Spring slides into summer and the temperature rises, slowly; the horse sweats and the dogs' tongues loll out. In the waning afternoon sunlight Kanda finds a stick and throws it, watching the dogs fall over themselves going after it. They race back at him gleefully, eager to please, a mass of wriggling bodies and sharp barks. They're good dogs, smart, and now that he's finally gotten Allen to stop feeding them they're losing some of the softness they've grown into and the insolence that comes with it.

Allen spends a lot of time on the phone, speaking into it in carefully polite French, sometimes English, a rolling, lively language Kanda recognizes as Hindi, even once stilted Japanese that made Kanda pause in his walk-by and Allen smile apologetically at him, crooked and close-mouthed. Kanda doesn't really know what Lavi does, besides skulking around and being intermittently obnoxious; he smells like old paper and his fingers are stained, more so than usual, his hair grayish with dust. He's taken to waltzing Allen across the room whenever they run into each other, enthusiastic and slightly duck-footed, while Allen protests feebly. Allen moves with it easily enough, however, and Kanda remembers how Allen felt under his own hands, back muscles bunching and twisting deftly. It's strange, insulated existence, easy to forget that a world exists outside of the vast acreage of the estate.

"Our suits are here," Lavi croons when Kanda comes down to breakfast, waving a fork around with a bit of sausage stuck on the end of it. "Good thing, too, since the party's tomorrow."

"Claude is always punctual," Allen mumbles, glancing up from his paper then ducking his head back down. He's put his elbow in the marmalade.

The suits fit perfectly, snug across the shoulders, heavy in a way that should be uncomfortable but instead is weirdly familiar, a good weight, expensive. Kanda ties his hair back at his nape and watches Lavi stagger around, admiring his vest. He reminds Kanda of a monkey. "Monkey in a suit," Kanda mutters. Lavi makes an obscene gesture.

"Dashing," Lavi corrects. "Eccentric! And dashing. Possibly rakish," he adds, tapping his eye patch. "Allen!"

"Um," Allen says. His smile is thin and he won't look directly at either Lavi or Kanda. "The carriage is ready."

The woman holding the ball has twin daughters; Kanda doesn't catch their names in the din. Lavi says something in French to them and they both look at Kanda, eyes wide. Allen has gone off to speak with Lisette, who wears a silk dress the color of dried blood, or Allen's arm; it washes her out, dark hair and pale skin, and Allen's hair looks painfully white next to it, the smudges under his eyes suddenly very prominent.

"Is it true," the one in the blue dress asks during the second dance, "that you once decapitated five men with a single stroke of your sword?" Kanda's head jerks up and Lavi floats past him, wide grin and eyebrows twitching up.

"Yes," he grits out. Rather than looking horrified, blue dress flushes and blinks up at him.

Later Kanda tracks Lavi down in another room, sipping on champagne and watching blue dress pick out a few tentative notes on the piano. "Hello, sweetness," Lavi says mildly, holding out another flute. "Champagne?"

"What the hell are you telling all of these people?" Kanda demands.

"Lies?"

"They think I'm some kind of, of,"

"Barbarian prince?"

"Yes!" Kanda explodes, knocking back the whole flute in one gulp. His pulse pounds behind his eyeballs, an ache spreading from his temples across his forehead from the constant shifting movement of bodies in the room and the plinking, abrasive music. Blue dress catches his eye and flushes again, turning quickly back to the piano. "What is she doing?"

Lavi makes a pained noise that could have been a strangled snigger. "Music is the universal language," he says. "It soothes the savage beast."

"God," Kanda says.

"You may have won the heart of our dear Mademoiselle Gabrielle with your barbarian charms, but I am confident that Mademoiselle Aurélie sees the advantage of marrying a man whose bravery led to the tragic loss of an eye while rescuing his cousin from the sacrificial altar of a group of Kali-worshipers. The one in the yellow dress," he adds at Kanda's look. "I also told her about the orphanages for baby pandas Allen built in China, but that one wasn't quite as popular."

The beginning strains of a quadrille float through the air. Lavi tilts his head, expression going abruptly thoughtful.

"The truth is—" He waves his hand. "Not theirs to know."

After a few moments of silence, Kanda's irritation leaks out of him, even as the ache in his head intensifies. Not theirs, he thinks, rolling the words around in his head. This world of silks and powders, stifling, nothing like the clear, warm humidity of the night at Allen's villa.

"So what do you think of Lisette's dress?" Lavi asks, eyes on his champagne flute.

"She looks like an accident in a crinoline factory," Kanda mutters. Lavi smirks.

"I think I saw Allen next to the rest of the champagne."

"Lead the way," Kanda says.