Only one more night, as it turned out. The next afternoon, Yeijiro received his own invitation.

Tōru summoned him to his office. Shō led Yeijiro in, indicated a chair, and closed the door behind him. Tōru, without lifting his attention from the papers on his desk had said, “I am in need of assistance.”

“Anything,” had been Yeijiro’s immediate response.

Prompting Tōru to look up, his lips a stern line. His mask—gold filigree over black—stopped just below his nose, leaving his mouth visible. “Be careful what you’re so quick to promise.”

Probably sound advice, but after his talk with Corinne, it was at the forefront of Yeijiro’s mind just how much he wanted to say yes to Tōru. How much faith he had that Tōru wouldn’t abuse that. “What I meant to say is that I welcome the opportunity to hear how I might serve.”

Tōru's stern, serious look didn’t soften. “I am at a dead end in my thinking over a problem. There are certain activities I find helpful in this circumstances. Activities that require a partner with both a useful mind and a willing body for me to make use of.

“Normally I wouldn’t even consider someone with your relative lack of experience.”

At willing body, Yeijiro’s stomach had done a flip and he’d only been half listening to the rest of what Tōru said. But even half-listening, he made the connection. “My lord’s problem—this is about the attack on the Emperor.”

Tōru nodded, seeming unsurprised at Yeijiro’s quick conclusion. “Thus you see my options are limited.”

“As I said. Anything my lord needs.”

“How accommodating,” Tōru said in his dry tone.

He’d gone on to explain more specifically what he required of Yeijiro. None of it had made Yeijiro any less interested in saying yes.

That evening was Yeijiro’s second visit to the Black Orchid, and he was no less nervous than he had been the first time. Maybe more, because he knew—or thought he knew—what he was walking into.

Inside the house, Yeijiro was met by a woman whose laced mask did nothing to hide her nima-granted beauty. She bowed to him. “Sur Yeijiro, welcome. I’m Melody. I’m here to see to your comfort. If there’s anything you require or wish, you have only to ask. Please, follow me.”

Melody led him to a private bath where a sunken tub waited, already filled with steaming water. Two more attendants, a man and another woman, waited in here along with trays of soaps and oils and thick, fluffy towels.

So this was what it was to truly be the plaything of a clan Lord. There were definitely some perks. But plaything—that was the operative word. It was critical Yeijiro kept reminding himself. Tōru had been very clear that Yeijiro was here because he fit the parameters Tōru needed at this moment. This evening was purely transactional.

Melody and the others undressed him and waved him to the bath, and indulgently Yeijiro relaxed. He closed his eyes and lay back, let the heat sink in as the attendants tended to him. Melody sat behind his head, massaging his face, his temples, his shoulders. The man worked on his hands, shaping Yeijiro’s nails and rubbing lotion into his skin. The woman did the same for Yeijiro’s feet. By the time they had finished their work and the water had just begun to cool, Yeijiro felt like he’d been turned to liquid himself.

Melody helped him climb out, then wrapped one of the soft, warm towels around him. “This way,” she beckoned.

The next chamber was warm from a fire and what seemed to be a hundred candles spread about, giving the space a soft, gold glow. There were lacquered cabinets along the walls, but no other furniture except for a waist-high, square platform with a cushioned surface. Melody nodded at the platform. “He asks that you wait for him there.”

Yeijiro knelt. Melody took the towel, then quietly withdrew. Yeijiro adjusted to where he was comfortable, rested his hands on his knees, closed his eyes, and took a long, deep breath.

He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until now. The bath, the massages, had relaxed him, banishing the aches of stresses he only noticed now in their absence.

Figure out who you work for, Elena had said. Did she know he’d seen Tōru today? Certainly her ultimatum hadn’t given Yeijiro any hesitation about saying yes to Tōru. How long until saying yes meant he could no longer be a marshal?

This was his own weakness, a path he knew was foolish and dangerous. He so desperately wanted to be what Tōru needed, but he wasn’t. Deep his his heart, Yeijiro knew that while this meant everything to him, he was nothing more than a passing fancy to Tōru.

But here he was. Tonight, Tōru had wanted him here. Tōru had enough faith in him to give him this chance. If back at the start of Shadow Court, anyone had told Yeijiro he was starting on a path that would lead him to a room where he sat naked and waiting to be the Lord of the Serpent’s plaything, he would have thought it the cruelest sort of joke.

No good came of worrying any more about it right now. Yeijiro breathed deep in the darkness and silence. Relishing these moments of peace.

