Regina was bitterly envious of Duke Ihsan Kuzey.

  He was able to make mysterious pronouncements, speak uncomfortable truths to people more powerful than himself, and then leave without having to deal with the aftermath.

  Plus, he was able to do all this while twirling a cane.

  Regina wished that she had a cane.

  With that in mind, Regina watched wistfully as Duke Kuzey elegantly turned on his heel and vanished into the crowd. As she thought over what he had said, Regina wondered who had ever believed the Kuzeys had no interest in politics.

  What surprised her more was that no one but her and Artem seemed perturbed by his words.

  She could already hear voices chattering about the oddness of Kuzeys.

  She had known exactly what Duke Kuzey had meant in this moment and how terrifying it all was…

  …but how much of his previous conversations that she had dismissed as odd had been just as full of shrewd information?

  However, before Regina could ponder the strange paradox of the Kuzeys further, she saw one of the last people she wanted to encounter.

  Even as she stared at the grassy colored hair before her, so much like Robin’s, she knew just who was now clamoring to get her attention.

  “Duke Bertram Buren, I presume,” she said, and if she had not known Artem so well, she would have no idea how furious her husband was as he sat beside her.

  It could be none other than Duke Buren with that fine suit, that weathered face, and that characteristic mop of grassy-brown hair and he rewarded her knowledge with a faint smile.

  Looking at the man as he provided his dull, staid greetings, Regina almost wondered if he even knew that one of his kinsmen had been slain this morning.

  Yet if Robin Buren’s death weighed heavily on him, Duke Bertram Buren showed no indication of it. His manner was as calm and placid as a sheep waiting in line to be sheared before wandering off to chew cud for the rest of the evening.

  It almost made Regina wonder if Duke Neville had somehow forced Robin to serve as her assassin without Duke Buren’s knowledge.

  However, if Duke Bertram Buren truly did not know how a trained assassin in his family was being manipulated by an even more powerful noble ally, Duke Buren would be the stupidest noble in Carcosa.

  Considering the land also contained Marquess La Belle, that seemed impossible.

  Too confused even to hate him, Regina returned the flowery duke’s pleasantries and then waved him away.

  In hindsight, she should have known who was coming.

  After all, how would Duke Buren dare act without being accompanied by someone Regina could hate?

  “Duke Neville,” she said as she stared into the stormy gray eyes of the man who had tried to have her killed time and again. “How does this evening find you?”

  Duke Jason Neville looked at her and Regina suddenly understood what it felt like to have someone hate her so deeply and completely that their very glance was full of murder.

  If the initial attempts on her life had been an impersonal political calculation, Regina suspected that was no longer the case. Her chaotic rise to power had obviously personally insulted Duke Neville in a way she had not anticipated.

  Even her angry mother-in-law had not hated her so completely and thoroughly.

  “I find,” said the Duke of the dark and dangerous woods, “that I must pay you my respects.”

  “Then,” said Regina, determined to end this meeting as soon as possible since there was nothing she could do to deal with this threat publicly, “I will gladly accept them.”

  Duke Neville stared for a second, but then appeared to reluctantly be planning to move.

  For a very very brief moment, Regina wondered if, for once in her life, something was going to happen the way she planned it to happen.

  Then the Duke stopped and turned back towards her.

  “I would also,” he said, “like to pay my respects to a very dear little bird of mine. I had raised him as if he was my own… fledgeling. I understand that he was singing around you. Do you know what happened to him?”

  Regina saw red.

  She did not care that it was in public or that her rage would probably destroy the fragile political support she had built.

  She was going to strangle Duke Neville with her own bare hands.

  How dare the Duke use Robin, even in death, to advance his own agenda?

  How dare the Duke even speak of the man he had sent to murder her and be murdered in turn?!

  Regina was starting to rise from her seat, when she looked up at Duke Neville’s face and froze.

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  Duke Neville had not been asking out of political calculation.

  If Duke Neville could manage to fake his current mixture of grief and fury, then he was greater than any actor on the stage.

  It occurred to Regina, rather belatedly, that the pain on Duke Neville’s face was everything she had expected to see from Duke Buren and had not.

  Yet if there was one thing that Regina knew beyond all knowing, it was that families were… complex and that she had no idea what the actual relationship between the Burens and the Nevilles even was.

  Perhaps it would have been left there if the Duke had quietly left.

  Unfortunately, Duke Neville continued to speak.

