THE PRINCE'S CLUB

Tedros' kisses tasted differently.

That was the first clue to Agatha that her prince had a secret.

Where his kisses once had the flavor of mint and sugar, now there was a hint of something hot and tart, like cooked grapefruit or flambeed cherry. It wasn't an unpleasant taste, Agatha thought, but it was different, and she sensed Tedros knew it, not only from the hesitation in his kisses, but also in the way he chewed on cardamom pastilles and licorice sticks relentlessly, as if there was indeed something to hide.

She could have said something, of course. They were married now, after all. Just as Tedros lambasted her cat for peeing in the prince's boots whenever Reaper came for visits or moaned about Agatha picking at her nails during court meetings or hid the deathly black gowns his queen favored for Camelot's spring ball, Agatha could have addressed the issue straight on with him — no doubt there was an easy explanation: a change in diet (he was finicky about food) or a new teeth-cleaning regimen (hadn't there been a visit to the dentist last month?) or too much time in his hot bath, which his overindulgent maid doused with every oil and salt in the Endless Woods (as if she wanted to get in with him!). Agatha brushed her concerns aside. Kisses from Tedros were kisses from Tedros, however they tasted. As quickly as they'd changed, they'd change back, and then she'd feel silly having ever brought it up.

This was her thinking in the beginning at least.

But then came the second clue that this was about more the flavor of his lips.

A week after she noticed the change in Tedros' kisses, she noticed something else.

He'd begun disappearing in the night.

* * * * *

Now that they were married, they slept in the same bed.

This came as easily to Agatha as thinking of Tedros as "her king" rather than "her prince" — which is to say, not easily at all.

Even if the bed was gargantuan, the sheets stitched from 800 silk threads, and the pillows like feathery clouds, it didn't change the fact that Tedros ran hot and Agatha ran cold and for the first two weeks, he'd toss and turn in a puddle of sweat, while she snatched futilely at blankets which he'd swept onto the floor, until the point came where she'd grab him thinking he was a blanket, only to sink her face into his sweaty back or stomach and wake up half-drowned.

Too many days of this and they'd become sleepless grumps, right in the middle of spring ball season when they should be fresh-faced newlyweds, and so a decision was made. Agatha would sleep in her old room, Tedros in the king's chamber, and they'd try again in two weeks when the calendar of engagements wasn't so fraught.

Agatha went back to calling him "her prince" and had never slept so well.

At first, she was perfectly happy putting off adulthood a little bit longer. Tedros seemed the same, returned to whistling at breakfast and cracking jokes at her expense ("For someone who grew up in a graveyard, fitting you had a wedding and funeral on the same day"), and she'd retaliated by stabbing a hole in one of his perfectly undercooked eggs. All was well.

But then one night, in the dead of sleep, she'd woken with a start — perhaps a bad dream, perhaps a sound — and as she sat to sip water, her eyes caught movement out the window and she spotted her prince, cast in moonlight, slipping through the garden like a thief. He was dressed in a royal blue doublet studded with pink heart-shaped pearls and a white lace collar, an outfit Agatha had never even seen before, and his wild gold curls were clamped down and tucked behind his ears, which means he'd bathed and combed before he'd gone stealing out of the castle.