The treason stuff is a dark, ominous cloud on the horizon, but it is not obscuring the sun yet. So I can ignore it. Ignore it and bask in the light.
Selwyn gently runs a finger along one of the plant's leaves. His billowing shirtsleeves are rolled up exposing his wonderful forearms.
“This one is thirsty,” he says.
For a moment, my heart freezes as I think he is talking about me. Then good sense prevails, and I realise he is talking about his plant.
“How can you tell?” I splutter as I pull myself together.
If this type of plant doesn’t grow in the fey realm, how is he familiar enough with it to understand what it needs?
Selwyn’s eyes light up. This really is a subject that delights him. He seems completely different in here. Not at all shut off and cold. In here, he is not a prince. In here, he is himself.
And he is far softer than I ever could have imagined. I like it. I like him like this. Combined with the naked forearms, and here I am on the verge of getting flustered.
He picks up my hand and places it on the warm terracotta pot.
“What can you feel?”
I feel achingly aware that he just touched me and made my skin tingle, but I know he doesn’t mean that. He wants me to pay attention to the pot and how it feels under my palm.
I don’t think he means physically. He is talking about magic, and while I’m incapable of wielding my magic, I can sense things with it.
It has been a while since Selwyn emptied me. Magic is swirling within me once more and heightening all of my senses.
And now I’m curious enough to let go of my thirsty, inappropriate thoughts and actually focus on what he is trying to teach me.
“Reach for her life force. Listen to it. What does it tell you?”
Okay. Concentrate. All livings things are imbued with a little magic. Some scholars argue that magic is merely concentrated life. But that is all far above my level of education. All I know is that life force is easy to sense. A plant feels different from a chair. However, I’m not sure I can sense anything more detailed than that.
Selwyn fixes me with a keen and excited look. My heart flutters. Okay, there is no harm in trying. It clearly means a lot to him.
I take a steadying breath, then Ilistenwith the part of me that is aware of magic.
The plant’s life force sparkles. Golden and vibrant. Far calmer than anything truly magical, a gentle aura instead of a burning flame of power.
The thrum of the plant’s essence tingles now that I am paying attention to it. And woven into it is a note of yearning, a melody of waiting for rain.
I gasp and pull back my hand in surprise. I look up at Selwyn in astonishment. It worked, it really worked, and it was so easy.
His grin is enormous. “You can hear her?”
I nod, more than a little dumbfounded. My gaze dances around the hundreds of plants dotted around the room.
“They can all communicate?”
Selwyn’s grin grows even wider. “Yes.”
“Can you teach me how to listen to them all?”
“I just did,” he says. “Now all you need to do is practice.”
Oh my stars. Plants talk? And all I need to do is stop and listen? What a miraculous, marvellous thing. Life is never going to be the same again.
I’m going to spend so much time in the gardens now. I can’t wait to listen to everything. I wonder if trees sound different to flowers?
I beam at Selwyn and I open my mouth to say something, but Loki thumps her tail against the floorboards, wagging lazily from where she is stretched out on her side on the floor. Her ears are twitching toward the door, and just as I look at it, it opens.
