Horis awoke refreshed and eager for breakfast, but along the way a gaggle of giggles called him aside. He spied Lady Fert and Miss Maude tittering over a piece of parchment and simply had to know what it was about.

"You seen this, Horis?" Fert asked, curling herself around him with the parchment held under his nose.

"Madame Tiddles won't like all those fellows about. She gets shy at big parties." Maude said, cradling her pooch.

Madame Tiddles wagged her bushy, white tail and snuffled at him. Horis had given the animal to Maude when he heard the poor girl lost her parents in a tragic sock accident. She was too young for intimate company to take her mind off her loss, so a pet was the best he could do for her.

"I've not yet got my head around letters. Could you read it to me?" Horis asked and scratched Madame Tiddle's ears. "Madame Tiddles is welcome to hide in my bed-shroom from scary parties. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Yes you would!"

"You'll have to hide Maude from this one too. Kabech is throwing a soiree for all the most handsome fellows in the country! Her pick gets to be Lord, can you believe it?" Fert said.

"She's—WHAT?" Horis almost choked on his tongue.

The pooch snuffled at him.

"I apologise. I didn't mean to startle you, Madame Tiddles."

"The Rogue King slips from her grasp and she thinks he'll fall for a daft idea like this!" Lady Fert laughed heartily.

"Rogue King?" Horis said, narrowing his eyes at the slip of parchment. He needed Eraz to teach him to read at once. "The Wyverkiiri fellow?"

"Handsomest in the world, they say. He's seduced everything from harpies to sea-hags and even a bridge-troll!" Fert's cheeks went red as radishes without the need of that unsavoury fellow's tongue.

The rogue was a fool. He had Tyvern at his doorstep, yet he ran off to seduce trolls instead.

Fert stood on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to Horis' neck. "He'd have a run for his money from you though. I do hope you'll go and do us all proud!"

"I shall need that parchment from you. I must speak to Eraz this very moment."

Fert gave it to him. "I'd suggest waiting for breakf—"

Horis did not have time for breakfast. He did not even have time to knock. Straight in he went to show Eraz that cruel pamphlet.

The pair were making so much noise that they completely unaware of his entrance.

Usually Horis would not think to interrupt their loving embrace, but he could not help noticing Eraz' awkward mistake. He coughed and murmured in his friend's ear so that he might correct it, and perhaps Soyle would not realise.

But she heard all of it.

"IT'S NOT WRONG, HORIS, IT'S JUST DIFFERENT. NOW BY KYOS' FOUL NAME, GET OUT! AND DON'T YOU DARE REMOVE YOURSELF UNTIL I'M FINISHED, ERAZ!"

"It's a matter of absolute urgency! I'll look the other way and let you continue. As you were."

Horis closed the door and faced the teal-and-rose splodged wall. Curiosity compelled him to glance back. An Amphen would never, could never. The feathered tail would get in the way. He turned to the wall again and tried his hardest to admire the marigold swirls around the splodges.

"Lady Kabech is having a party for the most handsome fellows in the country to spite me! She means to take someone else, Eraz! Lady Fert even suggested that she might be trying to lure the Wyverkiiri King back into her grasp. So on my honour as Emperor-to-be and as a handsome fellow in this rotten country I shall have to go face-to-face with him to prove I am the most desirable in the world. If I'm to do that you'll have to give up all your secrets, Eraz. I'm going against a fellow who has seduced everything, when I didn't even know you could do that with a Lady."

He couldn't look away any longer, but what he saw stunned him more than his previous glimpse. How could she even bend like that, and what is he doing with his talons?

"It's hopeless, Eraz! I'm going to lose the country I love to a fellow who hates it so much he'd rather get his rocks off with trolls...I'm the Emperor-to-be of Amphelius and I wouldn't even know what to do with a troll!"

Horis slumped against the wall and crumpled into a ball under his wings. He could not bare to watch what Eraz and Soyle were capable of. He refused to emerge until one of them knocked him on the head with something heavy and Madame Tiddles snuffled her way through his wings to curl up beside him.

"Go ahead. Knock my brains out...I cannot bare this cruel life. Can I, Madame Tiddles? No, I can't."

"Oh hush and pull yourself out of it. It's seduction you need to get your head around, not the end result." Lady Soyle reached in and pulled him out of his wings by the elbow. Her grip was surprisingly firm given her twig-like arms.

"I wanted to stop him, but he is ever so distressed," Maude whispered to Soyle.

"It's fine, we're used to it, Maude. But he's also quite right. The Wyverkiiri King, handsome as he may be, has no love for Tyrunvern. He'd have his way with the Lady, then up and run again as he always does. And since she cannot have Eraz, I'd rather see you take the throne beside her." Lady Soyle tied off her robe and pulled a hairbrush through her hair. It looked like Eraz had nested in it. "I think we're going to have to find those Wyverkiiri for you."

"What good would they do?" Horis asked, lifting Madame Tiddles to bury himself in her soft fur.

She licked his face.

