Azalea was at the point of unpicking the stockings and re-darning them when the King arrived.
“The girls said you would be here,” he said, from the doorway. He watched Azalea stab at the linens with a needle.
“Azalea,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve been up here,” said Azalea, in a brittle, happy voice. “Of course I would be, mending and things need to be done, Clover and Bramble haven’t been tending to it, so I will. I’ve got the time, haven’t I?”
Her eyes stung. The King tapped his fingers against the door frame.
“Follow me,” he said. “I have something I want to give you.”
The King produced a worn silver harold from his pocket and walked to the fireplace.
“Oh, no—no, no,” said Azalea, pulling back. “I’m not going down there again.”
“Come now. Bear up,” said the King, taking her hand. He gently pulled her through the silver curtain and allowed her to grip his arm with a shaking hand as he helped her down the musty wooden stairs. Azalea looked about her, swallowing the unpleasant memories of it.
The storage room was bright, a window at the top casting light across them. Broken Yuletide ornaments had been swept into a pile at the corner of the room. The King went to a box, tucked in the corner, and produced a small piece of jewelry.
It was the brooch. The King walked back to her and placed it in her hands.
“What? No!” said Azalea, fumbling with it. “I can’t—this is Mother’s!”
“It is yours, and your sisters’, now,” said the King. He placed his hand over hers. “It is only glass, you know. Nothing fine or grand. Your Mother knew it, when she accepted it with my hand. And she knew I danced as well as a tree. She knew about the politics and duties and responsibilities of marrying into royalty. She knew all those…unfortunate things. Things some people might even call ghastly.”
Azalea looked up quickly. A smile tugged on the corner of the King’s lips.
“But—ah! Wouldn’t it be sad if she had not?”
Tears pricked Azalea’s eyes. Her fingers curled around the brooch. She imagined her father, a young king, and wondered if he had had finely dressed ladies flocked about him, flattering with false, pretty words…not because they cared for him, but only because they wanted to be queen. For the first time it occurred to her that even though the King couldn’t dance, he understood her completely.
Azalea threw her arms around him.
He was stiff and solid. She loved that about him.
“Well,” said the King, looking both awkward and pleased as Azalea pulled away. “Haste away, young lady. A young Captain Bradford is waiting for you in the ballroom. He’s spent many hours filling out parliamentary paperwork, as well as a lengthy wait for parliamentary approval, before I would allow him to see you.”
The full meaning of this sank into Azalea’s mind, and she fairly leaped up the stairs, giddy to her center. She paced impatiently with a toe-touch side turn as the King followed after, retrieving the silver coin. A glimmer caught the corner of her eye. She turned.
Next to her foot lay a small pile of ashes.
Azalea forgot her rush, bent down, and touched it. The ash stuck to her finger, and sparkled as she turned her hand in the dim light.
“Sir,” said Azalea. “Papa?”
“Mmm?”
Azalea’s voice caught in her throat.
“Never mind,” she said. She brushed the soot from her finger, leaving streaks of gray-silver on her skirts, remembering the light that seemed to wash over her, how warm the King’s hand had been—and the flicker of warmth she still felt inside of her. And she thought she understood. She knew now why that sort of magic—the deepest magic—hadn’t been named. Some things couldn’t be.
Azalea helped the King down the staircase to the ballroom, becoming more and more nervous. The King, for some reason, seemed to feel the same, fidgeting with his pocket watch and slowing as they reached the ballroom doors.
“Er…Azalea,” he said.
“Yes?” Azalea raised herself to her toes, down again, anxious.
“I forgot to mention something.”
Uh-oh, said a voice in her head.
“There’s, ah, going to be a proposal, you know,” said the King.
Azalea nearly leaped out of her boots with delight. She spun around the King, her feet lithe as springs.
“I…rather suspected,” she said, laughing and hopping at the same time. “Well…hoped, really. I mean, now that he’s running for parliament and everything and…Bramble and Clover are already engaged, and—”
She stopped mid-spin at the King’s expression.
“Ah, Azalea,” said the King. “He’s not going to be the one proposing.”
The springs in Azalea’s feet went poioioing.
“Sorry?” she said.
“You outrank him, you know.” The King shifted, uncomfortable. “It would be highly inappropriate for him to propose to you. The Delchastrian queen had to propose—”
“I will do no such thing!” said Azalea.