Lucas spent the next two days acting like a man in mourning while he schemed. He received no letters or messengers, but he did have to spend a good portion of the day fending off innocuous flirting from the maids. Though they had become more subtle, they were no less persistent, and eventually, he found they were drugging more than just his wine in an effort to turn his head.

It was never anything quite so obvious as trying to slip into his bed at night, but between the three of them, they managed to bump against him more than clumsiness would ever explain over those days, and somehow, everything they said managed to have a double meaning.

"Did you want some tea, or do you need something stronger to pick you up this morning," or "If you want something sweet before bed, be sure to let me know" were common enough examples. On their own, he wouldn't have thought anything of it, but the tone of their voice spoke volumes to him. Each of them was tuned just enough to be utterly deniable, so he didn't explode at them again, but the meaning was very clear to him.

Only the dryad seemed to have zero interest in him. Even better, she had visible disdain toward him, which was why he found himself spending more and more time in the garden just to escape the insufferable sultriness of the house. That annoyed him enough to consider escaping, but that plan ran into the same complications that it always did, and he was forced to endure.

One, a sparrow pecked at his window often enough that he thought sure it was Danaria's doing. She has no idea where I am, he reminded himself. Still, he took it as an omen and hoped that his letter had finally reached his tailor at least because that was the only way she would have any idea where he might be.

Though that gave Lucas hope that Mister Twee might turn up in the next day or two, it was actually someone else who arrived first. The following morning, Sir Milen appeared at the door with a sack of equipment and a letter from someone with enough authority to let him in the door.

That surprised Lucas, though he supposed it shouldn't have as he greeted the flamboyant swordsman. This was, after all, exactly the outcome he'd hoped for when he'd sent the letter.

"My client is woefully out of practice," the knight insisted when the guard tried to inquire further, "And I must remedy that for hours or days if necessary."

"What does a dancing instructor need wooden swords for?" the man asked after going through the knight's bag.

"I need them to punish Mister Parin," the man answered haughtily. "He's been very naughty. Do you know exactly how many months he'd skipped my lessons? I thought he'd completely chickened out, yet here we are."

The doorman eventually took Sir. Milen's steel blades, but he obviously lacked the authority to stop the man himself, no matter how irregular this might be. "There he is," the knight beamed as he walked into the mansion's entryway and shook Lucas' hand. "I never thought I'd see you again, and now look at you, a guest of the Prince."

"Well, considering everything that happened…" Lucas answered noncommittal, trying to give the man a hint.

"Yes, right," the man agreed, sober for only a moment before he brightened up again. "Tragic, really. Where are we dancing then? The back garden or…"

"There's a ballroom upstairs," Lucas said, a little annoyed at Millen's attitude. He was always a bit of a bon vivant, but this seemed like he didn't care at all about the tragedy. Lucas didn't comment on it as they went upstairs, but it did make him look forward to kicking the man's ass that much more.

Kicking ass wasn't in the cards, though, at least not right away. Instead, when they arrived in the ballroom, the swordsman spent equal time complimenting the room, which took up almost the whole floor, and helping Lucas don the padded protection gear.

"Why aren't you wearing one?" Lucas asked, annoyed as the other man waxed rhapsodically about the delicate plasterwork on the ceiling tiles.

"Oh, you won't be hitting me today, I think," the man laughed as he stepped back and started to remove his shirt. "I've been busy, and you've been sitting on your hands for half a year, But…" he let the word linger for a long moment before softly adding, "If you do a good job, I've got a missive for you."

"From who?" Lucas hissed.

The knight's only answer was to smile mischievously at him before tossing Lucas a wooden blade. Even after he dropped into a guard pose with his knees slightly bent, he just stood there silently, waiting for Lucas to advance.

"Really?" Lucas said, twirling his weapon around his hand as a flourish to test the weight of it. "You really aren't going to—" As he spoke, he strode forward, but he never actually planned on finishing what he was saying. Instead, he lashed out with a flick of his wrist to his opponent's left. The blow was fast, but it had no force behind it. In a real fight, it wouldn't have been more than a superficial scratch. Still, he wanted to take the other man down a peg, so he did what he could.

Lucas' blow never landed, but it got close enough for his opponent to smile. "I really can't say," Sir Milen answered as he shifted his blade sideways to cleanly parry the blow inches from his cheek before he launched a complex riposte at Lucas. "I seem to have forgotten, but if you hit me a time or two, that might jog things loose."

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Lucas gave ground with each parry for the next few minutes as his instructor reminded him just how much he'd forgotten over his time in Blackgate. It also did a good job of giving him an appropriate level of humility. The last few days, he'd been daydreaming about slaying Skylara, and now he could barely hold his own against a man who was taking it easy on him.

No, I'm not even holding my own, Lucas realized as he fended off an intense flurry of blows. He's just toying with me.

