Chapter 14: Lantern Night

On Lantern Night, the eve of Midsummer, the whole of Highcastle came down to the river.

Ten thousand paper lanterns hung from the bridges and the balconies and the masts of the barges.

Another ten thousand floated on the black water below, red and gold and white.

They drifted out toward the sea with a wish written inside each one.

Leander wore a silver half-mask and a long black coat with a high collar.

He had put a plain black mask in Corwin's hand that afternoon.

"Tonight you carry no tray," he'd said.

"You walk beside me."

Corwin walked beside him.

It was the first time in two years.

They moved through the crowd shoulder to shoulder.

Fiddles and pipes and drums played on every corner, and children ran under their feet with sticks of burnt sugar.

Twice Leander's gloved hand found the small of Corwin's back and stayed.

Nobody looked.

On Lantern Night, a mask is a kind of permission.

The prince and the physician were at the river steps.

Corwin saw them from fifty feet.

Dorian was out of uniform in a plain dark coat.

Tobias wore the same coat he wore to every occasion, and carried a candied plum.

They were standing apart from the crowd at the water's edge, where a single lantern waited in the prince's palms.

Corwin's pulse jumped.

He knew this scene.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Villain Duke's Butler Served Him Too Well from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.