Now, the invitation wasn’t surprising to him. Tavin was, honestly, a rather frequent visitor—and the way Nadia talked about him was evidence enough outside of that. So it wasn’t completely unexpected when he asked them both to dinner at the castle. After all, it was better for them all to get to know each other sooner or later.

  Leon’s first “red flag,” if it deserved to be called such a thing, was how Tavin assured that the kings would actually be there. They were busy people, surely. But… busy enough that they couldn’t even guarantee an hour or so at the end of their day?

  The second—that became less of overthinking and more of being very obvious—happened, well… over the course of the entire dinner. Tavin introduced them to Imre, Dimas, and Samone; Nadia acted like she hadn’t actually met them before. Then Leon realized she wasn’t acting.

  Well, he guessed she’d at least talked to Samone before. But any vague sense of familiarity they shared was nonexistent towards Imre or Dimas. Not to mention that Leon got the impression casual conversations really weren’t all that common.

  Somehow, though, no one else seemed to notice it. Or… maybe they chose not to. Eventually the dinner came to an end, after Samone left to take care of work and Tavin and Nadia decided to go to the garden.

  “They seem to get along well,” Leon remarked. “I hope things go well for them.”

  Dimas smiled. “Yeah, I can tell. I think I speak for both of us when I say we were a little surprised.”

  “Surprised?”

  Imre let out a small, half-hollow laugh. “I imagined Natheniel would be the first one to bring someone home. I wasn’t exactly mentally prepared.”

  Leon was quiet for a moment, then, “Was this really your first time meeting Nadia?”

  “Officially, anyway,” Dimas responded with a nod. “I’ve seen her around the castle a couple of times but I’d figured she was just a friend. We trust his judgment.”

  “I’ve… known, you know. About their relationship. Tavin’s been visiting every now and again.”

  “He has?” Imre asked.

  “I think there’s a difference between trusting his judgment and simply not knowing,” Leon pointed out cautiously. “If there’s one thing I learned growing up, it’s how to pick apart a simple situation and get information out of it. You… really don’t do this very often, do you?”

  The question seemed to hold much more weight than he’d intended. “Natheniel barricaded his door with magic and left through the window in his room. To him, that was more favorable than staying here. Now only the gods, if that, know where he is. What do you think that says about us?”

  Dimas frowned. “Imre…”

  Imre stood up. “I’ve got work to do. The two of you can stay however long you’d like, Leon—at this point it’s probably better if you stay the night anyway. Someone can show you to the guest rooms.”

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  He made his way to the door, but Dimas got up to intercept him. A hushed conversation followed but, though it seemed to be resolved, Imre still left. Dimas stepped a bit closer to the table and sighed.

  “Sorry about that. I can… show you to that room, if you want. I know you probably weren’t planning to stay the night but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  Leon, slowly, stood and wandered next to Dimas. “Would it be too much trouble to ask someone to tell Nadia? I don’t want to bother them—not with the two of us.”

  Dimas nodded, gestured over one of the servants still there, and mumbled something to them. They left and, after a moment, he motioned for Leon to follow him.

  They were in silence for a minute, then Dimas said, “I feel like I need to apologize… again.”

  “If anyone’s at fault for anything, it’s me,” Leon pointed out. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I hadn’t realized it would lead to that kind of sensitive topic.”

  “No, you didn’t do anything. You have a right to be concerned. And, if I’m being honest, you said exactly what we needed to hear—two years ago, when we still had a chance to do something.” Dimas only looked forward, never sparing a glance over to Leon. “It’s something that we need to talk about. Something we should’ve already talked about. The way I see it, there’s a good chance you’re going to be involved in this. I’m not going to stop you from knowing what your niece might very well become a part of.”

  “I don’t mean to drag up anything…”

  Dimas shook his head. “Of course it isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean we should avoid it, either. We learned that the hard way.” He paused to consider it. “Things were never in our favor, really. Zofie gets upset if I don’t come to visit every now and again. When I am here, I spend a lot of time helping whoever needs it. Imre, Kiah, Samone, and occasionally Raisul run a council that’s supposed to have ten members. On top of that, it… takes a lot, sometimes, for Imre to be around people. He spends most of his time in his office alone, especially on ‘off’ days.”

  He stopped talking just long enough for them to walk past the garden. Tavin and Nadia were still chatting away. “You know, we’d… walk around Lelishara together, when Lydia was still alive. I’d like to say I don’t know what happened to those days, but that would be a lie. We let work take priority over our family. More than that… we weren’t honest. There were things we needed to prepare for that we couldn’t tell the kids. Sometimes Natheniel, and occasionally Tavin, had to go to Qizar when we discussed important things… when we had to meet with other important people. We thought we’d tell them when they were older.”

  “I’m… guessing that opportunity never came,” Leon said slowly.

  “We told Tavin pieces—he didn’t know the full story until last year, though. Philyra had to have pieced together something, too, from overhearing Zofie and I. But Natheniel knew nothing. He didn’t know what he was or what powers he had. He didn’t know that what he did wasn’t his fault. Because… we always said he wasn’t ready. Because we were afraid he would think we only cared because of it.” Dimas sighed. “Instead, we made him think that we didn’t care at all.”

  “What Imre mentioned… was that what happened when he ran away..?”

  “According to them, yes—I wasn’t there myself. I was at Qizar at the time. There’s… a lot of things worth regretting about it—a lot of things we realize we could’ve avoided. Signs we ignored until it was too late. But his disappearance came with other problems. Imre’s working hard to convince everyone that we still have everything under control, even though we still don’t know where Natheniel is. That’s not counting all the other related issues, like the Skiá or Ihu’s current state…” There was something else he seemed to think of, but he didn’t say it. “We’re… nearing the anniversary, too—of the last few weeks before he ran away. Suffice to say, it may be a slight understatement to say things are kind of hell right now.”

  He actually turned to Leon then, giving him a genuine smile. “But you know what? That’s why I’m glad today happened. It’s nice to know that Tavin’s got some normal people to hang out with, and Nadia seems like a nice girl. I have a feeling they’ll help each other out through whatever happens.”

  Leon nodded, managing a smile too. “Let’s hope so.”

  Dimas stopped and gestured to a door. “Here’s where you can stay the night. I’ll ask someone on my way back to make sure you’re comfortable. I don’t advise wandering around the castle on your own, you’ll almost certainly get lost.”