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Let it be known, let it be carved on the back cover of the Queen’s rulebook with equivalent legitimacy: Riddle was not sulking. Sulking implied a deviation from decorum, a penchant for petulance, and the concept of a bottom lip sticking too far out in a pout. Housewardens of his caliber did not sulk.
They glowered.
Mentally.
Outwardly, they were completely composed. Just as he was then, as he sat, posture perfect, atop one of the fainting couches in the Heartslabyul lounge. His legs were crossed in a neat picture of ease—nevermind the idle tapping of one of his heels against his ankles. It was a frivolous habit, nothing more, and did not insinuate any kind of agitation whatsoever. Neither did the way his cheeks puffed out slightly, nor how his fingernails scarred the cover of the book he was supposed to be reading in deep crescents.
There was, in fact, no agitation to speak of.
There was only the matter of Cater Diamond, who had gone several hours (several) without kissing him.
Under duress, Riddle would confess that this was not a violation of any written rule. There was no legal notice that stated that Cater was obligated to kiss him at any particular hour for any particular reason.
However.
Precedent had been established.
Norms had been put into place.
It was practically Pavlovian.
Usually, Cater was shameless. When sidling behind his chair, there’d be a peck to Riddle’s temple. Riddle would huff about decorum for the quick kiss Cater had dropped to his cheek in the hallway. And then scold him with the authority of a princess rather than a queen when Cater had stamped a kiss to his lips before teatime with an unbearable grin deeply evocative of Che’nya and therefore entirely improper.
Today, however, Cater had gravely neglected these duties.
He had passed behind Riddle’s chair twice already, once during breakfast and once at lunch, with nothing more than a breezy “Heya, Rids,” and had crossed paths with him in the hallway without so much as leaning in. Another time, he had even beamed at him and kept walking, which was, in Riddle’s opinion, a level of dereliction bordering on malicious. And he’d waved. As if they were merely classmates and had never gone on so much as a single date together.
Not that Riddle required such attention, of course.
He was not so fragile that the absence of a few kisses could derail his afternoon. He did not need them to focus or to maintain his composure.
That would be absurd.
And needy.
Which he was not.
Riddle’s eyes scanned the page again. He was certain that he was reading the words. There had most definitely been something about “exculpatory evidence” and “fae high courtrooms.” Perhaps a paragraph on “sticky toffee,” as well?
“Studying hard, Riddle?” Trey, who had decided to materialize from somewhere and had obviously not been standing there for the past two minutes, whilst offering what had thirty seconds ago been a steaming scone, asked suddenly. There was an amused note to his voice that Riddle did not appreciate. He also didn’t appreciate the way Trey was biting his lip in a furious attempt not to smile.
He did not see what was so funny.
He sniffed and stared at his book harder. “Indeed.”
“Baking with Friends,” Trey announced the title. “Must be a complex topic. You haven’t turned the page in sixteen minutes.”
Riddle felt his face go red as he flipped the book around and glanced at the cover. H—how?! The gingham sleeve, the cursive title! This was indeed one of Trey’s cookbooks.
With great dignity, Riddle returned the book to the coffee table. He cleared his throat. “Yes, it was very complex. As a housewarden, it is imperative that I learn the intricacies of which manner of tarts are being served at my tea parties.”
“That book’s for pudding.”
His eyes dropped to the subtitle under Baking with Friends. “Custards and Puddings Edition,” it read. Riddle pushed it further across the table. “I have decided that we are branching out.”
Trey pursed his lips. Riddle was magnanimous and did not immediately throw something at his head. “Right. ‘Branching out.’” He retracted the scone he was still holding. Ever-so-casually, he asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Yes.” Riddle set his jaw. “There’s a draft.”
This was true, objectively. One of the floor-to-ceiling windows was open. There could have been a draft. Trey glanced at Riddle’s scepter and at the glowing magestone encased within it. Then at his own magic pen. Still stifling a laugh, he waved his magic pen, and the window slid shut with a soft thump.
“Thank you.”
“Anything else?”