  “You are,” Duke Neville told Regina with a sneer twisting his handsome lips, “quite the collector of birds. You had best hope, Prince Artem, that your Princess does not have a taste for breaking the wings of more powerful raptors.”

  This was of course ridiculous because Regina was the falcon and Artem was the dove.

  Artem, however, appeared to not agree, based on the way he was clutching the chair edge so hard Regina could see imprints of his fingers.

  Duke Neville achieved what he wished with his provocation.

  Artem spoke to him.

  “Well,” said Artem, his voice so much like the frivolous dandelion that Regina had first met that she jolted in shock, “you know how it is, Neville. When you send your plump little chickens to feed the raptors, you are going to have a smaller flock of birds.”

  Artem then smiled.

  Regina shivered.

  “It is a shame to miss out on their eggs, is it not?” Artem continued, sweetly, almost joyfully. “After all though, how can we make an omelette without breaking a few eggs… or a stew without cooking a few little birds?”

  There was a dead silence as the entire audience seemed to be afraid to breathe, even as Regina wondered how many of them knew that the highest nobility of Carcosa had not suddenly developed an obsession with poultry.

  For a moment, Duke Neville looked as if he was going to lunge directly at Artem.

  Then the Duke suddenly froze in place, his eyes widening in confusion.

  “If you do not take care of your flock,” said Artem, softly, “do not be surprised when they fly the nest.”

  Even as Regina turned in confused, Artem smiled almost wistfully.

  “I had hoped to use you to deliver my gift to my beloved wife, but unfortunately, she told me about a much better… present. So I will have to save that gift for our anniversary.”

  Duke Neville said something in reply, but Regina was too startled by what Artem had said.

  What had she even said that was going to qualify as a last minute gift for Artem to send her?

  She scanned the crowd, trying to determine if he had brought something in while she was distracted.

  That was when something did catch her eye… only it was not a gift.

  It was a flash of light…

  …and that light was coming from a small brooch on the floor.

  …A small brooch that was rapidly making its way across the floor, much like the brooch Regina had seen the first time that she met Artem.

  It looked the same as the brooch that Artem had used to paralyze his murderous cousin when Regina first hid with Artem amongst the bushes –

  Regina froze as her eyes tracked the path of the brooch. She watched even as it nimbly moved across the floor, scuttling between feet, weaving around people, racing across a shoe and finally up the pant leg of –

  Regina slowly trailed her gaze up the figure until she was staring her Grandfather directly in the eyes.

  He smiled and in his proud face, she could only see Ava’s corpse.

  Then he stopped smiling and Regina stilled, the world slowing around her, as she watched her Grandfather suddenly clutch his chest and start gasping for breath.

  When he crumpled to the floor, still and unmoving, Regina realized just what she had been given.

  There was screaming and running and the crowd was moving in absolute panic.

  Even in the noise and confusion and fury, Regina began to smile as her vision became strangely blurry.

  There were people trying to get to her grandfather, perhaps to help him, perhaps to hurt him further.

  Even as they were about to reach her grandfather’s still body, a set of vines sprung up around him and, as the screams rose in volume, Regina heard a chorus of Sheridan voices calling for the arrest of Duke Buren.

  Regina, however, was shocked in an entirely different way than the other members of the audience. She swung her gaze to the wall because she knew those vines –

  –Only to see Robin Buren stood behind a large vase, only visible from Regina’s seated angle.

  Regina’s eyes widened.

  Robin seemed to meet her gaze for a brief second and then he winked.

  Regina blinked, rubbing her eyes, trying to determine if she was seeing things.

  When she opened her eyes again there was no Robin.

  Had her glimpse of him just been a strange vision?

  Then, against the wall, Regina saw the small flowers slowly blooming in the shape of a duck.

  “You are a menace,” said Regina softly to herself, and she could not hide the sudden surge of relief, even as the hall descended further into chaos.

  That was when one other voice made itself heard.

  “QUACK,” said Reginette and Regina realized why she had a duck on her lap.

  “For you, Ava,” said Regina softly, hugging the duck as she stared at her grandfather’s body.

  His fingernails were now as black as Ava’s had once been.

  Regina hoped it hurt.

  Then, with tears streaming down her face and a smile on her lips, Regina turned towards the love of her life.

  “That was a gift years in the making,” she told Artem, her joy overflowing.

  Artem smiled and pulled her into a kiss.

  "Some futures," said Artem against her lips, "are worth the wait."

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