Across the room, Yeijiro heard a door open and footsteps brushing softly across the carpet. Yeijiro opened his eyes to see Tōru standing several feet away. Tōru's gaze moved slowly over Yeijiro’s body, like he was memorizing every detail. Yeijiro’s sensitized skin tingled and warmed.

Yeijiro bowed his head. “Good evening, Lord Miyōshi.”

Tōru was dressed tonight in a dark suit with a long jacket, intricately embroidered, black on black, with serpents twined around each other in elegant knots. His mask was etched with a matching pattern, the shimmering design only visible when the light caught it at an angle.

Tōru came closer, walked a slow circle around Yeijiro. Yeijiro could feel the soft breeze of his movement. How quickly he’d become attuned to Tōru's attention. He shivered as a finger stroked lightly down the base of his spine. Another feather-light touch at his shoulder as Tōru came back around to stand in front of him. The brush of Tōru's knuckle up the line of Yeijiro’s cock that was already standing at stiff, eager attention.

“Tell me what you were thinking about when I came in.” There was no softness to Tōru's voice, no warmth. That, too, made Yeijiro shiver.

“This,” Yeijiro answered. But that was evasive, a half-truth.

Tōru seemed to know that. He waited, silent, unmoving.

So Yeijiro gave him more. Still not everything. “Marshal Lindsay is displeased with me.”

Tōru put a hand under Yeijiro’s chin, lifting it. “Why is that?” he asked as he adjusted Yeijiro’s head, then gave a squeeze to indicate Yeijiro was to remain like that.

“She watches me. Doesn’t trust me. She told me…” he trailed off, having gone past what he’d meant to share.

“Because you are a Serpent,” Tōru finished. He cupped Yeijiro’s face, his hands covering Yeijiro’s cheeks like a mask. “You try so hard to make them forget what you are. Tell me, would you change it? If you could, would you wish to have been born other than a Serpent?”

A dangerous question, coming from the Lord Miyōshi. What would be the consequence if he answered wrong? Fortunately, Yeijiro didn’t have to. “No. I wish…I wish some things had been different. But I’ve never regretted being a Serpent. Especially…” He closed his mouth quickly.

But Tōru wouldn’t let it go. “Especially…?”

Unthinking, Yeijiro bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Especially now. Tonight. That being a Serpent has led me here.”

Tōru's thumb stroked Yeijiro’s cheek. “Everything you think, everything you feel, it shows on your face. It’s a weakness.”

Yeijiro looked up. “My lord—”

“Hush, Yeijiro. Be still.”

Tōru dropped his hands to Yeijiro’s knees, pulled them open to a perfect right angle. He took Yeijiro’s hands and drew them around behind Yeijiro’s back. Adjusted Yeijiro’s head once more. Then stepped back, considering.

This was the problem. Tōru watching him with such intensity. As though Yeijiro were the only other person in the universe. As though there were no one else who mattered. It wasn’t true, wasn’t real, but it was so hard to remember that under the full weight of Tōru's attention.

Yeijiro held still as he could. Through that entire conversation, his arousal hadn’t flagged, and every passing touch of Tōru's hands left him wanting more.

Also, a little scared. Which, apparently, was another thing Tōru saw. “It’s all right to be afraid,” he said. “I believe, in fact, you enjoy the fear.” His hand brushed up Yeijiro’s straining shaft and Yeijiro lifted his hips to try to maintain contact before he remembered himself.

Tōru went to one of the cabinets, out of Yeijiro’s sight. Yeijiro heard rustling, then the sound of something being set down behind him. When Tōru returned, he had a length of black silk in his hand. He lifted the silk to Yeijiro’s face, wrapped it over his eyes, creating a blindfold. A mask. Sending another thread of fear through Yeijiro. His breathing sped. He felt too warm and shivering cold all at once.

Tōru stroked down his back, a sensation that was equal parts soothing and agitating. “She told you…?”

Yeijiro gave a shake of his head. That question, he wouldn’t answer.

“Very well.” The rustle of Tōru's clothes as he turned away again. The touch of Tōru's hand as he returned, and a soft rasp of some new texture. Not the ripple of silk. Something different.

Tōru's hands on Yeijiro’s wrists, arranging them, pressing his forearms together behind his back. His thumb brushed back and forth, tracing the veins under sensitive skin, making it difficult for Yeijiro to keep from squirming. Something stiff and a little rough wrapped around Yeijiro’s left wrist, then around his right. Rope. It drew tight, immobilizing. Yeijiro pulled against it reflexively until Tōru's hand stilled him.

