“Do you promise to remember me? I’ll be back one day. One day soon.”
They nodded.
“Now go back to your dreams,” she said, and closed the door.
Marigold had one more task to complete before she left. She visited her husband, Topaz’s room, and opened the door with her key. Topaz was away on a mission to do with an opposing kingdom, so she sat down at his empty desk, availed herself of some of his paper, and wrote a letter to him right there. She already had the words—they simply poured out of her, for hadn’t she spent the last couple of years composing them? Indeed, she knew exactly what she wanted to say, and when she signed her name, she felt herself becoming visible. “Marigold.” The word seemed solid and real.
She sealed the envelope and put it in his drawer, and then she began to draft another letter, this one addressed to a woman named Helena.
Marigold knew that Topaz was in love with Helena, the palace seamstress and water kingdom advisor. Marigold wanted to give Helena her blessing, and to ask that, in the event that she did marry King Topaz, she take special care with Marigold’s children, Knightley and Nestor.
Marigold grew more steadfast in her resolution to leave, as she realized that her departure would benefit others immediately. Helena and Topaz could take their relationship out of the shadows when she was gone.
In both letters, Marigold made sure to use the language necessary for the law to declare their marriage void. She was abandoning Topaz, in effect, and though she wanted, rather desperately, to say that she planned to return to see her children, she couldn’t do so, or else the marriage would hold. She lied and said that she had come down with a terminal illness, and planned to go south to the no-man’s land near the sea to die alone. But that was a false trail, of course. And she was fairly certain Topaz would understand her true meaning.
She tried to hint at her return. She wrote, to both Helena and Topaz, that she would love Knightley and Nestor forever, and that she would send communications to them from above. This last lie made her sick, but she carried it out nonetheless.
With the letters done, Marigold stalked back to her room and descended the knotted rope to the palace lawn. She mounted her steed and ran north.
She had no idea where she was going.
Chapter Two
Finn
In the morning, Finn chopped wood, in case of any early spring cold snaps. He milked the cows and tilled the earth and planted asparagus—all before he noticed the beautiful woman sleeping underneath the flowering willow tree on his property.
Finn walked toward her. She had a shimmering purple cloak on over her head, and chestnut hair cascading down her back. Finn opened and closed his eyes several times, so as to be sure he wasn’t dreaming.
Where had she come from?
He was enchanted, how to stop the enchantment? He couldn’t just stand around forever—he had work to do.
He nudged the woman with his foot.
She snapped awake and looked at him quizzically.
“Yes?” she said, rubbing her forehead. “Can I help you?”
Finn saw her dazzling blue eyes, her cherry lips.
“Um,” he said. “I could ask you the same question. You’re on my property.”
“Property?” She looked around her.
“I could have sworn I was in the middle of a forest,” she said.
“Why…would you be sleeping in the middle of a forest?” Finn asked. “Are you lost?”
“No,” she said sharply. “You can only be lost if you are going somewhere. I have no destination, and no home, so I can’t be lost.”
“That’s a fancy argument. Did you have a nice sleep?” he asked, extending his hand to help her up. “What’s your name?”
“Yes, actually, I did have a good sleep,” Marigold said. “It was the best I’ve had in years. Feels like I’ve slept for days. I’m Marigold.”
“Finn. Didn’t it rain last night? There was a storm.”
Marigold shook her head.
