughly, and she progressed through the rest of the dance with her head in a daze.
A galliard's phrases sounded next. The floor was cleared, waiting for pairs of couples to take up the challenge. Ignoring Candle Balduran completely, Pherenike stepped up to the man in black and offered him her hand. "Do you know the volta step?" she asked.
One-and-a-bit dances with the same man hardly marked you out as a slattern practically throwing yourself at his head. Of course, if the one dance involved the volta step, that was a little more questionable. The volta needed close physical contact, absolute trust between partners, and a flying leap into the air.
They pulled it off. The man in black was barely breathing hard. Well. He has stamina, Pherenike thought. She supposed the wine she'd drunk and the exertion of the dance were causing the pink flush she could feel in her cheeks. Parts of her hair had come loose and free around her face, and she couldn't bring herself to care. She kept the same partner for the next dance, a lively reel from the Moonshae Isles that led to more strands of hair swirling across her face. And the one after that.
Then Yarrow Blaine grabbed her by the upper arm, and she and Livia pulled Pherenike back into the crowd.
"Candle said to come and get you," Yarrow whispered.
"Are you drunk? You look drunk," Livia commented. Pherenike scraped some of the sweaty strands of hair back from her face and glared at Livia, about to dismiss the pair of them from daring to interfere with her.
"Candle wants to go home, so she said to tell you she ordered the carriage," Yarrow said. "She said to say that she asked Conradin to take care of you and see you home if you want to stay longer. She told Conradin she thought you'd had too much to drink."
Pherenike looked for Conradin Cordenstein in the crowd, and felt chilled as she saw that he too was watching her. He started to make his way over. His idea of taking care of a girl with too much to drink was ... well, Pherenike didn't particularly want to guess or further their acquaintance to any extent whatsoever. He grinned at her, and she thought she saw a leering wink from him.
"Candle said you can either come with us, or go with Conradin," Yarrow said. "I always thought Conradin was quite sweet looking, like a brindled puppy. I used to have this one blue-nosed mastiff that reminded me of him ... " Sometimes it was hard to tell if Yarrow really was that genuinely silly, but this time she actually sounded sincere, not sarcastic.
Just as Candle was very sincere about her threats.
"Fine. I'm coming with you," Pherenike said, and grabbed her heavy wrap. Her brief attempt at social defiance was over, a rebellion stillborn in a mess of blood and broken bones before it could live, and she was going to face Candle. Her stomach felt heavy as lead inside her as she went out.
The Balduran family carriage was highly distinctive. It was festooned with the family's coat of arms and the roof was elaborately carved to present the ship and the leaping stag that symbolised the house, the doors and decorations painted a bright red. Pherenike sat in the darkest corner, trying to take up as little space as possible, and waited for the storm. It wasn't like there was anything she could do to prevent Candle noticing her.
"Do you want all Baldurian society to know you're a whore?" Candle's voice cut her like a whip. "Move, driver," Candle ordered her coachman.
"That's unfair, Candle," Pherenike said grimly. Candle was her supposed closest friend. She should know that there'd never been anyone. "We were all wrong tonight. I was wrong to write that note." Pherenike hoped that blaming herself most of all would salvage at least some of Candle's ego. "I'm glad the joke on Madeline didn't work."
"And, Candle, the Blue Shale man made you look good," Yarrow jumped in, talking quickly and nervously to try and calm her friend down. "He made sure you got a lot of cheers. Surely he picked you because of how beautiful you looked, standing out from everyone else. Everyone loved the act ... "
"He wanted to humiliate me and I will never forget or forgive," Candle said. "Balduran will never do business with Blue Shale; neither will Blaine nor Hellebore nor Medomai. I know I can count on you all to make that happen, and make the Demircis leave town with their tails between their legs." Candle's cold blue eyes met all of them in turn to check their commitment to her, Yarrow and Livia and Pherenike.
"I'll mention it to Daddy, next time I see him," Livia said, earnestly trying to comply. "Which might be a while."