Riddle could feel his spine go from ruler-straight to technically-detrimental-to-vertebrae. “I’m perfectly fine.”
Trey was quiet for a heartbeat. “Cater’s in the maze, by the way.”
One of Riddle’s heels slammed hard against his ankle, and he let out a hiss. In the maze. Cater had been due from his weekly Pop Music Club meeting ten minutes ago and had gone straight into the maze. Without even greeting Riddle with any kind of reminder of the fact that he existed. Riddle didn’t need the reminder, considering his present errant and deeply-improper behavior, but a card soldier would always do well to report to their queen.
Some more than others.
To carry out queendom duties.
Nothing more.
Certainly not to sprinkle kisses onto Riddle like he was some ill-ornamented fairy cake.
Composing himself, he reached for Trey’s cookbook again and primly said, “I did not ask.”
“I know.”
Riddle’s fingers clenched the spine. “Then what was the purpose of relaying such information?”
Trey only hummed. “No reason.”
That was hardly an answer. This was Cater’s fault. Cater had a talent for spreading effrontery wherever he went; infecting Trey was a small task, considering he himself was frivolous, overfamiliar, and becoming altogether too comfortable with disregarding established schedules.
He should not have been spared a second thought.
Riddle’s fingers began tapping out some tuneless melody onto the book’s cover. “He’s in the maze?”
The incantation for “Off With Your Head” was on the tip of Riddle’s tongue as he watched the corners of Trey’s mouth actually twitch upward. He’d barely gotten the first syllable out when Trey affirmed, “Yes. He’s pruning some of the hedges.”
Riddle was silent for several seconds. Then, he dropped the book back onto the table and rose from his seat. “I am going to ensure that no horticulture infractions are being committed among the greenery.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the supervision,” replied Trey innocently.
Balling a fist, Riddle whirled toward Trey. “I cannot fathom what you mean.”
With that, Riddle turned on his heel and walked out of the lounge. From behind him, he heard two sets of footsteps shuffle inside.
His eyebrow twitched as he heard an impertinent voice, Ace’s, whisper at a volume no quieter than one-hundred-and-fifteen decibels, “Was he still sulking because Cater hasn’t kissed him yet?”
And then he grit his teeth when he heard an “Ow!” followed by Deuce muttering, “Shh! He’ll hear you!”
Choosing at that moment to practice immense virtue and not order every one of them to polish the wickets for next week’s croquet match until they gleamed, Riddle continued forward at a perfectly-reasonable pace. He did not quicken it.
To quicken one’s pace implied haste. Haste implied eagerness. Eagerness implied that he was, in some capacity, affected by the information Trey had provided, which he was not. He was merely walking with the brisk efficiency expected of a housewarden whose attention had been drawn to a possible violation of dormitory landscaping standards.
His breath only catching slightly, Riddle found himself at one of the entrances to the maze in Heartslabyul in record time. He smoothed his collar, fixed his slightly-windswept hair (o—owing to the draft), and folded both of his arms behind his back, his knuckles turning white under his gloves where he gripped his scepter.
He was a model of restraint.
Taking measured steps, Riddle walked into the maze. A single overgrown branch clipped his sleeve, but his eyes were searching so diligently for misconduct that it barely registered.
The maze was very full of greenery. This was the first thing that Riddle observed. He didn’t observe the sound of shears snipping ahead, or the faint hum of a pop song—or “TwisTok sound,” which was apparently what they were called nowadays—under someone’s breath, or the flash of orange hair visible over the top of a hedge as Cater leaned around one particularly shrubby corner.
No. Riddle observed the greenery.
And the misconduct.
Obviously.
He cleared his throat, his voice projecting with enough volume that some would call it “trumpetous.” He would call it “queenly.”
The humming stopped, and Cater’s head popped fully around the hedge, his green eyes bright. A smile bloomed across his face as if he had not spent the entire day shirking his obligations. From either side of him, there exploded two plumes of playing cards as he recalled his clones. “Oh! Heya, Rids.”
Riddle’s fingers tightened around his scepter.
Heya. Rids.
Again.