Tōru had said Yeijiro would be bound. It was one of the things that had him both excited and apprehensive. He so desperately didn’t want to disappoint Tōru. Not by saying or doing anything wrong. Not by letting the newness of everything overwhelm him. Not by failing to enjoy this gift he was being given.

That last part, at least, was becoming less and less of a fear. Tōru moved with slow, meticulous care. Yeijiro felt the rope, back and forth, higher and higher, creating a web of immobilizing pressure moving up his arms. Back and forth, the rope’s texture pressed into his skin. As his arms were bound, it was as though a similar restraint were wrapping around his mind. Wrapping his thoughts tight, focusing them. The chattering of a thousand ideas—the state in which Yeijiro lived—began to silence.

He was sinking deeper into his body, while at the same time floating close to his skin. Every nerve that had been woken by his earlier care was sensitized to the lightest brush of Tōru's hand. Every touch was a surprising pleasure.

Yeijiro wanted…more. More of this feeling, more of Tōru's hands, touch, attention. But he could do nothing. The rope trapped him, and his own ingrained sense of obedience was yet another layer of binding.

“What did they want? What was the conspirator’s aim?”

Tōru's murmured questions were strangely loud in the room’s silence, unexpected and sharp to Yeijiro’s heightened senses.

Yeijiro answered without thought, his mind clear and empty. “To assassinate the Emperor.”

A loop of rope struck lightly against Yeijiro’s thigh. A caution, rather than reprimand. “You can do better.”

And he could. The words came into Yeijiro’s mind with bell-like clarity. Unsurprising, since he and Corinne had been working through the same question. “With the Emperor gone, the power balance in the Empire shifts. And with the conflict between my lord and the Lord Marshal, the continued ascendency of Swan and Serpent is anything but certain.”

Tōru fell silent again. Thinking, perhaps. Or perhaps Yeijiro’s second answer had been as obvious as his first.

It was so hard to think any deeper while Tōru continued to work on his body. What design was he creating? What purpose?

Tōru had moved on from Yeijiro’s arms, wrapping the rope forward across Yeijro’s chest, down around his thighs. There was something comfortable—something comforting in the growing immobilization. The haze of relaxation had become a weight against Yeijiro’s mind, like a veil between his thoughts and the world. He had to push harder to keep listening, to make sense of Tōru's words when Tōru spoke again.

“The Dragon pushed to host the court. Ambassador Asher called in nearly every favor people owed her.”

The same path Yeijiro’s thinking had gone down already. He tried to say something, but it was too much effort, putting thoughts into words.

Tōru continued. “But the Dragon were the ones embarrassed by the attack. If it was a ploy to put them in a better position politically…”

Tōru's hand between his shoulder blades, a gentle stroke down his spine. Thoughtful.

“The effort it must have taken to hide everything from my agents. To identify and avoid any spies. How is that even possible?”

Even with his mind disengaged, Yeijiro could tell this wasn’t a real conversation. Tōru was thinking out loud rather than actively soliciting Yeijiro’s opinions. But Yeijiro couldn’t stop himself from chewing on the puzzle—any puzzle—laid before him. “They were careful. So careful. Watching for etherics. Not watching for me.”

“Hmm.” The rope stroked along his thigh before tightening. “The work you did was notable, particularly for one person working alone, but nothing my own people shouldn’t have seen.”

Yeijiro answered reflexively when Tōru paused. “Am I not one of my lord’s people?”

Gentle pressure against Yeijiro’s back until Yeijiro leaned forward, resting his forehead against the table. “Hold still,” Tōru commanded.

This position made it more difficult to talk, but the connection between Yeijiro’s mind and his body had become unimportant.

Tōru tied one final knot, and his hands withdrew along with the warmth of his presence. Floating in this strange, liminal mindspace, Yeijiro couldn’t tell if time was passing while Tōru made no sound, no move. Yeijiro chose to imagine Tōru standing behind, admiring the design he’d created—what he’d made of Yeijiro.

He drifted until a touch on his back brought him back, grounded him just enough to hear Tōru's words. “You’re doing very well.” He gathered Yeijiro’s hair into a soft knot against Yeijiro’s neck. A hand stroked down Yeijiro’s back, and he couldn’t stop himself from pushing back into the touch like a cat.

He expected correction, but instead, Tōru murmured, “Tell me why all these pieces don’t fit.”

As if Yeijiro hadn’t been struggling with all this himself.

The sounds of Tōru moving through the room and returning. Then something dripped on Yeijiro’s shoulder. For the briefest instant, it stung, and then the sting blossomed into a bright, intense pain. Yeijiro flinched and twisted.

