“The memory garden,” Thessaly answered. “My mother does her best thinking there.”
We emerged into a courtyard that made my impossible bedroom look normal by comparison. Plants grew here, but not from soil—they grew from moments, from emotions given physical form.
“This is deeply unsettling,” Peeble observed in my mind. “I don’t like gardens that remember things.”
A rose bloomed from what felt like first love, its petals the exact color of longing. A gnarled tree twisted upward from what could only be last words, its bark carved with names. Vines climbed the walls from broken promises, thorned and reaching.
“Tell me,” the Duchess said without preamble, “what do you know about the nature of time?”
“Um. It’s linear? Usually?”
“Usually. But not always. Not here.” She gestured to the garden. “The convergence bends time. Makes it flexible. Past, present, future—they bleed together at the edges. You will start feeling like you’ve done things before. Moments will feel familiar even when they shouldn’t.”
“That makes my head hurt.”
“It should. Mortal minds aren’t meant to perceive time as it truly is—a garden where everything grows simultaneously.” She plucked a flower whose petals were translucent as morning frost. “But you’re becoming less mortal with each passing day.”
“What does this have to do with the convergence?”
“Everything. The convergence isn’t just a meeting of Root and Bloom. It’s a temporal nexus. A point where all possibilities exist at once. Where you could make any choice, including ones that haven’t been thought of yet.”
“But you said the choices have all been made before.”
“The obvious ones, yes. Root or Bloom. Both or neither. But what if there’s a fifth option? A sixth? What if the choice itself is the wrongquestion?”
My marks pulsed with warmth, responding to something in her words.
“You know something,” I said. “Something specific.”
“I know that when the convergence comes—still weeks away, if the signs are right—you’ll stand before the Bloom in the Heartspire. I know you’ll be asked to choose. And I know that everyone who matters to you will suffer the consequences of that choice.”
“But why now?” I asked. “Why is the convergence happening at all?”
Merithra’s expression grew grave. “The realm has been tilting toward imbalance for decades. Root growing stronger while Bloom weakens—or perhaps the reverse, depending on who you ask. The scholars have been tracking it, sensing the convergence approach like a storm on the horizon.” Her eyes found mine. “But your arrival accelerated it. You’re not just a symptom of the imbalance—you’re a catalyst. Your transformation is forcing the realm toward a reckoning it might have avoided for another century.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“Fault implies choice. You didn’t choose to fall through. You didn’t choose these marks.” She gestured at my collarbones where the gold light pulsed. “But your presence here, your impossible nature—it’s like dropping a stone into already turbulent water. The ripples become waves.”
“So when the convergence happens, I have to choose something. And that choice affects…?”
“Everyone who matters to you,” Merithra finished. Her eyes held ancient knowledge and something that might have been pity. “Especially him. The failed prince who carved his own destruction into his skin for power. Your choice will either save him or damn him completely.”
“Everyone?” I whispered.
Her eyes found mine, ancient and knowing. “Especially him. The failed prince who carved his own destruction into his skin for power. Your choice will either save him or damn him completely.”
“No pressure then.”
“Pressure is what creates diamonds. Or crushes coal to dust.” She handedme the flower. “Keep this. When the moment comes—and you’ll know the moment—crush it. It might give you just enough time to think of something impossible.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because I’m curious. In all the iterations I half-remember, no one has ever been quite like you. Marked but not chosen. Human but transforming. Connected to the failed prince by a bond that shouldn’t exist.” She smiled. “You’re an anomaly. And anomalies are the only things that can break patterns.”
We were interrupted by commotion from inside—shouting, running feet, the sound of weapons being drawn.
“What—” I started.
