Twins Who Share Even The Strangest Things

Die Rose von Drake and Das Rätsel von Boin¹ von [house]: Rätsel means “riddle,” while Rose and Honey Gold read as they look.] were spoken of as the twin titans of the perfume market in the Empire of Balter. Most perfumes leaned on a heavy base note so the scent would cling, but Die Rose built itself on the fragrance of the rose, and it had become the flagship of House Drake. That was why Das Rätsel, House Boin’s classic musk-family scent that had once ruled the trade, kept ceding its absolute supremacy inch by inch.

James Boin’s title was no lofty one, but he kept close ties with the Merchants’ Guild and other promising men of the bourgeoisie, and he had a gift for putting that web of connections to shrewd use.

Though the trouble was, that sharp head of his ran toward cornering the market and running it into the ground.

Baron Boin had always looked with disfavor on House Drake, which had thrown itself into the perfume trade as a latecomer. To their faces he was forever fawning and feigning goodwill, while behind their backs he busied himself with every manner of obstruction.

And the man who had done the most to help him in it was sitting right across from me.

I fixed my gaze on Robin Richter, who sat opposite me, calmly pressing tea upon me. The man looked younger than I’d expected, more a student freshly out of the Academy than a capable detective.

“Where the rose blooms, tragedy follows.”

Two years ago, a rumor like that had gone round about Die Rose von Drake. The moment I recited the falsehood that had spread so widely through society back then, Detective Richter’s gaze settled on me.

“A rumor that did enormous damage to House Drake. You wouldn’t happen to know of it?”
“Ah — there was a rumor like that making the rounds once. It’s been a very long while since I last heard it.”

The rumor meant just what it sounded like: anyone who wore Die Rose would meet nothing but one unlucky turn after another. There was neither proof nor witness, yet exaggerated tales kept piling up from somewhere, swelling like an avalanche until they scattered across the whole of the capital before anyone could set it right.

“One lady claimed she saw a ghost the night she wore Die Rose. Another young lady, they said, had her betrothal broken off the very day her mother gifted her the perfume. And whenever the rumor made to settle, some fresh incident would burst out, like oil poured on a fire.”

The days and nights I’d spent trying to lay that rumor to rest came back to me. I’d worked through the Imperial Times to paint it as baseless talk, and I’d set the Baltaheim Metropolitan Police and private detectives hunting for whoever was behind it. Even so, once sales had plummeted, they did not recover easily.

“Though you’ll admit that rumor didn’t only bring House Drake harm, did it?”

Robin said it brazenly, and without thinking I nearly laughed aloud. He’d made it sound as though the false rumor had actually done the Drake perfume business a favor.

“Should a man who’s meant to be a detective be muddling up cause and effect? That false rumor did House Drake grievous harm, plainly. The rise in sales afterward was owed to the Drake house’s fitting response.”

The moment sales really fell, I’d driven the house perfumers hard and pushed out, months ahead of schedule, a perfume that had been slated to launch at year’s end. That perfume, Honey Gold von Drake, took vanilla and honey for its base notes, its sweetness rich and full on the nose.

At the same time, I’d made use of my society connections to press an all-out campaign upon the Empire’s upper crust.

Gold calls to gold.

Quite literally, I’d planted the notion that to wear Honey Gold was to have abundance and prosperity follow after. On top of that, playing on the old saying that flowers and honey draw the bees, I had the magazines run stories about a young lady who wore Die Rose and Honey Gold together and found new love. She was none other than the girl whose betrothal had been broken off.

The strategy worked. Before long, not Honey Gold alone but Die Rose too was selling like wildfire, and since last year House Drake had been posting sales without precedent.

“Well — all the same, it’s a fact that Drake’s prosperity began with that rumor.”
“I can’t imagine why you defend that baseless rumor so. Anyone watching might take you for the very father of it.”

I’d never found hard proof of who first put the rumor about, but conviction of it I held in more than ample measure. Every time I traced the lie back, its trail ended with Richter, the man in House Boin’s pay.

“Your Grace seems remarkably well-informed. Enough that I find myself wishing to learn a thing or two from you.”

Robin, who’d been watching me fixedly, curled his lips as he answered. The reply was evasive, neither affirmation nor denial. His caution in everything vexed me and, at the very same time, pleased me enormously; if we were going to throw in our lot together, going in exactly the right direction mattered every bit as much as moving fast.

“So then…”

Robin Richter gave me the signal that it was about time I came to the heart of the matter.

“It must have been a terribly tiring day for you as it is — so what is it that brings you all the way out here, to seek me out?”

I had never once introduced myself as the Duchess Ernst, and yet Robin let it show, in his roundabout way, that he knew exactly who I was, and what had happened to me that very day.

So he keeps informants in the imperial household as well.

He seemed to want to prove that his own reach for information was nothing to scoff at, either. Watching him, I decided his nature suited his years after all.

“I’ve come with a matter to commission.”
“That I’ll judge once I’ve first heard the information on House Drake you’ve brought with you, madam.”
“I should like to believe that insolent manner of yours springs from genuine ability.”

It was the sort of remark that ought to have offended, yet it didn’t sit so badly with me; his caution would, in the end, serve the success of my commission. There did seem to be a reason he was famed for seeing any job through, in secret and to perfection.

Smiling faintly, I set upon my lips the sort of tale that was bound to tempt Robin.

“The reason the perfumes House Drake has been making since last year hold their scent so uncommonly well.”
“!”
“That bit of technical knowledge — I’ll let you have it.”

Sales had leapt, well and good, but as time wore on the scent had been losing its value. A perfume worn now by anyone and everyone no longer stirred the high nobility, and so House Drake had set about devising a bespoke perfume made expressly for the great houses. In the course of it, the house’s own perfumer had stumbled on an aromatic that made a scent last long.

“H-how is it that Your Grace knows such a thing?”

Robin leaned markedly forward, all the languid ease he’d worn only a moment before gone.

“That would be because I am Marienne Drake…”

Without meaning to, I let the ending draw out, then carried on as though it were the most natural thing.

“…‘s twin, you see. And until not long ago, I was living in the Count’s manor as well.”

Robin, though, seemed to have no interest in that whatsoever. His face was thick with an impatience that begged me to hurry and give him the answer.

“Will you be wanting a fair price from me for it, then — one to match the information?”
“No. There’s no need of that.”
“…Pardon?”
“The perfume’s staying power comes from a sperm whale’s secretion — ambergris. And I’d wager that’s the very thing the Boin side has been badgering you to uncover, too.”

Robin let out an abashed sort of laugh. No doubt he’d never expected to come by so vital a secret of the perfume trade this easily.

“Sisters really do share the strangest of things, don’t they.”
“And do you suppose this is all? Any information at all you’d care to draw out of Drake, I can give you.”

Mixed feelings gripped me. It would have been a lie to say I felt no pang for all the effort and hardship I’d poured out over the years. But they were things I had built up myself, and so it was only right that I be the one to tear them down.

Cedric… I will see to it that nothing at all is left in your hands.

Picturing the man who would be left with nothing was, if anything, downright exhilarating. I could only wonder whether their love would hold, even then.

“So then — what is it you would have me do for you?”

Robin swallowed dryly, then leaned in and whispered to me under his breath. Only now, it seemed, had the will to cooperate with me truly taken hold in him.