“No,” he said, and for once, his voice was quiet. Honest. “I think you know exactly. I just think you’ve forgotten how to breathe through it.”
Mireth glanced over, spotted me, and immediately screamed “Mama!” like I’d been gone a thousand years. She dashed over, clutching something in her fist.
“Look!” she beamed. “Fenric let me use his sword!”
Behind her, Fenric looked like a man who had just been thoroughly defeated by a six-year-old tyrant.
“He gave you a stick,” I said.
“It’s a training blade,” Mireth corrected.
Darian laughed, hands on hips. “Gods save us all.”
The garden thrummed.
A pressure beneath the soil, a hum in the stone. I could feel it in the soles of my feet. In my blood.
As though the world was whispering.
I tilted my head. Stillness blanketed the air, but under it—under everything—was that low, vibrating pull.
“What is that?” I murmured.
Darian glanced over, blinking like I’d just asked him if the sky was real. “What’s what?”
I took a step forward, toward the tree where Fenric sat cross-legged beside Eryx, both of them threading flower stems into loops. “That sound. That hum. You don’t hear it?”
He frowned. “I mean, the bees are pretty aggressive this time of year.”
“Not bees. The world. It’s like…” My voice trailed off, caught on something I couldn’t name. “It’s like the garden’s alive. Breathing.”
Darian shrugged. “Could just be the crossing messing with your senses. Fae and humans don’t process the world the same, especially not right away.”
I listened for another heartbeat, the sound pressed against my awareness.
And gods help me, I wanted to answer it.
My lips parted before I could think, a wordless note building in my throat. The melody wanted to spill out of me, wanted to join whatever song the garden was humming beneath its breath.
But then Mireth came tearing across the grass like war incarnate in a dress.
“Mama!” she cried, nearly tripping over her own feet. “Fenric said he would fly me if you said it’s okay. Can I, can I, please?”
“He said what?—?”
Fenric approached, already looking apologetic, his hands held slightly out like a man preparing for arrest.
“I didn’t mean to promise,” he said, his voice apologetic. “Only that I could, if you approved. I wouldn’t take her without your permission.”
My eyes narrowed. “How high?”
His lips twitched, but he smothered the amusement instantly. “No higher than the garden walls. I swear it.”
Mireth clutched my hand. “I’ll be safe. Please?”
I stared at Fenric, who stood straight and still, a perfect portrait of confidence.
“I swear on my wings,” he added.
