Look Beyond What You See

Thor's Cauldron

I foolishly assumed that the party would end after Zinaida fainted, but Wesley simply appeared from the crowd, scooped Zinaida up, and carried her away, muttering to Dmitri that it was now his responsibility to keep everyone entertained, at least until he and his wife recovered from the understandable shock of all of their secrets being made known to me at once.

"And please, for the love of God, let's try not to have any more fallout. Your mother will be more than upset enough as things are," Wesley pleaded. Dmitri and I just exchanged glances, and then Dmitri replied with the "Of course, Father" that was expected while intending that we would simply return to our former acting routine. And so we find ourselves now in conversation with Nadezhda and Torcuil, the orange-suited man with a heavy brogue who unleashed so many secrets.

"A pity 'bout all this mess, don'tcha think?" Torcuil remarks casually, eyes sparking with mischief.

"And you wouldn't have had anything to do with the mess, now would you?" Nadezhda chides, her cloudy eyes stormy.

"Blame me, if you must blame someone, Nadya," Dmitri urges calmly, "for Torcuil and I spoke of this very thing before the party even started. I thought it asinine that my fiancée should be kept ignorant as they were trying to do, but I was bound by oath not to tell her, so to maintain my sacred honor I inquired of others to aid me. To that end, I believe I owe you my gratitude for your help in this endeavor, whether you meant it as such or not."

"Well, indeed we have been working towards the same purpose," Nadezhda, apparently also called Nadya, replies. She is trying with reasonable success to refrain from being flustered.

"An' all wit' such brilliant acting skills," Torcuil adds with a brilliant smile and a nod my way, making me blush slightly. "I knew ye, Dmitri, were quite th' actor, but I'd no idea yer fiancée was yer equal i' th' art."

"She has had a tougher childhood than mine by far, I imagine, and earned her skill," Dmitri explains, raising his glass of champagne in a toast. The rest of us follow his lead, which is one of many toasts that have been had so far this evening. I'm beginning to wonder how much more champagne I can handle before it begins to show in my behavior in ways that I would prefer it did not.

"I'm most interested i' the sort of upbringing ye've 'ad, Aerys," Torcuil continues, eyes on me.

"You ought not be," I reply with a laugh. "Highly uninteresting, for the most part. I was kept mostly to my studies, which included everything girls of noble families generally study, with extra attention to music, as that is my specialty. In my spare time my favorite sister and I would pull pranks on others of the household, often cooperating with the servants. And so my life has been until Dmitri and his parents came to take me away from my grandparents' chateau not so long ago."

"Less than a week, all told," Nadezhda clarifies. "It must have all been such a shock to you. They really never told you that you were to be wed?"

"It is no surprise, really. My two elder sisters received the same treatment on their eighteenth birthdays." Dmitri's eyes flare and he squeezes my arm painfully; I should not have said that. But the champagne is relaxing my usual circumspection in spite of my best efforts, and I was under the impression that Nadezhda and Torcuil were safe individuals.

"Really, now?" Torcuil inquires, his eyes blazing curiosity. "Do tell. Know ye any more o' their matches?"

"Next to nothing, and I ought not spread gossip. Why should it interest you, anyway?" Another wrong move, based on the tightening grip on my arm, though I did try to make my response to my fiancé's liking. Why is he hurting me? I nudge him subtly with my elbow in the hopes that he'll let go, or at least ease his grip, but I have no such luck.