“Rats!” someone shrieks.

  I hear the chaos through the link. The scratching sound intensifies until it becomes a roar. Dozens, then scores of rats pour out of the walls, driven by the magical hunger I have engaged. They ignore the women. They ignore the guards. They swarm toward the King.

  “Get off!” Oskar screams, kicking out as a large gray rat scampers up his velvet leg, sniffing for the imaginary cheese I promised it. “Guards! Guards!”

  “It is a stampede,” Kenric reports, sounding torn between horror and amusement. “They are everywhere. The King is… he is standing on the chaise, hitting them with a pillow.”

  “A fitting weapon for a pillow king,” I say. “Now, Kenric. Be the hero.”

  “Hero?”

  “Get him out,” I order. “Tell him the place is cursed. Tell him it is an omen. Just get him out before he realizes the rats are only interested in him.”

  I hear Kenric’s voice, loud and commanding over the squeaking. “Your Majesty! We must leave! This place is overrun! It is unsafe!”

  “My wine!” Oskar wails as a rat knocks his goblet over.

  “Leave the wine!” Kenric shouts, grabbing the King’s arm. “Guards! Clear a path!”

  Kenric drags the King out of the room, kicking rats aside. They stumble down the stairs, through the common room where women are standing on tables screaming, and out into the cool night air.

  The street's silence is sudden and jarring.

  “Gods,” Oskar pants, leaning against a wall. He brushes frantically at his clothes. “Did you see them? They looked at me like I was… dinner.”

  “A terrible omen, Your Majesty,” Kenric says gravely. “I have heard that rats flee a sinking ship, but I have never seen them attack a King. Perhaps… perhaps the gods are suggesting you should spend the night in your own bed?”

  Oskar shudders. “You may be right, Kenric. I have lost my taste for… fruit.”

  “A wise decision,” Kenric agrees. “Shall I escort you back to the palace?”

  “Yes,” Oskar breathes. “And let us never speak of this again.”

  “Well done,” I whisper to Kenric. “Now come home. You need a bath.”

  “I need two,” Kenric replies. “And Víl??”

  “Yes, love?” I ask

  “Remind me never to make you angry when there are small animals nearby,” Kenric replies.

  It has been three days since the incident at The Tart Cherry. The palace staff is still whispering about the "Plague of Rats" that descended upon the King’s favorite brothel, though officially, the Royal Physician has blamed it on an unseasonably high tide in the sewers. I am walking briskly toward the main gates, intent on visiting the Old Mint. Melina walks beside me, struggling slightly under the weight of a reinforced satchel filled with fresh Fey gold for the vault. My honor guard, Inaba, Miyabe, and the imposing Usami, form a protective wedge around us, their lacquered armor clicking softly.

  We round a corner near the portrait gallery, and there he is. King Oskar stands in the center of the corridor, blocking our path. He is flanked by four of his own guards, though they look tired and less impressive than my Nintoku warriors. Oskar himself looks recovered from his fright, though his eyes dart nervously toward the baseboards as if expecting a rodent ambush. He spots me, and the predatory gleam returns to his eyes. He smooths his doublet and steps forward.

  “Princess Víl?,” he purrs, ignoring my guards. “Leaving us again so soon? You spend more time in the city than you do in my court.”

  I stop, dipping into a curtsy that is technically correct but practically dismissive. “Your Majesty. I have business at the Bank. The renovations require… liquidity.”

  I gesture to Melina’s heavy bag. The clink of gold is unmistakable.

  Oskar’s eyes narrow at the sound. Greed wars with lust on his face. “You and your gold. You are determined to buy my entire kingdom piece by piece, aren’t you?”

  “I am merely investing in its future, Your Majesty,” I reply coolly. “Someone has to.”

  Oskar steps closer, invading my personal space. Inaba shifts, his hand resting on his sword hilt, but I signal him to hold with a tiny flick of my finger.

  “You are a hard woman to pin down,” Oskar says, his voice dropping to that faux-intimate whisper he thinks is charming. “I had hoped we might continue our… conversation. Privately. Without your husband hovering about.”

  “My husband is currently meeting with your Exchequer, trying to explain the concept of double-entry bookkeeping,” I say. “He is busy saving you money. I am busy making it. We are a very productive couple.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Oskar scowls. “Kenric. He has been… useful. Though he was not much help at The Tart Cherry.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “I heard he saved your life, Majesty. Dragging you out of a collapsing den of iniquity before you were devoured by vermin? That sounds like heroism to me.”

  Oskar shudders involuntarily. “It was unnatural. Hundreds of them. Staring at me.” He shakes his head, trying to regain his composure. “But that is the past. Today is a new day. And I have a new proposition.”

  He reaches out, attempting to take my arm. “Come. Walk with me to the solarium. The winter roses are blooming. I wish to show them to you. Alone.”

  I do not move my arm, but I look pointedly at his hand, then up at his eyes. “I have an appointment, Your Majesty. Bankers are notoriously impatient.”

  “I am the King!” Oskar snaps, his patience fraying. “The bankers wait for me. And so should you.”

  He leans in, and I smell the wine on his breath even at this early hour. “Do not think I have forgotten, Víl?. Or that I have given up. The chase is part of the sport, but eventually, the fox must tire.”

  I smile, and it is a smile full of teeth.

  “I am not a fox, Oskar,” I say softly, using his name without the title, a calculated insult he is too obsessed to check me on. “And you are not the hound. You are merely the man standing between me and my work.”