No kiss. No apology. No immediate acknowledgement of the grievous disruption he had caused to the natural order of things. All Cater had to offer was that smile and that unfairly charming expression that made Riddle want to seize him by the lapels and shake him until affection fell out.
Riddle marched—although to the uninitiated it may have looked like stomping—over to Cater until there were only two feet between them. Two, marginally-dizzying feet. Riddle could smell the cologne that Cater somehow applied too liberally and simultaneously just the right amount of. He stepped closer because it was an objectively pleasant scent. One did step closer when a strawberry tart was fanned in front of their face, did they not?
If it made it easier for someone with no care for personal space to lean down and graze their lips across someone else’s, that was simply an unfortunate coincidence.
No such unfortunate coincidences occurred.
Riddle folded his lips into a thin line. Instead of returning the greeting (he had already done that twice today using his words), he inquired, “Are you ill?”
The shears dropped into the grass as Cater cocked his head. “Um, no? Why?” He immediately pressed an appraising hand to his forehead, causing Riddle to suck in a breath that was so far away from longing that it was right behind it.
Ignoring the blush rising on his cheeks—and Cater’s question entirely—Riddle took another step forward and demanded, “Are you concussed?”
“Huh? LOL, of course not!”
“Have you been cursed?”
“Not recently, nope.”
He was a foot away from Cater now. His eyes still glimmered merrily, which was altogether too much, so Riddle averted his gaze and examined the grass. “Are you cross with me?”
He couldn’t imagine why. He’d audited his behavior over the past few days, and he’d been a paragon of discipline and propriety. And perhaps he’d been a touch severe, as usual. Perhaps he hadn’t been, by any reasonable metric, fun. Perhaps Cater had realized he preferred someone less rigid, less exacting, less—
“—No, definitely not,” Cater reassured him. There was a furrow between his brows that was practically begging to be smoothed. In a tone so sincere that it would’ve been alien to anyone else, he said, “You know it’s super hard for me to be mad at you.” His grin returned with startling speed, even though it remained wonderfully unfiltered. He leaned down toward Riddle, who was just beginning to believe that he did not require a guillotine, and, instead of maintaining the status quo, Cater ruffled his hair.
Riddle required a guillotine.
“Then, why haven’t you—” Riddle bit his own tongue hard enough that he tasted blood. The same blood he was sure was now making its way to color his face so red it was impossible to tell where his hairline began.
Cater’s hand stilled in Riddle’s hair. “Why haven’t I what?”
“Nothing,” Riddle said sharply. Unfortunately, his eyes, insubordinate things that they were, chose that exact moment to flick to Cater’s mouth.
Cater’s smile widened knowingly.
Oh, no.
Riddle now required two guillotines.
“Rids,” Cater said, his voice lilting at the end in a way that made him very decapitatable, as he gently removed his hand from Riddle’s head. “C’mon, spill. You were about to ask me something?”
“No.”
“‘Cause it kinda sounded like you were.”
“I was not.”
“You said, ‘Then why haven’t you—’”
“I am aware of what I said.”
“Sooooo, you were asking why I haven’t … what?”
Riddle glared at him.
Cater didn’t glare back. He looked positively delighted. It was unbearable how his expression glowed with the glee of someone who’d been exempt from flamingo-cleaning-duty for a whole semester. Then, Cater glanced at Riddle’s lips.
Riddle’s evil heart leapt.
Cater stepped closer.
Riddle stepped back.
Not because he wanted distance, mind you. But because if he did not put distance between them, he would do something rash. Something undignified. Something involving Cater’s collar and his mouth and a hedge that would provide adequate covering. His face heated even further at the thought.
Cater’s smile didn’t fade, which meant he clearly had no regard for his neck.
Riddle straightened to his full height. This was not very tall, especially considering that Cater towered over him by half a foot, but he elected to ignore that. He crossed his arms over his chest. “You seem to be well informed as to what I was about to say.” Perhaps that was why he took Astrology.