"Quiet, Livia." Candle silenced her like she was a dog, and Livia closed her mouth quickly and shrunk deeply into her seat. Pherenike remembered that Candle tended to do that to Livia a lot. "Perhaps you'd like to explain to us all why you were practically fucking a strange lowlife lickspittle on the dance floor, Pherenike?"
I chose you above your threat of Conradin, and I'm not convinced I made the right choice, Pherenike thought. "Why so bitter about a slashed sleeve, Candle?" she said. "The dishevelled look is fatal this season, everybody's about to do it."
That line would only annoy Candle more. She didn't follow fashions or even set them. She stood apart and distinct from everyone beneath her, and that in her view was everyone in Toril.
"Without me, you and your father would be nothing." Candle's cheeks were actually red with rage, in the lamp-lit glow inside the carriage. Pherenike watched her go at it with the detached emotions she'd use to watch a bad bard perform. "Peasants. Muck. Bankrupt and selling your mouth to sailors at the dock. Which profession you display considerable aptitude for."
The carriage was nearing Pherenike's house, which happened to be closest to tonight's ballroom. Pherenike knew there were always refreshments in the inlaid cabinet in the middle of the carriage seat. She conspicuously poured herself another goblet of wine.
"Oh, it decides to be a drunken sot as well." Candle laughed devilishly. "You'll love it when this hits the broadsheets the next morning. You might need to move to the outer Horse Plains, or somewhere equally remote and filthy. Or else get on your knees and sincerely apologise to me, right now."
Pherenike decided to do neither at this stage. She calmly upended the goblet all over Candle's skirts, dark purple wine soaking through red brocade to white silk petticoats in irreparable stains, and let herself out of the carriage while Candle was still squawking in disbelief.
She opened her own gate with her key and slipped inside the back garden. The Medomai house was small and modest, though it had a fine garden. It also happened to be in one of the best locations in Baldur's Gate, for it had been in her family for generations. The house was completely black in the night. Her father Demetrius kept regular hours and their housekeeper Sarah insisted on sleep from the eighth bell to dawn as a condition of employment. They were innocently expecting Pherenike's return with a story of cheerful frolics and upright socialising with the respectable youth of Baldur's Gate.
How to face her father in the morning? Father, I have ruined for life your relationship with your patron the Grand Duke Balduran, and we might as well leave for the outer Horse Plains tomorrow, for my life here is over.
Or perhaps she could think of something. Candle would never have worn that dress again anyway after the man in black slashed it open, so maybe what Pherenike had done was forgivable. If she went to Candle the next morning and told her how sorry she was, that might help. Even better, she would go to Candle's father and mother, who seemed to like her well enough, and beg that Pherenike's misconduct should not reflect on her father Demetrius, who had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Pherenike went up to her room on the second floor, lit a candle, and threw aside her necklace, Candle's necklace, symbol of their friendship. She took down the pins in her hair, letting it fall loose around her shoulders, perfumed with magnolias.
"Candle's nothing more than a bully," she said to herself, aloud. "I finally stood up to her." And she'd met a handsome stranger who must surely hold her in double contempt, first for yielding to Candle over the note and then a second time for bowing to her threats and leaving on command. She wished she could see the man in black one last time, talk to him. She'd felt something with him, something more intense than she could remember feeling for anyone. "He'll probably think I'm a spineless coward for leaving, but I had a really good excuse."
"Maybe you could let him hear it," came the answer outside her window.
Pherenike dropped her hairbrush with a clatter. The head of the man in black appeared above her windowsill. "Awful etiquette. I apologise," he said.
"It's all right," Pherenike managed. She slowly crossed over to the window. He clung to the thick boughs of old ivy that covered the house, rather precariously.
"I wouldn't normally ... " he tried to explain. "But that is a very distinctive carriage." He looked at her, studying her face intently. "I thought there was something. Did you feel it too?"
She had. Pherenike gave him her hand to help him inside, not that she was much help. They stood facing each other in her bedroom, in the half-light of a flickering candle. Something between them burned like fire.
—
Note: Can you spot the Bhaalspawn?
Some characters and situations inspired by Heathers (1988); don't need to know canon.