The Proper Form of Address

Chapter 2

There was no fanfare to see him off. The only Prince of Jadenvale was being ushered out of town like a thief in the night.

Only it wasn't night. It was sunset, and Archer stood by the train and looked at the sun setting over the bay for the last time in maybe his entire life. The train station was on a bluff. Below him stretched all of Jadenvale Town Proper, his people, their beaches and houses and lives. He could hear laughter floating up to him, lazy on the heavy Jadenvale air. The palace was behind him. Home. The only place he had ever lived in twenty-five years. He refused to turn around and look at it. Better to try to remember forever the rest of Jadenvale, he thought.

"Lovely evening, Prince, to see you off," said the conductor cheerfully.

"Trix," Archer said mildly, without looking away from the bay.

"Yeah," said his head of security, stepping forward, and apparently leading the conductor away, because he didn't bother Archer anymore.

"Alex isn't here?" asked Alice from behind him.

"Are you surprise?" asked Archer.

"Frankly, yes."

"Well, I'm not," said Archer, and took a deep breath and turned away from the bay, to face Alice.

"Arch..." Alice began, and then trailed off, because what was there to say? She finally shrugged and then smiled at him.

Such a well-known and beloved smile. Archer watched her and tried to freeze it into his memory for all time. "Thank you for coming, Alice," Archer said.

"Archer," said Alice, sounding anguished. "Of course I would—" She flung herself against him, arms around his neck, in a violent hug. "I'm going to miss you so much. I'll come visit you in Euphonia."

Archer squeezed his eyes shut and tried to believe her. "Will you?"

"Of course. Of course. And you'll come back here lots and lots. Promise."

"I don't know," said Archer drily. "Would Alex approve?"

Alice stepped back, wiping at her eyes. "It's hard on her, Arch. You've got to understand. It isn't easy, to be the queen, and she's had to—"

Archer was suddenly impatient to be off, to have all of this constant defense of the decision over with. "Yes. I know," he said curtly, and looked behind Alice to where Trix was hovering in the background, by the doorway of the royal train car. "Are we ready?"

Trix nodded.

Archer looked back to Alice. "That's it." Alice was crying now, her chin trembling, tears streaming artfully down her rosy cheeks, and it made Archer's heart break, because Alice was sweet and kind and always had a smile for him, in those dark days when he was an orphaned little boy in a palace where everyone saw him as a prince instead of someone who needed cuddling desperately. "Please don't, Al. I'll be okay. I'm rather looking forward to the journey at least. I've never been beyond Jadenvale before."

"Alex should have let you go places. Alex shouldn't have—She was scared. We were both scared. You were so precious to us, Arch, after Mom and Dad—"

It was something Alice and Alex called them. Mom and Dad. Archer had lost them so young, remembered so little of them, that such familiar terms of endearment were out-of-place to him, inappropriate. They made him wince, to remember both how much and how little he had lost. This family, he thought, had never really been his, not ever. He had been promised away. Maybe leaving, he thought was for the best.

"It's alright," he assured her. "I'll see it all now." He gave her another fond hug. "Don't break too many hearts."

"Unavoidable," she said, as lightly as she could manage. "I mean, look at me."

"Indeed," said Archer, and he had to smile at her.

"Behave," she said to him seriously. "Give Ava a chance. We hear she's lovely. You might like her. You might even lose your armored scientist heart to her, have a little poetry invade your fortress of logic."

Archer didn't bother to explain to Alice how unlikely that really was. He'd kept it a secret for twenty-five years. It seemed far too late now to suddenly say, Actually, about that, you're looking in entirely the wrong corner for the person who will scale my heart. "If I start sending you letters composed of haikus," he said, "you'll know who to blame." And then he stepped around Alice and walked over to the train.

"Archer," Alice said.

He turned back, one foot on the platform, the other on the steps leading into the royal car, to the rest of his life.

"She would have so much rather been able to be your sister, all this time, instead of your queen. You know that, right? It's her biggest regret, that she lost out on that."

Archer gave her a wry smile. "Tell her the only Prince of Jadenvale sends his regards," he said, and gave Alice a little salute, and then he walked into the train car without looking back.

He stood away from the platform-facing windows, so that he couldn't see Alice again, until the train started moving. And then he went and sat in one of the brocaded armchairs. He wanted to see the bay again but the sun had sunk beyond the water and the bay was lost in the darkness, and the train was soon so surrounded by lush thickets of overgrown vegetation that it was fruitless anyway. He'd had his last glimpse of Jadenvale already; it was going to have to be enough.

Trix came in and said, "You want anything?"

It was the thing he liked about Trix, her casual lack of formality. It had been a rare concession from Alex, to let him choose his own head of security. He suspected Alex had thought it would make him more agreeable, if he had gotten his way in that small respect. He also suspected that Alex had been sorely disappointed.

"Quite a send-off, eh, Trix?" Archer said, and tried to say it heartily, and tried not to feel very sorry for himself. What did it mean, that he could leave the only place he'd ever called home and have one person show up to express regret that she would miss him? What sort of mark had the only Prince of Jadenvale made? Would the kingdom even notice he was gone? Would they approve of how eagerly their Queen had foisted him off to the mountains?

"I hear Euphonia has beavers the size of elephants," said Trix.

"Really?" said Archer.

"They're called elephant beavers."

"Inventive name."

"I'm just saying: there might be a lot of scientific discoveries you can make there. Screw people, right? You'd rather have your head in a book anyway."

Archer suddenly hated how effectively he'd apparently lied to everyone he'd ever met, that no one suspected that wasn't the least bit true. Archer did want people to like him; why did everyone really believe that he didn't? Did he seem that weird and unusual? Archer did have a heart that longed for a little bit of poetry; why did everyone think it more likely that he hated everyone than that he liked other men?

But Archer just said, "Yeah. Speaking of, do you know where they are? Might as well pass the time somehow."