He chuckles. It should feel wrong to be in the open with him, like this, but as we start to walk down the garden path, our steps feel as natural and light as they did when we were children. I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke into a run, daring me to chase him.
I wish the words would come as easy—some nonsense or story, a teasing jab—but they don’t. “I’ve never been here before,” I say finally, gesturing around at the flowers. “The garden is lovely.”
To my surprise, Roan sighs. “I suppose so. But I can’t help but feel that it’s false.” Casually, he bats a rose with the back of his hand, watching it swing back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. His smile is mischievous—conspiratorial. “I’ve always preferred wildflowers to cultivated roses.”
A memory floats to the surface, of the scent on him the other day—lavender, not rosewater. I nod. “Does the patch of lavender still grow by the south gate? The one we used to make into a fort?”
At first, he furrows his brow in thought, like he’s trying to call up the memory. Then a glint appears in his eyes. “There may be some in the greenhouse,” he says, nodding toward the other end of the garden. “We can go see for ourselves.”
“I’m to wait for Caro here,” I say quickly, and Roan’s face falls.
“Another time, then. How is life as a handmaiden?” He reaches down and grabs my hand as we walk, bringing it up to examine the ruffle of lace at my wrist. Heat floods my face at his touch, and it’s all I can do to keep a casual expression—though I swear, he holds my hand a second longer than he has to before letting it fall to my side. “The dress suits you,” he says conversationally.
My laugh comes out a little breathless. “It’s not hard to surpass that burlap sack we wore in the kitchen.”
Roan returns my laugh. “That too. But it’s different. I was thinking about when we were children. How you wanted to be a blacksmith like your father, ran around covered in soot from the forge.”
Elation and grief war in my chest. It’s hard not to marvel at Roan, whose past seems to have been wiped clean of resentment, even memory, like a schoolchild’s slate—but his unintentional slight stings.
He doesn’t know about Papa, I tell myself, he couldn’t know. And: If Papa had seen how kind Roan was, maybe things would have been different.
“Tell me something else,” I say, anxious to change the subject. “What else do you remember?”
“Well.” He grins. “You always were wild. Do you remember how you would make up stories about the forest animals? Or you’d make the rest of us act out old battles?”
At first, I don’t remember, the memories buried under so many years of hunger and scrabbling for coin. But as I stare into Roan’s blue eyes, unchanged from childhood, snatches of memories appear to me—hiding under the table in the great hall like we were spies; rolling down grassy hills pretending to be chased by wolves . . .
Suddenly, Roan blinks and breaks our gaze, lifting his hand in greeting to someone in the distance. I follow his eyes to see Caro walking toward us. She cocks her head at the sight of the two of us together.
“Lord Roan. Miss Ember,” she says, once she’s close enough for her whispery voice to reach us. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Caro,” Roan returns gaily, but at a too-high pitch. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him raise his hand—as if to touch my arm—and then drop it, like he’s thought better of it.
“Thank you again for your kindness in recommending me, Lord Gerling,” I tell him, stepping away to put distance between us. “It’s an honor to serve the Queen.”
His smile is fleeting, just for me. “My pleasure.” He nods at me, then at Caro. “And now if you’ll excuse me, ladies. I have an appointment with my betrothed.”
“One you’re late for,” Caro adds with a mild smile.
Roan meets my eyes one more time before striding back toward the castle.
Caro loops her arm through mine, like she did when retrieving me for the dress fitting. I smile at her, trying to hide my nervousness. The charge I feel when Roan is nearby is so strong that it’s hard to believe everyone can’t see it, like light jumping off my skin.
But Caro’s answering smile is carefree. “I’m so glad the Queen approved of your appointment. Very few pass the loyalty test. It’s more to scare people off than anything else,” she says quickly, as if it’s embarrassing to speak of. “To be truthful, with the wedding, I spend more time running errands for Ina than speaking with her. And soon . . .” Her voice trails off, and she stares into the distance. “She needs someone she can confide in. Rely on. Ina was saying after you left how much she likes you.”
“She’ll be married to Ro— Lord Roan soon,” I point out. “Things will change then.”
Caro smiles, a little sadly. “You’re right, Jules. Things will change.” She squeezes my arm and glances appreciatively around the garden. “Have you seen ice holly before?”
I shake my head, smiling in spite of myself, and she leads me toward the heart of the garden. As we go deeper in, the straight, orderly walkways turn narrow and meandering, with the flower beds scattered irregularly throughout. A few yards later, Caro stops and crouches down. She reaches carefully into a rosebush, avoiding the thorns, and extricates something small and silvery.
“There it is, just as the gardener described,” she says, holding a thin, shining plant in her palm. It seems to glow. I bend closer to see the tiny sprig, beautiful and ornately edged like nothing I’ve ever seen. The stem is black, the leaves silver-white, and the berry a deep, dark blue. I realize it’s the same plant—spindly stem, sharp narrow leaves—that was depicted on the Queen’s jewelry box, the one Addie dropped the first day the Queen came to Everless.
“It’s the Queen’s sigil,” Caro says, seeming again to read my thoughts. “They say it induces truth-telling and only grows in spots where the Sorceress has worked her magic.”
I start to laugh and swallow it quickly as Caro looks up at me, surprised.
“Don’t you believe it?” she asks.
“I’m sorry, my father . . .” I say quickly. “I wasn’t raised to believe in Sorceress magic.” What I don’t tell her—my father scorned the idea at every turn, when I became too old to crawl into his arms and beg for stories. Without Roan near, my childhood rears again into something dark, severed the moment we were forced to flee the Gerling estate.
“But look.” Caro reaches down and carefully parts two sections of rosebush, so we can see beneath. Puzzled, I peer in to see the ice holly that grows in its shade. It clusters, like bushes or tiny trees, but only a few inches high. And it follows a strange pattern along the ground—almost like footprints.