Moon's Flower (Kingdom, #6)

Love,

Miriam the Delighted

It wasn’t until she’d flipped the page over that Miriam had given specific direction on how to make it bloom.

Pocketing her prize, she made sure everything looked as it had when she’d entered, and whispering under her breath, magically erased any traces of her ever being here. Then quickly, and quietly, she slipped out the back.

This time she didn’t zig and zag through the trees, it’d taken her hours to disentangle herself from June’s greedy gaze. Moving along the outer edge of the glen, she walked with one purpose in mind.

Returning to the same spot as last night, she went through the exact same ritual she had the night before. With a kiss and a whispered word of affection to the seed she planted it and waited.

And waited…

…and waited

A sighing sound alerted her to the presence of another. June’s spicy scent of hawthorn’s tickled her nose. She should have known it wouldn’t be so easy to deceive her dearest friend.

“June,” she muttered despondently, keeping her gaze on the patch of overturned earth.

“Calanthe,” June’s whisper was even closer now. A second later the athletic little fairy landed on Calanthe’s shoulder, not having shifted her size as she had yesterday. “Why did you steal another seed?”

Finally turning her face aside, realizing the seed had no intention of blooming, she shook her head. “I had to see it again.”

Miniature fingers tapped her jaw. “Yes, but why? You knew it wouldn’t work, you told me so yourself. Only on the night of the thirtieth. Why take the risk for something you knew wouldn’t work?”

Yes, Calanthe had remembered. But part of fairy magic, the most basic and essential part of its power was in belief. The belief that anything was possible. Calanthe had believed that sheer will alone could conjure the flower.

“I’m a fool,” she muttered.

June’s bell like laughter tickled the shell of Calanthe’s ear. “Yes, you are. And if you keep stealing from the head mistress’s home, I’ll eventually have to report you. Please don’t make me do that, Calanthe. I love you too much.”

Swallowing hard, because the reality was she was an idiot. True, she might only be two hundred summers old, but that was still old enough to understand she’d acted the fool.

“Do you think Galeta has counted the seeds?” she asked, not that she really cared one way or another. She’d covered her tracks well, the thievery couldn’t be linked to her. Well, not unless June decided to give her up. But she knew in her heart her friend would remain loyal so long as Calanthe gave her no cause not to be.

June’s rosebud lips tipped down. “You know she has.” With another long-suffering sigh, June jerked her chin in the direction of the glen. “We need to go, Calanthe, and for Kingdom’s sake, do not come here again. We live in a world where secrets cannot exist for long.”

Snorting with laughter, but not because the situation was terribly funny, Calanthe nodded. “Aye, I suppose we should.”

Stopping June from flitting off by lightly pinching into the base of her moth’s wings she frowned.

“Calanthe?” June’s brows gathered into a vee.

Opening and closing her mouth, Calanthe couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She wanted to talk to her friend, to explain that it was more than a flower. That her soul had literally felt as if it’d cleaved to that of the flower’s. That somehow, in a world where happily ever afters existed, she knew she’d found hers.

But even hearing those words ramble through her mind felt absurd in the extreme.

Releasing her wings, she shrugged and gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Flitting off Calanthe’s shoulder, June hovered in front of her. “Are you sure?”

Withdrawing her star tipped wand made of vines and ivy from her pocket, Calanthe touched it to the tip of her breastbone. The warmth of her magic infused her limbs, shifting her painlessly from human height back to fairy again. With a shake of her wings, Calanthe nodded. “Let’s go before we’re missed.”

“What did you do with the seed?”

Patting her pocket, Calanthe smiled. “And don’t ask me whether I plan to put it back, because we both know the answer. But I promise you now, I will not steal another. Now, c’mon. I do believe I owe you a race!” And with those words, Calanthe zipped back toward the glen, leaving a golden wake of fairy light behind as she attempted to bury the reality that as much as she didn’t want to, she had to leave the obsession behind before it got her, or June, into serious trouble.





Chapter 4


A freckled tiger lily fairy child raised her hand.