While Lucas managed to keep most of those blows from making contact, the ones that did still stung, even through the quilted fabric. "I see someone hasn't been keeping up with the practices I left them with," the knight chided him.

"Cut me some slack," Lucas responded, trying not to sound winded. "I haven't exactly had much access to a sword lately!"

"Sounds like a personal problem," his instructor countered.

Lucas balked at that, but as he opened his mouth, he let himself get distracted, and then, just like that, Sir Milen disarmed him. One good wrap across Lucas' knuckles and a quick bump against his pommel, and suddenly, he was flexing his throbbing fingers, and the knight was holding two swords instead of one.

"I think we must begin again with the basics," the knight said with a smile as he bowed, holding both weapons.

For a brief moment, Lucas considered jacking his strength and agility and beating the infuriating man to a pulp, but he resisted. Strength isn't a substitute for skill, he reminded himself silently. Milen isn't even that much stronger than you. He's just done this a lot more than you, and

Finally, he sighed, but he didn't disagree, and when the man threw him back his wooden blade, he didn't lash out again. Instead, he asked, "So, where do you want to start?"

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing more drills than sparing, which disappointed Lucas, but only a little. They might not let Milen come back, he realized quickly. He probably even knows that, so he's giving me everything I need to practice on my own. That made the whole thing a little less boring, But there were only so many times he could practice the same footwork before he really did feel like the dualist was a dancing instructor.

Between comments and critiques about Lucas' sloppy form and imprecise movements, his instructor offered him bits of gossip about town. None of it was about Lucas' gang or the fire, though the way the man danced around the subject indicated he'd certainly heard about it. Instead, it was about the gangs of the city and some of the Knights of Brass' recent adventures.

"The captain has missed you in the small courtyard," he said after hinting at another heist that had gone better than expected while Lucas practiced his lunges. "When your self-imposed exile is at an end, you'll have to rejoin us and show us what else you've learned. The boys still talk about how you managed to give him just the tip and—"

"Soon," Lucas grunted. "I've got some shit to straighten out, but when I do… I'm going to need some people to help me put the work in."

"Oh my," the shirtless warrior answered, "How very interesting. A new venture?"

Lucas hinted at how he was going to be going after bigger game but let the man draw his own conclusions about what that might be. Shortly after that, and three hours into their lesson, they called their first break when the blonde maid brought them refreshments on a tea cart. Her name was Mirin. Despite his best efforts not to know it, he'd managed to pick up the names of all of the maids at this point.

At least this time, the pretty blonde didn't flirt with him, though, as she served them tea and cake, which was thankfully unadulterated. It wasn't her discretion he had to thank for that; it was Sir Milen. He flirted shamelessly with the woman the entire time she was there, and eventually, she retreated, almost unnerved by the barrage of compliments. The man was incorrigible.

"I just love your shoes," he said when she approached them from the door, but things only escalated from there, leaving her more than a little bewildered as he found an excuse to discuss everything from her haircut to the way she poured the tea.

At first, Lucas thought he was genuinely trying to put the moves on the woman. Normally, he would have put a stop to that sort of thing, but he kind of liked watching it when the shoe was on the other foot after he'd been treated this way for half a week.

"You know, if you want to bang the maids, this is probably the easiest house in the city to do it in," Lucas said after she'd finally excused herself. "I think they get paid to be prostitutes as much as anything."

"Anyone that works for the Prince is a prostitute," the man said, answering Lucas in a mocking tone. "As to the woman, she's pretty enough, but she really isn't my type. I just didn't want her to linger. We only have a few hours left before dinner, and we've got our work cut out for us."

The two of them spent another two hours repeating the drills they had this morning, only faster, harder, and more precise. By the end of it, Lucas was soaked in sweat and looking forward to a bath that evening.

It wasn't until the maid opened the door and informed him that dinner would be ready soon that the two of them finally started backing things up. As he expected, his instructor left the sword with him. When Lucas tried to give it back, the man just smiled and said, "Nah, you hold on to that. I'll be back in a few days. You need all the practice you can get."

"Yeah, yeah," Lucas sighed, not entirely disagreeing with the man. He was rusty, it was true, but by the end of the lesson, the rust had certainly started to come off, and he was sure he'd acquit himself better next time they crossed swords, or sticks, or whatever.

"Hey," Lucas hissed, trying to keep his voice low enough that no one else could hear as Sir Milen shook his hand and headed for the door. "I thought you said you had a… You know, a thing…"

"I did," the knight smiled. "And I gave it to you already. I trust you'll have a response ready before our next lesson."

That response puzzled Lucas, but he trusted the man and still shook his hand before the knight left him and went downstairs with the maid. "Already left me the message, huh?" he asked himself. "Now, where would he have put it."

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