“Maybe, LMAO,” Cater sang, because he was infuriating. And handsome. In equal measure. “Maybe not~” He then bent down lower, lower, until the hairs on the back of Riddle’s neck stood on end as he whispered, his breath warm and maddening against the shell of his ear, “Or maybe I just wanna actually hear you say it.”
Riddle’s breath caught.
That was not fair. Cater had no right to lower his voice like that and make such a brazen demand after his unseemly behavior today.
Hear him say it.
As if Riddle were the one who had introduced this disorder into their lives.
Absolutely not.
A queen never bowed to the whims of her subjects. Even when those whims had long-since started to feel like necessities.
“You will hear me say nothing,” Riddle said through a clenched jaw. He would not give in.
“Hm~ Not even that you want me to kiss you?”
Riddle could have combusted right then and there. “That,” he began, turning his face away, “is vulgar.”
“It’s really super not.”
“It is presumptuous.”
“Only sorta.”
“It is also unnecessary.”
Cater’s smile was accompanied by a teasing raised eyebrow. “I mean, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Then say no.”
Riddle’s mouth opened. Absolutely nothing came out.
Both of Cater’s brows lifted.
Riddle closed his mouth so quickly his teeth clicked. Then, mustering up a frankly awe-inspiring amount of restraint, he spat, “You are being deliberately cruel.”
Cater blinked at that. “I’m being cruel?”
“Yes.” Riddle lifted his chin. “You established a habit—”
“—Of kissing you.”
“—You reinforced it. Repeatedly. Publicly, at times, with very little regard for who might witness it. And then you ceased.” The blush on Riddle’s face deepened tenfold. “Without warning. And now are teasing me to admit your deficiencies.”
Cater’s smile faltered. Marginally, but Riddle noticed it all the same. It was simple cause-and-effect, he supposed. He’d been watching Cater’s mouth with the attentiveness of a scholar.
“I wasn’t trying to be cruel,” he said. “I just kinda … wanted to see if you’d ask.” When Riddle didn’t say anything and just peered at him with a long, unamused, and mildly (read: incredibly) baleful stare, he rubbed the back of his neck and amended, “OK, that sounds worse out loud.”
“It sounded poor in your head as well, I imagine.”
“Lowkey, yeah.” Cater winced. “But, TBH, you always act like I’m, I dunno, bothering you.”
“You are.”
“Ouch.”
“You are,” Riddle repeated, much more stiffly, because the alternative was saying something weak, like, “you bother me most when you stop.” Instead, he closed some of the distance between them with a single step. “You are irritating,” Riddle said. When Cater flinched almost imperceptibly, Riddle lifted a finger. “I am not finished.”
His voice quieted as he reiterated, “You are irritating. And audacious.” He swallowed hard. “And you are not permitted to decide, on my behalf, that I do not want you near me.” Riddle could feel his whole face burning. He pressed forward before the shame could swallow him whole. “If I truly object, I will say so.” One hand settled against the front of Cater’s uniform. “Until then, you will not invent objections for me, nor play games to test the limits of my patience.”
His fingers brushed the knot of Cater’s tie. Cater’s eyes dropped to them. Riddle could have stopped. He should have. His fingers curled around Cater’s tie and pulled, anyway. Cater yelped as the motion brought their faces close enough that Riddle could feel Cater’s breath against his lips. It was warm. Unsteady. Which was entirely acceptable. He should be unsteady.
“You will also,” Riddle said, still gripping the tie, “make restitution.”
Cater’s face glowed pink in a way that suggested at least half of him understood he was in trouble, while the other half had apparently decided this was the best thing that had happened to him all day. His eyes dropped to Riddle’s mouth, then snapped back up with a guilty-adjacent wince. Sounding somewhat strained, he stammered, “L—like, right now?”
Riddle’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have a scheduling conflict?”
“No?”
“Then I fail to see the issue.”
“R—right.” Cater bent further down until his next words were barely said against Riddle’s lips. “Got it. Then he kissed him, his mouth settling over Riddle’s with delicious heat.
Finally.
The kiss was meant to be corrective; that was the official intent. For approximately two seconds, Riddle allowed this. Then he remembered the gravity of the day’s misconduct, and his fist tightened in Cater’s tie with renewed purpose. He was owed many kisses today. He would receive them all back with interest.
