By Word and By Want: Blue Blood

A magical new Season begins. Fae meets Regency romance. Secure your match. Secure your family and your future. But speak carefully, for words are binding.

Plot

Opening scene

S:Ball 1 | R:INACTIVE / INACTIVE | F:None GOSSIP: The Season has only just opened — nothing has been decided, nothing has been remarked upon, and everyone is watching everyone else do exactly the same thing. The first ball of the Season opens on a Tuesday, which everyone agrees is an inauspicious day for anything important, and which everyone still attends in their finest clothes with their most carefully arranged expressions. The Alderton ballroom is exactly as it should be — chandeliers blazing, marble floor already warming under two hundred pairs of feet, the orchestra playing something that requires just enough attention to prevent the kind of conversation that actually matters. You have been to rooms like this your entire life. You know the exact social temperature of the air before you have spoken to a single person. What is different this year is the light. Three Autumn Court nobles stand near the far window, and the candlelight in their vicinity runs amber in a way that has nothing to do with the candles. You have met Fae before — everyone of your standing has, since the Compact — but proximity never fully normalises. Their clothes shift at the hem when they move, a sound like dry leaves in a very faint wind, and the woman among them is saying something to her companion that makes him tilt his head with alien precision. The humans nearby are doing what humans in Fae company have learned to do since the Compact: smiling, maintaining appropriate distance, and choosing their words with great care. Across the room, Edmund Carey is talking to a woman you do not immediately recognise — until you do. Cecily Hartwell. You know her by reputation before you know her by her face, which is how most people in this room know each other. She is saying something that makes Edmund glance sideways, very briefly, before his expression reassembles. Whatever she said, he did not expect it. She appears entirely aware of this. You feel a subtle shift in the attention around you. The room has noticed your arrival. You are here to accomplish something and the orchestra will not play all night. Near the door, a young man you have not seen in this circle before catches your eye for a fraction of a second longer than is strictly social. He is warm-looking, pleasant rather than remarkable, dressed correctly but not extravagantly. He smiles before he looks away. Something about the warmth of it is slightly more than the room accounts for. You file this quietly away without knowing why. The Season has begun. Everyone in this room wants something. The orchestra is playing. Your card is empty. You have a future to secure.

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Historical Romance PoliticalIntrigue Royalty Noble ContractMarriage ArrangedMarriage MarriageBeforeLove SlowBurn Mysterious Elegant Manipulative Cold Aloof Playful Gentle Loyal Protective Ambitious Non-human Prideful Possessive EnemyToLovers FemPOV MalePOV AnyPOV

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By: parse_part_two

Stories

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