The Proper Form of Address

Chapter 1

Archer Maximilian Peter Bishop de Ventro was the third in line to the throne of Jadenvale. But that still didn't mean he could get a fucking cup of coffee. Actually, that meant it was incredibly difficult for him to get a fucking cup of coffee.

"Today, your Highness, we can offer you beans from Calmornia, from Kazen Do, from Shey, from High Waters—"

"I don't care," groaned Archer, his head pillowed on his hands.

The attendant didn't even pause. "If you are seeking a recommendation, your Highness, then—"

"I want," growled Archer, very carefully, "a fucking. Cup. Of. Coffee. I do not care where the beans came from, okay?"

The attendant said smoothly, "We have exquisite beans from Aislendell that—"

"Those," Archer said, sighing. "Bring me those."

"As you wish," said the attendant, and scurried out of the room.

Archer kept his head in his hands on the dining room table and looked out over the balcony to the Bay of Thaddeus beyond. The windows were open, as they almost always were, and through the window drifted the scent of the jasmine that Alice cultivated in the pots on the balcony. Archer couldn't remember a time when the balcony hadn't been covered in jasmine, couldn't remember a single morning of his life when he hadn't woken to its scent. He was horrified to realize he was blinking back tears over the scent of jasmine.

"How's your head?" asked Alice, coming into the room.

"Go away," Archer said, and turned his face into his hands to quickly swipe away his tears. He felt like an idiot.

Alice didn't go away. Archer heard her scrape out the chair next to him. He also heard the gentle thunk of a mug on the table. Alice, Archer concluded, had brought him his coffee.

"I don't think that's what you want," Alice said softly. "We haven't much time; I don't think what you want is for me to leave you alone."

Which was really not what Archer had wanted to hear. Archer was twenty-five years old and Archer, damn it, had cried out every tear he had ever been going to cry at the age of five, when his parents had been killed in the rockslide along the Tervasian Hills. Archer had literally not cried since the day he and Alice and Alex had learned of their parents' deaths, and he was going to start crying now? It was ridiculous.

Archer said into his hands, "Alex told you."

"Yes. Come on, Archer, have your coffee, you'll feel better if—"

"I am not in need of coffee," Archer protested, sitting up suddenly, even though he'd just been frantic for coffee. "Alice, I need you to talk to her."

"Archer—"

"Alice, she'll listen to you, she's always liked you better—"

"That is absolutely not true, Archer."

"Yes, it is!" Archer insisted. "She's never really liked me—I mean, that's different from loving me, she loves me just fine, but, you know, she'd kind of indifferent to me and you—"

"Archer, that isn't true. If you think Alex agreed to all of this lightly—"

"Oh?" Archer lifted an eyebrow in Alice's direction. "You don't think she did?"

"I know she didn't. Archer, she's been agonizing over the request for weeks."

Archer looked across at his sister. Alice, with the pale gold hair the color of the heavy sun the Jadenvalians enjoyed, with her eyes the color of the deep blue of the bay water. Eyes that looked solemn and serious now. And Archer realized... "Wait, you knew."