Valens's mother was going to kill him.

"Tomorrow?" Arbita, his betrothed, asked, frowning at him. "Are you serious?"

The two of them were standing in Valens's salutatio hall, where the first official meeting of Domi's new staff had just concluded. His once quiet domus now echoed with Lightholder voices in the hallway and a pan clattering in the kitchen as his royal charge's foster mother started claiming her new territory.

He could not believe that this had somehow become his life overnight. With the possible end of the world looming over him for the past eight years and his hands full with the task of trying to prevent the apocalypse, Valens had decided to avoid unnecessary burdens like managing household staff, training an alumna, or finding a wife and starting a family.

"Yes," he said, trying not to sound as resigned as he felt. "Let's get married tomorrow. We need to get it over with."

"You sure know how to woo a woman," his future wife said, her voice dry as tinder. "But I agree."

He blinked. "You do?"

Arbita nodded and began walking toward the hallway. Frowning, Valens trailed after her. "We both need to live here now," she said. "We're Domi's household staff."

She shook her head as she said the ridiculous words, probably still as astonished by her sudden conscription into the boy's service the eve before as Valens was. As a lifeholder, Arbita technically was not Princeps Daedalus's to command, but as Valens's betrothed they, unfortunately, came as a pair.

Not that they could tell anyone what they had been conscripted to do. The royal orders they had received were secret and very dangerous. If anyone discovered the household staff of a royal twin who was not supposed to exist, it would only be a matter of time before they also figured out that the younger twin's magic was responsible for three recent Trellis malfunctions. If anyone found out, both twins' lives would be in danger. Domi's life would be in danger.

It would look exceedingly odd for Arbita to be living at Valens's home, given their curia's widespread knowledge that the woman could tolerate his presence about as well as he could stand her's. It was not the precise truth--Valens had no complaints about the woman herself, just with getting married to anyone when he had more important things to do--but the common perception was that they loathed one another. They needed an excuse people would accept for residing in the same domus.

Hence, marriage. No one would look askance if Valens's wife came to live with him, even if the unwanted union was oddly rushed.

No one would complain except Valens's mother, that was. The woman who had brought him into the world and been nagging him for years to give her a daughter-in-law and grandchildren was going to take him right back out of the world for denying her the opportunity to plan and attend his wedding. But there was no time to notify her and get her to Urbs Hostiae in time for the nuptials.

He and Arbita reached the bedchamber door where Domi was supposed to be changing into more formal clothing suitable for salutatio. Valens hoped the brat had not climbed out the bloody window again. He was beginning to think that the kid was going to drive him to drink.

"Domi?" Arbita murmured with a quiet knock on the door. They had agreed that, outside of Bellus's hearing, they would drop the boy's royal title. Familiarity, Arbita said. Children needed familiarity and stability after a big shock. It was part of the reason they had brought Domi's Pullatus foster mother into Valens's home and Domi's staff, even if only as a servant. Princeps Daedalus had been surprisingly insistent that his twin not be separated from the woman who had raised him, despite Merula's lowborn status.

Familiarity and stability.

Valens would take Arbita's word for it; he had no interest in bowing and groveling to his alumna anyway, no matter the kid's birth.

The door opened, and his student emerged. Valens rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Your paenula is inside out, Alumna."

Domi glanced down at himself and shrugged. "I don't care. I like it better this way." He smoothed the paenula against the longer tunica he wore beneath the stiff formal mantle.

Yes, he was going to be driven to drink.

Laughing, Arbita shook her head and took Domi in hand. "You can't attend salutatio like that," she said, stripping the grumbling kid out of the paenula.

Domi crossed his arms over his tunica. "What, are you both going to start dressing me now that I am royalty?" he teased.

"No," Arbita said, handing him the paenula back, this time correct side out. "Only a Princeps has dressing attendants."

The boy blinked in surprise as he took the clivia blue mantle. "Wait? My brother doesn't even put on his own clothing?"

"He does not, but you do, so kindly hurry up," Valens said.

Muttering under his breath, the kid finally obeyed.

As they walked at last through the chill late morning, Domi was silent. Silent, that is, until he abruptly turned to Valens.

"So, Aedificanti," the alumna said, voice casual, "if I have to live with you now--"

"You had to live with me before." He shook his head, ignoring the look of disapproval Arbita cast his way for the interruption. "You can't be left unsupervised. Or you'll destroy half the magic in Urbs Hosti--"

"No," Domi interrupted him right back. "I mean yes, I have to live with you. But what I mean is, what about my dormitory at the conservatory? Since I won't be returning there..."

