Oryn Pale's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

His father crossed the hall before Oryn could close his hand over the empty chain. Oryn shoved the chain into his coat and met his father halfway. His father said nothing about it. He only touched Oryn's elbow and steered him out of the ballroom, past the servants, into the black-walled study at the back of the manor. His father shut the door and sat behind the red-trimmed desk. He did not offer Oryn a chair. The throne-like seat behind the desk swallowed him. He folded his hands on the wood and waited. "Where is it," his father said. "Where is what." "The thing you were wearing an hour ago." Oryn kept his face still. He had one problem now, and it was simple. He could not leave this room until he knew whether the pink fox had found her. If it had, he needed to reach the orchard gate by midnight. If it had not, the gate was empty and going there would ruin everything. He had no way to check. Breukelen was in the ballroom. The fox was somewhere in a crowd of two hundred coats. "I lost a button," Oryn said. "Off the chain. I'll find it after." His father studied him. Then he stood and walked to the black piano against the far wall. He lifted the fallboard. A folded paper sat on the keys. He picked it up and held it out. "A servant found this in the west hall," his father said. "Addressed to you. Unopened." Oryn took it. He knew the handwriting before he broke the seal. He had known it since he was nine. Three words inside, in pencil. Orchard gate. Yes. His knees went soft. He sat down on the black couch behind him without meaning to. The pillows shifted under his weight. She had the ring. She had kept it. She had answered. His father was watching him read. "Give it here," his father said. Oryn folded the paper once and put it in his mouth and swallowed it. The pencil scraped his throat going down. His father's face did not change. He sat back down in the red-lined chair. He opened a drawer. He took out a ledger and set it on the desk between them. "Then you should see what you'd be breaking," his father said. He turned the ledger around. "Read the third column." Oryn read one line. He read the next. The numbers were larger than he had guessed, and the names beside them were people he knew. A cook. A tenant. His old riding tutor. Debts his father had spread across the household staff to keep them off the public books. His father closed the ledger. "Midnight," his father said. "Decide before then." Oryn had his answer. He also had a price he had not known the shape of until now. He had to find her. She kept it. She loves him.