"They'll be as interested as us in keeping their King, and they are masters of their craft." Soyle's smile had a sly curve to it. "We'll have them teach you how to seduce the knickers off Lady Kabech."

"Absence makes heart scream. Is best Horis is away from Kabech," Eraz patted him on the shoulder.

Soyle turned a severe glare on him. "Don't you dare try that on me, Eraz."

"Eraz' heart already screams for Soyle, does not need absence."

"Good. Eraz, can you arrange some lovely Amphoerix to bring our travel supplies? We'll need clothes, food, perfume, chamber pots...all the necessities and extra to trade for services." Soyle sent him off with a flutter of her lashes, then hurried to her bed-side-shelf to pack a purse full of toffees. "How long do we have until this party?"

"The Lady has given her suitors a month, but there will be a week's warning circulated in the farmers' almanacs so everyone will have time to travel," Lady Fert read from the paper.

"In farmers almanacs? Does she mean to invite peasants?" Soyle scoffed.

"It's the best way to spread word if she wants the King to hear about it. If he's still in Tyrunvern," said Fert. "Shall we meet after breakfast when we're all packed for this adventure? I've no mind to go searching for anyone on an empty stomach."

"Quite. We will gather outside and depart when we're all ready. This shall be exciting! I've never spent so long out in the countryside." Soyle glowed with enthusiasm as she bounded off to her dressing-shroom

"I don't think Madame Tiddles likes adventures," Maude murmured.

"I think she would adore an adventure. Wouldn't you, Madame Tiddles?" Horis smiled, and she licked his face again. "You'll be fine too, Maude. We'll all keep you out of trouble."

He got to his feet and passed the Madame back to her.

"I'm not worried."

"It's fine if you are, Maude," said Fert, taking her friend by the elbow. "But if anyone so much as looks at you funny, Eraz will be there to rip their arms off, but he'd have to beat me to it first!"

Horis took Maude by her other elbow and giggled off to breakfast with the girls.

He peeled away when they entered the dining-shroom.

Lady Kabech was wearing a plum, Amphelian gown tied with a tassel of gold. An unmistakable invitation to woo. He scooped up a plate of oysters and perched at her at her table-cap.

Her beauty almost left him breathless. He had never noticed before how smartly her nose was pointed, with a slight upward curl of the tip. Her green eyes, too, glimmered like peridot jewels, set off by the purple of her dress and the charcoal-black of her hair and make-up.

"Might I say that of all the Ladies in your realm, Amphelian fashion suits you the best, your Highness," Horis told her and slid an oyster down his gullet.

Kabech stood up. "I can't stand the stench of seafood," she said and excused herself.

Horis watched her glide away. Her gait was as smooth as silk, not causing the slightest sway of her hem.

"I love an oyster, myself," Dame Eggy crooned, taking Kabech's stool at the table.

"They've grown on me recently," Horis said, then slipped under the shroom-cloth to find the pearl of her oyster.

Someone stopped him short with a pluck of a tail feather.

He emerged to the cough of Fert and a snuffle from Madame Tiddles.

"The first rule of seduction: you should keep your tongue out of other ladies' purses while you're on the hunt. Especially Kabech's First Lady," Fert scolded him in a whisper and sat him back on his stool. "And everyone can see your tail when you hide like that, you duffer."

"Lady Fert, I believe I saw some friends of yours at the lower tables," Eggy said coldly and fussed about her robe.

"I'm in the mood for oysters, and it seems they've all ended up here," she replied and took a sideways seat on Horis' lap as well as three of his molluscs.

"Madame Tiddles doesn't like oysters."

"Hush, Maude."

Horis passed the pooch some smoked fish instead.

"Has Horis mentioned he will be away for a while? He needs some time to prepare for Kabech's party. Being such a handsome fellow, he's guaranteed an invitation and just imagine everything he could do as Lord of Tyrunvern," Fert said and stole half of the fish and all of its caviar.

"Is he now? A shame he had his mouth too full to tell me about this plan." Eggy turned her glower on him.

"You need not worry, Eggy. As her dearest friend I know you'd be first pick to be my favourite once Kabech and I are settled in as Emperor-Lord and Lady-Empress," Horis cooed.

She swiped him across the cheek, four times, and stomped away.

"First rule of court life; your mistresses should be friends, not enemies, or you will have a horrid time as Emperor-Lord," Fert said and tipped an oyster into Horis' mouth.

"That's what the last one died of. Caught in a knife-fight in the royal slumber-cup. One mistress had been hiding behind the pillow and another under the cup, then in came the favourite and..." Maude stopped to fillet another fish for Madame Tiddles.

"Kabech's father was quite the—"

"Oh, no. That was her mother. Her father choked on a bit of carrot," Lady Soyle said, joining their table with a bowl of juicy grubs.

Maude squeezed the nippers off one of them. "Or so they say," she murmured.

"He was enough of an idiot to be done in by a carrot." Fert shrugged. "Most Tyvern fellows are. At least you'll get no competition out of them. And maybe they'll serve carrots at the party."