"That's not what you mean," Valens pointed out.

"Huh?"

Did his alumna think that he was this dense? "The Pullati kids. You want to know about the Pullati kids."

The boy blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well alright, yeah. They're living there as my, erm, servants."

"Freeloaders."

"Valens," Arbita said with a chiding note to her voice.

Valens snorted. "Oh, then how exactly are twenty sewer rats serving you, Basiluculus?" he asked Domi dryly.

"Don't call me that out here," the boy hissed, his eyes darting fearfully to and fro.

"No one can hear," Valens said. "Well they can, but it will have no significance to them." He glanced behind him at Bellus, who trailed at a polite distance.

The Empowered mindholder walked, hands folded before him, promenia wafting around him. Anyone who glanced at Domi or heard this conversation about the boy would be unable to make any meaning from it. Even if they saw Princeps Daedalus's face painted in light across the Trellis and watched and heard this identical boy say, "I am that boy's twin brother", no one would be able to make any sense of what they heard and saw, despite understanding every word. Not while Bellus was nearby.

"Right," Domi said, casting his protocol handler an uneasy look. "Well anyway, what about the kids? If I'm not living in the conservatory anymore, do they have to leave?" He swallowed and worries no one his age should possess passed over his young face. "It's Germinating. Some of them will die of the cold if they end up back on the streets."

Valens sighed as Arbita cast him a pointed look and tilted her head toward the glum kid. He knew what she wanted. He would handle this his way, however. He was not one to coddle anyone.

"I told you before and I will tell you again," he said, and already could see his alumna wilting. "You are my responsibility. I will pay for your needs. But any servants or freeloaders you want to retain are your problem. You want to house and feed them, then you pay for it yourself."

He counted in his head as Domi frowned. "But I have no coin." The kid froze. "Oh." His eyes widened, and he grinned from ear to ear. "Oh."

Bellus had heard enough. The protocol handler hurried to Valens's side with a furrowed brow. "Promerenti, you are not seriously suggesting that the Principis Heres use the allowance his royal brother has provided for such a thing?" The man shook his head. "It is not proper."

Valens snorted. The mindholder was going to need to adjust to a whole new notion of "proper" if he hoped to survive a day in Domi's service without dying of scandalized shock. "It will be a lot less proper if he and his fellow sewer rats decide to resolve the problem by thieving, housebreaking, squatting, and other illegal means."

Bellus gave Valens a stern frown. "Promerenti, you cannot call the Principis Heres a sewer rat."

"Basiliculus Sewer Rat, then."

Domi smirked. "Do I get a crown?"

"No. Not unless you buy it yourself."

Bellus glanced from one of them to the other, his brow knit in confusion. "I do not understand you two."

"Join the curia," Arbita murmured under her breath.

Five minutes later, the pair of Electi at the Praetor's gates waved them through into Cerasus's domus.

The royal pain in Valens's arse, who just so happened to be his best friend when the man was not meddling in his life, was reclining on a dining couch enjoying a late breakfast of thin-sliced meats and cheese on flatbread. But he leaped to his feet the moment he spotted his visitors.

"May the Eyes pass over you," the Praetor said as the four of them bowed their heads with one palm placed over their laurels to hide their light. He cast an expectant look over them as they straightened anew, clearly eager to get past the preliminaries.

"And you also, Dominus," the four visiting Lightholders replied. The chamber was otherwise empty, salutatio long over.

"Well?" Cerasus demanded. "Out with it." He glanced Domi's way, his face softening. For a man who had once ordered the boy's death over a certain incident involving the Praetor's daughter, he had come a long way. "You look better, boy. I'm glad; last I heard, you had been stabbed by assassins and abducted. Now tell me. What happened? Where were you? We searched all of Provincia Sicarii trying to rescue you."

"Later, Dominus," Valens said, drawing the man's attention away from his squirming alumna. "I have something else to tell you."

"Huh?"

Valens struggled very hard not to look at his betrothed out of the corner of his eye. "You'll be pleased to learn that your sister and I have decided to wed without further ado, pomp, or ceremony."

Cerasus was less impressed or distracted than Valens had hoped. "That is all you have to say? Not 'look, I found my missing alumna and he is still alive?' Not 'I am sorry for enjoying a late breakfast at home before bothering to report to my Praetor'?"

