Then he would speak, and gagging him went to the top of the wish list.
“People fly sick, were you aware?”
“Can you even get sick?” I asked him. He was vampyr, after all.
He lifted a finger to shut me up. “Twenty percent of people who use the lavatory on an airplane do not wash their hands.”
“How would you even get that statistic? Who’s going to cop to not washing their hands?”
“It would take you an inordinate amount of time to thoroughly disinfect your seat.”
I sighed deeply.
“There is also the recycled-air concern.”
I looked over at Varic.
He shook his head, clearly not about to wade in.
“This is your fault,” I accused him.
“What is?”
“He is,” I said, pointing at Tiago.
“How?”
“Because you have indulged his snobbery for ages,” Hadrian agreed with me, head back, eyes closed in utter defeat, making a choking sound.
I indicated Hadrian with both hands. “Yeah.”
Varic didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to deal with it, and definitely didn’t want to have any discussions about how we would get to Malta. A day later we boarded the private plane and began the first leg of the trip.
I had imagined sitting with Varic, us talking, watching movies, watching soccer that I followed, watching football and basically just doing nothing. I quickly realized that the reason a private jet was infinitely better for Varic was due to all the business he was conducting.
He was the Prince of the Noreia, and there were hundreds of issues he had to deal with in that capacity; he had an office in a separate building from the palace, where he had a secretary and assistants and basically a whole team of people that managed the office of the draugr. But he also had personal wealth that he had removed from under the umbrella of the Maedoc empire, which a whole other team coordinated from Rome. Varic’s empire, Tiago explained to me, was diversified. He made his money in natural resources, a variety of media, real estate, and venture capital. His brother’s estate, that he oversaw, was in oil and gas. The prince lived lavishly because he had changed with the times, made sound investments, and hired a range of people all over the world to manage his interests. I found myself impressed that the man had not sat on his wealth like a dragon with his hoard, but instead had the brightest and best advise him. He employed hundreds and, as expected, took excellent care of his employees in an environment that rewarded loyalty and fostered growth.
I chuckled when I saw what Varic was worth. It was an insane amount of money.
“While he is not as wealthy as some,” Tiago assured me, sounding almost affronted, “I can assure you that a net worth approaching twenty billion dollars is nothing to scoff at.”
“No,” I agreed, “it’s not.”
“So you see, now, why I commented on the quaintness of your little shop.”
“I can,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes.
“Here,” he said, holding out an iPad. “Place your hand here. Varic needs a scan of both of your hands for the different safety-deposit boxes and safes he owns.”
That made sense. Hopefully I would be doing some buying for the store while I was there, and anything valuable for resale I would need to have locked up.
“Excellent,” Tiago said when he finished sending both scans to Varic. “Now, I need to give you all your cards and access codes for—”
“Cards for what?”
He squinted at me. “For the accounts you will share with him. He wants you to have unlimited access to—”
“Absolutely not,” I told him. “We’re keeping all the money separate. It’s the only way this is gonna work.”
“But the prince stipulated that you would have—where are you going?”
I was standing up, looming over him. “I’m gonna go tell Varic that I want his body but none of his money.”
Tiago grabbed my wrist and tugged gently, not yanking, even though we both knew he could have put me back in my seat if he wanted. While he looked like something delicate and fragile, carved out of ivory, in reality he was both powerful and deadly. But because he not only liked me but I also belonged to Varic, he was careful. “I will not allow you to annoy my prince to death. Just sit and let us instead concern ourselves with the protocol of court. There is much for me to impart in a very short time.”
“Like what?”
“You must learn what is and is not acceptable at court,” Tiago stressed to me. “If you do not, you may inadvertently put yourself and the prince in danger.”
“How?”
“If, for instance, you greeted one of the king’s courtesans or, heaven help us, one of his concubines with the same regard as other mated ladies at court, there would be a riot.”
It already sounded painful.
“The greeting you would offer Varic’s cousin would be vastly different from one you would offer the dowager princess or the courtesan of the late prince who bore his son.”
“So Varic’s brother’s—just, what are their names?”
“The widow of Prince Cassius, or dowager—”
“I know what a dowager is,” I said, smirking at him.
He coughed softly. “Her full title is Dowager Princess Nerilla Maedoc, but at court she is usually referred to as Princess Nerilla, I suspect because the king hopes she will marry again.”
“The dowager would put the emphasis on her being his son’s widow.”
“Yes.”
“It’s nice that he’d like to see her remarry.”
“It is.”
“But he won’t make her, will he?”
“No. Should she choose to remain eternally a widow, the king will allow such.”
“That’s good.”
“It is. She lost her great love; if her heart never mends, she should not be forced to take another to her bed.”
“She really loved him?”
“She did,” he rasped, like it was painful to talk about. “In the beginning, when Cassius was newly taken, I was certain she would succumb to her grief.”
“That’s so sad, losing someone you love.”
“It is,” he agreed, clipping his words, not wanting to dwell there, I could tell.
“And Nerilla didn’t have any kids.”
“No,” he said, exhaling in relief.
“Did Cassius love her, or did he have courtesans?”
“Having courtesans does not preclude love,” he informed me. “But Cassius had only one courtesan. Her name is Carice, and she gave him a son, Chryos, meaning golden.”
“So Nerilla, who would have been his queen, didn’t have any kids when he died, but his courtesan, Carice, did.”
“Yes,” Tiago confirmed, and I saw the slight furrow of his brows.
“Go on, I can see there’s more.”
He cleared his throat, which I realized was something he did when he wasn’t comfortable. “By law, Nerilla should have been married to Varic when Cassius died, but unlike Cassius, Varic made it clear to his father that he would not be mated for life to anyone he did not want to bed.”
“Well,” I said, smiling, “that certainly sounds like him.”