“Certainly not. Let them sleep.”
Immediately, it was the King who wore the boots, not Bramble. And her sisters were not dancing, but asleep in their beds. Azalea stirred.
In her dream, the King walked to each bed and pushed the bedcurtains aside, looking down at Azalea’s sisters. He reached Azalea’s bed, and Azalea felt the brightness of a lamp being held over her. The King made a noise in his throat.
“Sir?” said Mr. Pudding.
“It is nothing. They have…grown so, that is all.”
“Aye, they do that.”
More footfalls, this time stopping at Lily’s bassinet near the door.
“Lily,” said the King.
Everything was silent for such a long time that fairies started to hop around the room. They disappeared as the footfalls started again, and the door closed with a creak. For a moment, Azalea lost herself in dreams of dancing at the pavilion. Her upper consciousness tugged at her.
The King, the King, he was here, he was here…his voice…it had sounded so real. It occurred to Azalea, in a dreamlike way, that it had been real. This hadn’t been a dream…wait, this hadn’t been a dream!
“Gah!” she cried, leaping from her bedsheets.
It was morning. The girls were crowded about the window over the front court, kneeling on the pillowed windowseat and peeking through the edges of the drapery. Azalea rubbed her sore shoulder and joined them. They gazed through the crack of the window down below, and Azalea’s throat tightened, seeing the King.
The girls said nothing, and the silence was heavy. They stared down through the window. The King turned Dickens about, and Azalea saw his left hand had been bandaged.
“He’s been wounded!” she whispered. “That wasn’t in the papers!”
“Aye.” Bramble was pale. “Probably he didn’t want a fuss made over it. He can’t manage the reins with it. It must hurt.”
“He fwightens me,” whispered Jessamine. Although four, she hardly ever spoke. Hearing her glass-spun voice was a rare occasion.
“Me, too,” said Azalea. She pulled the drapes closed.
Brushed, washed, braided, and scrubbed, everyone except Flora and Goldenrod went down to breakfast. Goldenrod often had trouble waking after a late night, and Flora always stayed with her to coax her down to breakfast. Azalea promised they would save a bit of porridge for them.
When they arrived at the folding nook doors, however, everyone gave a cry of delight. On the table lay a spread of deep brown cinnamon bread and jugs of cream. There were even three bowls of jam and sugar.
They stifled the cry when they saw the King standing at the head of the table, looking at the bay windows as though there were no drapes. Azalea felt the girls instinctively draw near her skirts. Even Lily, in Azalea’s arms, clutched at her collar.
“You’re late,” said the King, and he turned to face them.
Azalea felt a jolt.
Months had passed since she had seen him, face-to-face. His light hair and close-trimmed beard had streaks of white, and the lines in his face seemed deeper. Even so, he stood tall, sturdy, so much like the kings she read about in history books. None of the girls moved.
“Go on, sit down,” said the King. “It won’t do, half past eight! It is out of order. The bread is nearly cold.”
Still the girls did not move. Bramble’s lips were pursed so tightly they became a thin, razor-sharp line. Azalea held Lily so hard she whined. Azalea’s arms shook, too. Partly from nervousness, but more from the searing boiling sensation that flamed within her.
“We apologize for being late.” Azalea’s voice came out smooth and cool. She gained courage from this. “Your ship arrived last night?”
“Just so,” said the King. He sat down at the head of the table, and motioned for the girls to sit. “I didn’t think mush would suit today. Come along.” He took a cinnamon-swirled loaf from the table, and began to break it into pieces in a bowl. He did this with some difficulty, because of his bandaged hand.
“It l-looks like it hurts,” Clover whispered, leaning in to Azalea.
Bramble leaned in on her other side. “What do you think happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Azalea whispered back.
“M-maybe we should—should ask—”
“No,” Delphinium whispered from behind. “If he won’t tell us, then we don’t want to know.”
“But—”
The King frowned at them, gathered about the glass doors, the psss pssss psss of their whispered conversation making the frown more stern. He set the loaf down.
“If you are inclined to speak,” he said, “you may speak aloud. We have rules in this household—”
“What happened to your hand, sir?” said Azalea.
The whispering hushed. The King’s two unbandaged fingers tapped against the loaf. He hesitated, then spoke.
“It was cut on the side of a bayonet.”
The girls gasped. Azalea gripped Lily.
“Oh,” she said, flustered. The girls drew together, pss psss pssss, while Hollyhock whispered fervently, “What is a bayonet? Someone tell me what a bayonet is!”