  I step around him. He reaches for me again, but Usami steps seamlessly between us, a wall of purple and orange armor. Oskar recoils, hand dropping to his sword, but he looks at the Nintoku warrior’s face, impassive, scarred, and utterly lethal, and thinks better of it.

  “You cannot hide behind your foreign guards forever,” Oskar calls after me, his voice echoing in the stone hall. “The palace is my domain. Every door, every room. I will find you when you are alone.”

  I stop and turn back.

  “Your Majesty,” I say, my voice carrying clearly to his guards. “If you spent half as much energy ruling your kingdom as you do chasing other men’s wives, perhaps you wouldn’t need my gold to pave your streets.”

  I turn and walk away, the heavy thud of the gold in Melina’s bag punctuating every step. As we exit into the bright, cold air of the courtyard, Inaba speaks quietly in his own tongue.

  “He is persistent.”

  “He is desperate,” I reply. “Most likely has a wager to win. But he forgets one thing.”

  “What is that?”

  “The house always wins,” I say, climbing into the carriage. “And I just bought the house.”

  We arrive at the Old Mint, and I am pleased to see that Haldor has taken his new position seriously. Two of the new Royal Fey Guards, resplendent in their green and gold tunics, are blocking the main gate with crossed halberds.

  Blocked behind them is a small crowd of men in wax-stained aprons, led by a short, rotund man who looks as though he is about to melt from indignation.

  "I demand to see the mistress of this... this fortress!" the little man shouts, waving a bundle of unlit tapers like a club.

  I signal the carriage to stop. "It seems we have another Guild to pacify," I sigh to Melina. "Who is this?"

  "That is Joris," Melina says, peering out the window. "Master of the Candlemakers. And he looks furious."

  I step out of the carriage. Inaba and Usami fall in beside me. The guards snap to attention and uncross their halberds.

  "Master Joris," I say, smoothing my skirts. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I was under the impression the Bank was not yet open for deposits."

  Joris spins around. His face is red. "I am not here to deposit gold, Princess! I am here to demand why you are trying to starve my members!"

  He points a shaking finger at the new streetlamp mounted on the wall of the Mint. Even in the daylight, the Fey stone hums with a faint, steady power.

  "That... abomination!" Joris sputters. "Eternal light! No wick! No wax! No oil! If you put those all over the city, what happens to us? What happens to the dippers? The wick-trimmers?"

  He gestures to the Embassy building behind the gates. "And inside! I hear reports that you have not ordered a single candle. Not one! Do the Fey see in the dark? Do you intend to sit in gloom?"

  "We do see in the dark," I say calmly. "Quite well, actually. And those lamps are for security. Wind does not blow them out. Rain does not douse them. They are practical."

  "They are unnatural!" Joris argues. "And they are bad for business. If the nobility sees them, they will all want magic stones. The Guild will collapse!"

  I walk closer to him. He holds his ground, though he eyes Usami's armor nervously.

  "You are mistaken, Master Joris," I say gently. "You assume I do not buy candles because I do not need light. But you are thinking like a peasant who buys tallow to keep from tripping over the furniture."

  I lean in. "I do not buy candles for illumination. I buy candles for atmosphere."

  Joris blinks. "Atmosphere?"

  "Fey senses are very keen," I explain. "The smell of burning tallow offends us. It smells of... dead sheep. And cheap beeswax smells of dust."

  I look at the bundle of tapers in his hand. They are standard, utilitarian beige.

  "I cannot burn these in the Embassy," I say with a dismissive wave. "They are too... ordinary. However..."

  I pause, letting the silence stretch. I can see the greed warring with the anger in his eyes.

  "If," I continue, "your Guild were capable of producing something... superior. Something worthy of a Royal Fey Court."

  "We can make anything," Joris says, his pride pricked.

  "Can you make beeswax candles dyed the color of a winter sunset?" I ask. "Can you infuse the wax with essential oils, Things like lavender from the south, cedar from the mountains, or rosewater from Vupis so that when they burn, they perfume the air rather than pollute it?"

  Joris’s mouth opens slightly. "Scented wax? It is... expensive to produce. The oils degrade the burn time."

  "I do not care about burn time," I say. "I care about the experience. I want pillars as thick as my arm, carved with intricate vines and flowers. I want tapers that burn with colored flames in shades of blue, green, violet."

  "Colored flame?" Joris scratches his head. "We would need to mix salts into the wick. Copper for green, strontium for red..."

  "Then do it," I say. "I need three thousand candles to start. A thousand for the Embassy, a thousand for the Bank, and a thousand to be sent to the Palace as a gift for the Queen."

  I reach into Melina’s bag, which is becoming lighter by the hour, and pull out a stack of gold coins. I stack them on the flat of Joris’s hand.

  "I pay double for colored wax," I say. "Triple for scented. And quadruple for the colored flame."

  Joris looks at the gold. The anger drains out of him, replaced by the calculating look of a man realizing he just found a new market.

  "The... streetlamps?" he asks weakly.

  "They are for the street," I say. "Cold, white light. Unflattering. No lady wants to be wooed by the light of a magic stone, Joris. She wants the soft, flickering warmth of a candle flame. She wants to look beautiful. You are not selling light. You are selling romance."

  Joris nods slowly. "Romance. Yes. We can do romance."

  "Good," I say. "Then get to work. I want the Embassy to smell like a garden by tomorrow night."

  I turn to go, then stop. "Oh, and Joris?"

  Do you have candles in your home? Let me know in the comments...