Chapter Text
In the backstreets and shadowed alleyways of Geum, hours after the sun has sunk below the hills and the salons have filled with champagne and gossip, the animals rule. The cats and dogs and rats forage for scraps thrown out from the kitchens of kings, they swarm over the piles of rancid fat and rotten apple cores and tear at each other’s throats over a mouthful of stale loaf. Removed from this desperate way of life, the royalty of the continent of Flora gather in gold lined halls, gilded ballrooms, and around smoke covered card tables. In the backrooms of the congress, secrets are a currency, and they change hands as easily as poker chips after a night filled with too much brandy. It is here that the world can be rewritten.
It was on one of these such nights that Minho of Wistaria found himself among the rats in a back alley across from the Viola palace. He paused and pulled himself further into the shadows as the door opened across the courtyard from him. The soft yellow glow of a streetlamp caught the silver buttons on the greatcoat of the man who stepped out onto the street. His figure was caught in shadows before Minho could see his face, and the man gave a quick glance down the street before slipping around the side of the palace. Minho willed himself to breathe as he took a step forward and peered around the corner of his alley. He reminded himself that the man he had just seen could have been anyone. Any number of the powerful men present at the congress could have reason to be exiting the Viola palace at this time of night, especially considering who inhabited the rooms inside.
Isadora of Geum, Morwenna of Fargesia, and Narcissa of Ageratta. Three of the most powerful women at the congress, known for their alluring beauty, silver tongues, and for the fact that they were rumored to entertain the most powerful men at the congress. Although they were often considered to be rivals, Isadora had a habit of standing out. Whether it was the tragic past shrouded in secrets and whispered about behind closed doors, or the fact that she had supposedly captured the ears and eyes of the three most powerful men in Flora, Isadora was frequently a favourite conversation topic. But Minho didn’t care for rumors, and could care less who Isadora chose to amuse herself with. What sent shivers down his spine as he shuffled his carefully blackened boots on the cobblestones was something else entirely. He pulled the collar of his buttoned grey coat higher up against the bite of the wind and felt the crackle of the paper tucked into his glove. He didn’t need to take it out to read what it said, the words printed neatly in violet ink and scented with lavender were seared into his memory.
Minho,
If you value the safety of your husband, you will call upon me tonight at quarter past midnight. I will trust in your sensibility.
Isadora
Minho let out a carefully controlled breath as he slipped through the door nearly hidden in overgrown ivy on the east side of the handsome brick building. Isadora’s note had contained detailed instructions on how to enter the palace and her rooms that directed Minho to take a back hall generally reserved for servants, before entering her personal quarters by the way of a side door hidden in the panels. As he climbed the stairs, careful not to let any sound betray his presence, Minho contemplated the nature of his midnight excursion. Earlier that night, a footman had pressed the note into Minho’s hand while the Wistaria delegation had been enjoying a play at the opera house. While initially surprised, Minho couldn’t help but conclude that it shouldn’t have been particularly shocking that his husband was in acquaintance with the famed Isadora.
The flash of pain was still fresh when Minho recalled the sight he had witnessed at the Countess of Fargesia’s dance earlier that week. Minho had stepped out into the rose garden to enjoy a much needed breath of air when he had happened to catch sight of his husband leaning against the balcony railing with Isadora on his arm. The way their heads had tilted subtly towards each others had seemed somehow delicately intimate, and Minho had felt as much like an intruder as he would have watching his husband in the meeting rooms of the congress.
But painful as it was, Minho had no illusions of what their marriage was. In fact, he considered it one of their strengths as a couple that they had not entered into their alliance with any idealistic expectations about married life. Minho was well aware that he had not brought any wealth nor status to Jisung’s family when they had married, and he had no fantasy that their marriage had been based on love. No, Minho knew very well that theirs was a political alliance, and that if anything, he owed his life to Jisung for marrying him when he had. Minho shivered to think of where he may have ended up had Jisung not come into his life. Minho had learned his part of the diplomatic husband well, and he knew to not make emotional demands or to intrude in matters outside their rooms in the Heucherella.
And yet he found himself breaking the rules. Though, the alternative was to potentially put Jisung at risk. Oh how he wished Jisung had been at the opera that night, so Minho could have asked his advice on what to do with the summons. But Jisung had left the morning before last for the capital of Myrica on official business of Randulphus and wasn’t expected back until tomorrow at earliest. For a moment, Minho had a clear image of the back of Jisung’s head as he rode away on his horse, saddlebags full to bursting with notices and drafts done up for the courtrooms of Myrica.
He found himself in a dimly lit passage, the only light being a single candle in a sconce on the stone wall. The smell of beeswax hung in the air, intermingled with something sharper Minho couldn’t place. It wasn’t surprising that Isadora had left such detailed instructions on how to get in, she wouldn’t have wanted her midnight visitors stumbling upon the other residents of the Viola palace. At the end of the hall he turned left and found himself faced with an oak paneled door. The instructions had said not to knock, so Minho turned the handle and pressed against the solid wood. Even before the door was fully open, the smell was overpowering. A sharp, bitter scent that had mingled so easily with the beeswax in the hall. The images registered in fragments. A single candle in its candelabra on the desk. The dying embers in the woodstove. Shadow. A woman lying on the intricately patterned throw rug, blood spilling from her neck. And the familiar view of the back of a mans head. At the sound of the door opening, the man turned, and Minho found himself looking into the haunted face of his husband.