“Papa!” cried all the girls.
They tumbled and threw their arms around the King. Azalea tried to keep them back but was too overcome. Their shouting voices and cries of happiness echoed up the tower, and the snow fell around them, white and clean and fresh.
CHAPTER 29
Azalea awoke to a strange thing: sunlight.
She also awoke among masses of fat, fluffy pillows. She would have thought it a dream, if she were not aching everywhere. She was not in her room, or even in the palace, but in a fashionable manor room with striped wallpaper and Delchastrian casement windows.
Azalea could recall euphoric happiness, the gentlemen arriving at the top of the stairs, the snow, and then—black. Ah, she had fainted. Again.
Flora and Goldenrod, who had been at the foot of the bed, leaped in delight when Azalea stirred, each grabbing her hands, tugging over her like a beloved rag doll, and chattering like mad.
“You’re awake!”
“You’ve slept for nearly two days!”
“Sir John says you’ll be all right, just that you needed rest.”
“Oh!” Flora slapped a hand to her mouth. “They made us promise to get them when you awoke!”
The twins ran out of the room. Several minutes later, it was filled to bursting with Azalea’s sisters. Still dressed in black, a bit shabby and pale, they were in high spirits. Even Delphinium, whose pretty face had jagged lines across it, smiled. They were all pleased as pink punch to see her awake. Azalea was thrilled to see them, too.
“Welcome to Fairweller’s manor,” said Bramble, grinning and pushing a cup of minty tea to Azalea’s mouth. “Very fancy, very neat. We’ve already stained the dining room rug, to the delight of the servants.”
“Mr. Fairweller is staying at his town house, at present.” Clover handed her a dainty biscuit with a flower imprinted at the top.
“It’s just until the King finds the sword and can unmagic the palace,” said Bramble. “Or until the King murders Fairweller.”
“Until Papa murders Fairweller,” squeaked Hollyhock.
“Yes. Papa. Him.” Bramble grinned. “Papa, Papa. We’ve got to get used to that.”
Azalea smiled around a mouthful of biscuit. The King was all right, then.
The girls had the servants draw a bath for her, chattering as they helped Azalea out of her clothes. Azalea had never seen a bath like this one—there was an actual room meant for bathing, and the bathwater steamed. Up to her neck in bubbles, she slowly removed the bandages from her arms and hands, washing away the dried blood. The younger girls played with the bubbles while the older ones told her what had happened.
“We should have listened to you,” said Eve. Her spectacles had fogged up from the heat. “About not going to the pavilion. You were right.”
Azalea waved it away. “What happened when you went through the passage?”
All the girls’ faces became clouded.
“The pavilion…wasn’t the same,” was all Bramble said.
Azalea remembered the dark pavilion, its mesh of half-beast, half-human dancers, and the bony hands grasping her ankles. She imagined what it must have been like for them, to arrive to that, and then to be magicked away into mirrors. She shuddered.
“Never mind,” she said. “Let’s not think of it.”
The girls, however, pressed Azalea into telling her story, and she started it from the beginning—from the haunted ball, and Mother, and finding out about Keeper, to the wraith cloak and brooch charm. By the time the story had ended, Azalea’s bathwater had cooled to only mildly warm, and the girls hugged their knees to their chests, eyes wide.
“What a story,” said Bramble. “Wouldn’t the Herald die to hear that!”
Servants arrived with more steaming water, and with them, Delphinium, her arms full of fabrics of silks and velvet. Azalea, so used to black, stared at the brilliant pinks and purples and blues hungrily. As the servants left, everyone rushed to Delphinium’s side, tugged at the fabrics, and shook them out, revealing dresses of all sizes.
A flurry of fluffing and exchanging blouses brought the right outfits to the right hands. Delphinium, flushed with excitement, laid out a skirt with ruffly blouse over a bathing-room chair for Azalea. With a flourish, she added a matching collar bow.
“The dressmaker says she already had them ready, and she hopes they all fit! Oh, Eve, that positively makes your eyes pop! Lavender is just right for the twins, don’t you think?”
“But where did they come from?” said Azalea.
“The King!” said Flora. “He gave them to us.”
“P-Papa,” Goldenrod corrected, unbuttoning Flora’s black dress.
“Yes, Papa. He said it would be his Christmas present to us!”
“He did?” Azalea’s brows knit. The King had wanted to stay in mourning. Hadn’t he?