"I was hungry. So was my alumna." The alumna in question was grinning at Valens's response, but the look slipped as the older worldholder added, "It has been a long few days, Dominus."

"Then kindly tell me about those few days."

"I'm afraid I cannot."

Cerasus threw his arms into the air. "What? Why?"

"Orders," Valens said, picking his words with care. His childhood friend needed an explanation that the Praetor could believe or Cerasus would be after the truth like a dog after a cat. "I can say very little, other than that the Princeps Worldholder has taken notice of my alumna and assigned the two of us a... project."

"Because of his weird rise in rank? His habit of destroying promenia?" Cerasus gave a disgusted sound as Valens shrugged. "A project doing what?"

"I cannot say."

"You can't be serious." Cerasus's eyes looked like they were about to leap out of his head. He really needed to focus more often on his breathing, get that temper under control. "He can't just abscond with two of my Lightholders whenever he wishes. You both belong to my curia, my provincia."

"He can and he did."

"Cerasus," Arbita said, her tone reasonable. "Daedalus Adurere is the Princeps Worldholder. All worldholders are his to command by right, you know that."

Cerasus crossed his arms at that. "Fine." He flicked Valens a glare. "Is this connected to whatever you are always off doing for you-know-who?"

Valens frowned. It had not occurred to him until Cerasus mentioned it that there might be a connection between the twins and the growing calamity on the night-side. Eyes devour...

The Praetor jabbed a finger his way. "It is, isn't it? Look at your face. You cannot say anything, and that tells me all I need to know." Cerasus fixed Valens with a look he probably thought looked praetorial. "What is going on? It must impact my provincia, or two of my worldholders would not have been dragged into it."

"I cannot tell you anything, as you said."

"And what about you?" Cerasus asked, whirling toward Bellus.

The Empowered mindholder looked faintly amused. "Nor may I, Dominus."

The Praetor grimaced. "I suppose you serve that bloody Adurere as well?"

"I do, Dominus."

Promenia hummed, and Cerasus's eyes grew distant. Judging by the low thrum, he was checking the Compendium. Valens doubted that he would find much of note about the protocol handler there but still found himself tensing until Cerasus merely said, "How many from Penna Igneae curia are here visiting my provincia for this little project? Just you and the other two who arrived yesterday?"

"Indeed, Dominus." The man's voice was smooth and cool as polished stone.

The Praetor nodded. "Well, at least you can teach my half-feral bunch a thing or two about manners while you're here." He sighed and eyed the other man with a resigned expression. He knew that he could not turn away a member of a Princeps's curia. On the contrary, he owed the man hospitality. "Do you need accommodations?"

"No, Dominus, thank you. We shall be staying with Promerenti Valens while we do our work."

"And how long will that work last?"

A dry note entered Bellus's voice, and he cast a glance toward Domi out of the corner of his eye. "As long as it takes, Dominus."

Cerasus seemed to finally get it through his head that no one was going to tell him anything. He glared from one of them to the next in turn, his expression finally relaxing as it came to rest on his younger sister. "Regarding the first matter. You are wedding each other early? You two loathe each other."

"Are you considering breaking off the engagement to spare us?" Arbita challenged.

"No," Cerasus said. "You two got away with just paying fines for far too long. You should have both wed someone eight years ago. You did not. So now you get to wed each other."

"So there's no escape," Valens grumbled, casting his future wife a shared look of frustration at this mutual pain in their arses. "And that's why we decided to get it over with. Besides, if we hurry, no one can blame us for not inviting them."

"You'd better invite me." The Praetor was only half-joking. Valens would have two people in line to kill him if he kept Cerasus from the wedding.

"We wouldn't dream of doing otherwise," Arbita said with a small, genuine smile. Her eyes sparkled. "Besides, we'll need you to officiate. Tomorrow. Midday. Here." She smiled at her brother sweetly.

"Am I the Praetor here or not?" The whining note in Cerasus's voice meant his little sister had already won; these were just the throes of a fish that did not yet realize that there was no water to which to retreat. "You don't just tell me when--"

"Do you want me to wed your little sister or not?" Valens cut in and an impressed-looking Domi laughed, then wilted under the stern gazes of every adult in the salutatio hall.

"Fine, see you tomorrow at midday." The Praetor's eyes narrowed. "Try to be punctual this time."

"Yes, Dominus," Valens said.