Tōru lay a gentling hand between his shoulder blades, stroked down his back. “Shh.”

Another burst of stinging heat on Yeijiro’s other shoulder. Now Yeijiro smelled it. Wax. The candles. Tōru had told him this would happen too, but Yeijiro hadn’t imagined what it would actually feel like against skin that had been sensitized and awakened for what felt like hours.

On his hip, at the center of his spine. Each drop, a moment of searing intensity. Just as the pain from one crested and faded, a fresh sting began. At each new, focused flare of pain, the haze over Yeijiro’s mind thickened.

“A pity things weren’t different.” Tōru's words stroked along with his hand, a counterpoint to the pain. Altogether overwhelming. And somehow perfect. “A pity you grew up surrounded by short-sighted and narrow minded fools. A pity you felt you had to leave. A pity you never came to me.”

Bright points of pain like stars. Yes, that was it. Yeijiro’s skin was covered in stars. He could almost see them in the darkness. Tōru's voice was its own gravity, pulling Yeijiro along. Yeijiro fell into it, sank deep, until there was nothing but heat and stars and Tōru.

As the wax began to layer, the pain retreated, leaving Yeijiro floating alone in the void. He was aware of Tōru's steadying hand, a warmth in the darkness, the only thing tying him to his body, to the world.

The stars remained, bright points of light floating in his mind. So many, so close, their light blending together. Like pieces of a puzzle. The puzzle Yeijiro couldn’t solve. The puzzle full of pieces that didn’t fit.

They didn’t fit. They simply didn’t. Yeijiro couldn’t make them fit. Tōru couldn’t make them fit.

What if that was the answer?

“Two puzzles,” Yeijiro murmured. “With the pieces mixed together.”

Tōru's movement’s stopped. “Is that possible? Have I been…” he trailed off. The silence stretched out.

The smell of smoke as Tōru blew the candle out. He pulled Yeijiro up into a sitting position. Yeijiro still felt disconnected, only half aware.

With one hand on Yeijiro’s shoulder, Tōru held him steady. The other hand wrapped around him and Tōru's fingers toyed with the ropes across his chest, sliding down over his stomach.

Yeijiro gasped as those fingers wrapped around his cock, began to stroke. And again at Tōru's voice next to his ear. “How could anyone not see your value?”

From deep in his dream, Yeijiro whimpered.

“You are clever, and determined, and so very eager to serve.”

Tōru's hand was warm and firm, slick with the results of Yeijiro’s ongoing arousal.

“I could have made such use of you.”

Yeijiro could barely make sense of the words, his every synapse focused on Tōru's strokes, on the release he so desperately needed.

“But you left me, and now you belong to him. You cannot serve us both.”

Pleasure built and crested, buried Yeijiro in its waves. He lost track of everything else, except for Tōru's final words. “You’ll have to choose, Yeijiro. You cannot serve us both.”

By the time Yeijiro’s awareness returned, Yeijiro realized there was a different set of hands on him. Before he could panic, the blindfold was removed and he blinked up at Melody.

She said nothing as she carefully untied the knots that bound him, then ran a soft, warm cloth over his back and began to gently remove the wax.

Yeijiro couldn’t move, and for once in his life, he couldn’t seem to think. His mind had entirely short-circuited.

“Forgive me, Sur Yeijiro,” Melody said. “This may be uncomfortable. But Lord Miyōshi insisted.”

Something scraped against his back. Uncomfortable against tender skin, but not quite painful. Yeijiro held still because he couldn’t quite figure out how to do anything else.

After she finished scraping, Melody rubbed a lotion across his back that soothed his skin and helped ground him back in his body. Melody laid something on the platform next to his knee. “Your clothes are in the next room,” she said. “As well as refreshments and the bath. Take all the time you need.”

After she left, Yeijiro didn’t try to move. Breathing—that was something he could do, so he spent some time focusing on that. In and out, slow and calm, as the world around him slowly came back into focus.

He felt hollow, empty, like his insides had been scraped away. A clean sort of exhaustion.

As feeling returned, Yeijiro became aware of the ache in his knees, of the raw, over-sensitive skin of his wrists. He rubbed at the latter, felt the textured impressions left by the rope.

Finally, he looked down at what Melody had left for him.

It was a design made of wax. Removed intact, she had said, at Tōru's insistence.

A gift? A reminder? Or a claim? What had he said? That Yeijiro would have to make a choice. You cannot serve us both. The same warning Elena had given. Yeijiro didn’t like it any better coming from Tōru.

Whatever it was supposed to mean, Yeijiro took the wax serpent with him when he left.