She shrugged. I couldn’t tell whether the faint scarlet bloom across her cheeks belonged to a blush or the sunset. “The truth. What was the first thing you thought when you saw me?”
When I first saw her, I remembered how the sky crouched low over the world, its black belly swollen on thunderstorms and stars. And when I saw her dancing, I remembered the edge of a cloud sliding across her neck. I remembered the ghost-pale cut of its silhouette before it disappeared beneath the fall of her hair.
“I thought you looked like edges and thunderstorms.”
“Should I be flattered?”
“Be anything you want. But I would not have you any other way.”
The sky leaned a little further to the call of night. The red of her skin faded to a dull plum. That brilliant incandescence of the flame-filled sky softened. She looked away and when she looked back, something like mischief sparked in her eyes.
“I was thinking of you.”
“How flattering.”
“I was thinking of your stubborn desire to court me despite inevitable rejection.”
“Less flattering.”
“But mostly I was thinking of how I don’t know you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I’m glad you asked.”
With a small wave of her hand, a richly patterned rug sprawled across the grove. Silk pillows landed with soft thumps onto the covering. The black and white tiles of ashatranjboard caught the light and small onyx and alabaster figurines hopped into their respective places.
She seated herself at one end of the game and gestured for me to sit. “For every move I make, you must answer a question.”
Before she could reach for a piece, I flicked my wrist and a wave of shadows rose out of the ground, swallowing up the board. “If youwant to know me, then I want to know you too. We are equals. If you may ask a question, so may I.”
She rolled her eyes. “Must you be so dramatic?”
“Is that your first question?”
“Youcouldanswer out of the kindness of your heart.”
“I’m not known for kindness.”
She laughed. “Then here is my question. How did you make my garden?”
I liked the way she called the garden hers. “How did you know I made it?”
“My question. Not yours.”
“I took whatever rain slicked each of those flowers and froze the impressions to look like glass. I took every color from dusk and dawn and midnight. I poured hope in every flower, though I must confess that the hope originally belonged to a gardener of an ancient kingdom. He was in love with the queen who spoke to him only three times in his whole life. And yet he hoped that she would know that each bloom and their beauty was for her alone. His hope never wavered,” I said. “That is why this garden of yours will never break.”
Her lips formed a soft O, and she glanced back at the garden as if seeing it with new eyes. “A rather huge undertaking for someone who told you they won’t have you.”
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” she said fiercely.
“Then I don’t consider it an undertaking at all. Now. My turn. What do you think of when you dance night into the world?”
She kept her eyes on the board, evaluating her next move. “I could refuse to answer since you already asked a question.”
“Youcouldanswer out of the kindness of your heart.”
