“She wasn’t climbing anything, my lord,” Mina said. “I found her sitting out here, and we were talking together.”
He looked at her like she’d appeared out of the air. But then he seemed to recognize her, and his face softened. “Mina,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you sooner. I was so relieved to find Lynet.…”
“I like her,” Lynet whispered to him.
“Is that so?”
“She’s even prettier than Mama, isn’t she?”
The king winced. “No one is prettier than your mama,” he said.
Mina’s pride was a little injured, but she would do better to side with him over Lynet in this case. “If your daughter truly resembles her mother, my lord, then you must be right.”
This softened the blow somewhat, and he smiled fondly at his daughter before setting her back down on her feet. “Can I trust you to go back inside, Lynetbird?”
Lynet pouted, but she nodded. She looked at Mina for a second, her small forehead furrowed in thought, and then she ran forward and flung her arms around Mina’s waist.
Mina laughed in surprise and placed a hand on the girl’s head. She looked up at Nicholas to see if he found this pretty sight charming, but he was frowning. “That’s enough, Lynet,” he said.
Lynet pulled away, gave Mina one last smile, and ran off in the direction of the Hall. Nicholas still wore his frown, and Mina tried to understand what troubled him so that she could say the right thing. She settled on something safe: “She’s a sweet girl.”
“A sweet girl, but not a careful one,” he said, glancing up at the juniper tree. “She latched on to you so quickly.…” Nicholas said, more to himself than to Mina.
“I suppose she wants a friend, or…” Mina took a moment to go over what she was planning to say, which also had the desired effect of making her seem shy or uncertain.
“What? Speak freely with me.”
“You asked me once, a long time ago, if it was easy for a girl to grow up without a mother. I can tell you truly now that it isn’t. I’ve made so many mistakes that I wouldn’t have made if I’d had a mother to guide me. After my mother died, I yearned for feminine guidance, someone to emulate, to learn from. I wanted … well, I wanted a mother.”
Mina barely heard herself speaking. The truth of the words didn’t matter as much as Nicholas’s reaction to them. She observed him as she spoke, waiting to see if she should continue on this path or retreat.
From the way he was glowering, the answer was clear: Retreat.
Mina thought frantically. “Of course, I didn’t mean that I—” She gave a dry laugh and turned her eyes down. “It seems I still don’t know how to speak to kings. I cringe whenever I think of the day I first met you. I’m sure I was very rude. I didn’t even know who you were.”
“Really? I don’t remember you being rude at all. You were genuine. Unaffected. I liked that about you.”
Mina held back a sigh of relief. “Liked?” she said, peeking up at him with a hint of coyness. “Have I lost that quality as I’ve grown?”
“I fear we all do,” he said with a sigh, looking up at the dimmed stars peeking through the clouds. He met Mina’s eyes again, a hint of a smile on his lips. “But I hope some of it still remains.”
She tried to hide a smile, but even that gesture was planned and perfected, artifice designed to look genuine, just like her heart. He was right—somewhere through the years, she had forgotten how to be herself without calculating the effect of every word, every look. She had dressed as a northerner to fit in, and now she was dressed as a southerner to stand apart, always with a view at pleasing the king. She had put up with Xenia’s false friendship in order to feel accepted. She was no better than Felix, adapting herself to please whoever was holding the mirror. Mina wondered if she would ever be able to give him something real, to tell him everything about herself and trust him to reach out to her nonetheless.
“Is your father here tonight?” Nicholas asked her, somewhat stiffly.
“No, my lord,” Mina said.
There was a touch of skepticism in his narrowed eyes. “He never seems to accompany you anywhere.”
Mina shifted uncomfortably, thinking of how to answer. Perhaps in this case, the honest answer was the best one. “We’re … not close,” she said with a pained smile.
Nicholas frowned. “And yet he’s the only family you have, isn’t he? That must be lonely for you.” He took a step closer to her and reached out to take her hand, but then he stopped himself. “If you can keep Lynet from climbing any more trees, I’d like to invite you to walk with us tomorrow afternoon by the lake. It’s Lynet’s favorite place.”
“I’d be very honored, my lord,” Mina said, happy to change the subject.
“Are you going back inside?” he said, offering his arm.
Mina considered the offer—she would have loved to see Xenia’s face when she walked into the room on the arm of the king, but then he would leave her to return to his daughter, the best part of Mina’s night already behind her. Better to leave him now, when his memory of her would be of this moment under the juniper tree.
“Thank you, my lord, but I think I’ll retire for the night.”
Did she imagine it, or did his face fall just a little? He wished her a good night, and Mina waited until he was gone before she allowed herself a smile. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the crisp, cold air, and sent a silent thank-you to Lynet for running away and hiding in that tree.
11
LYNET
Lynet kept her head down, but she lifted her eyes to discreetly watch Nadia at work. She had spent much of the last several days in the basement workroom, rummaging through Master Jacob’s journals for answers that she never found, but not once had she or Nadia ever mentioned that shared moment in the tower, when the moonlight had existed only for them.
They were shyer with each other now. Nadia would hand her the journals quickly, before their hands could brush against each other, and Lynet always sat across the table from her, rather than at her side. But the more they took pains not to re-create that night, the more Lynet thought of it, confused by the flurry of nameless, indistinct emotions the memory always stirred.