Effective immediately.
Cater made a surprised sound against his mouth as Riddle dragged him closer. Cater’s lips parted under his, and Riddle’s thoughts scattered so thoroughly that every rule in his head seemed to evaporate as his scepter clattered to the grass. Riddle pushed Cater back until the hedge rustled behind him. Within seconds, Cater’s hand flew to Riddle’s waist, and Riddle kissed him harder for the impertinence.
It was only when Cater tipped his head to chase the kiss, a gasp catching in his throat, that Riddle remembered breathing was, to the misfortune of all parties involved, still required. He forced himself to pull back, but Cater stayed bent over him, panting softly against his mouth.
“There,” Riddle said, though his voice came out uneven. “Was that so difficult?”
Cater shook his head once, almost dazed. “Not even—not even a little bit.”
Riddle nodded, satisfied. “You are not to go several hours without doing that again.”
Cater’s expression softened. Riddle wanted to shove him into the hedge once more. “I definitely won’t,” Cater promised.
“You will not make me ask.”
“I won’t.”
“You will not turn this into a guessing game.”
“I won’t.”
“And if you are uncertain whether your attention is welcome, you will ask directly rather than resorting to asinine experiments.”
A smile crested Cater’s lips. “Yes, Housewarden.”
With that, Riddle yanked Cater down by the tie again, and Cater barely managed one breathy laugh before Riddle kissed it straight out of him.
“Riddle?”
The sound came from the maze entrance.
Both of them went utterly still.
Riddle’s eyes flew open.
Cater pursed his lips, which were pink and somewhat kiss-abused.
Before Riddle could reassert himself to the vestiges of propriety and release Cater, Trey rounded the hedge corner. “I just wanted to remind you that dinner is in ten minutes—” He stopped. His gaze went to Cater’s crooked tie. Then to Riddle’s hand still gripping it. And then to the scepter lying on the ground. With admirable survival instincts, Trey looked at the grass instead. “Ah,” he said.
Riddle dropped Cater’s tie as if burned. “Trey.”
“Riddle.”
Cater waved. “Hiya, Trey-Trey. What’s popping?”
Trey swallowed a laugh, and Riddle resented him deeply. “It seems the supervision is going well.”
Riddle stepped forward, shoulders squared, every inch of him a queen restored to power through sheer outrage. “Cater was in violation of several standards.”
“I’m sure.”
“His pruning technique was unsatisfactory.”
Trey looked at the crushed hedge behind them. “I can see that.”
From his side, Cater sounded like he was choking. Riddle did not look at him. If he looked at him, he would either collar him or kiss him again, and both options were unacceptable in front of Trey.
“Trey,” Riddle said calmly, “thank you for the reminder. We will see you at dinner shortly.” Trey nodded. “You may leave.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Now.”
Without another word—but with several stifled chuckles—Trey disappeared back around the hedge. The moment his footsteps faded, Riddle became violently aware of Cater and his proximity and from what they’d just been interrupted. Heat colored his cheeks an unbecoming shade of tomato, which he chose to blame on the weather.
Riddle plucked his scepter from the grass, straightened his collar, and pointed the tip of it at Cater’s chest. “You,” he said, “will fix your tie.”
Cater glanced down at the hopelessly-wrinkled fabric. “I mean, I’ll try.”
“And then you will finish pruning this hedge.”
“Totes.”
“And after that,” Riddle continued, voice tightening despite his best efforts, “you will report to me in the lounge.” Riddle lifted the scepter higher when Cater smiled. “For inspection,” he snapped.
“For sure,” he practically purred.
Riddle turned sharply before Cater could see too much of his face. He made it three steps before he stopped. “And, Cater?”
“Yeah?”
Riddle stared very hard at the path ahead. “If you fail to greet me properly when you arrive,” he said, each word rigid with dignity, “I will consider it a repeat offense.”
Then he walked out of the maze with all the authority of a queen.
And only slightly-unsteady knees.