He gestured indifferently. “You talked about a flower shop once. It’s in Lawrence.”
Josie bit her lip. “I did?”
“Yes,” he said. “Barrow Rose,” he said. “I’m familiar with it. There’s another location in the Harbor, but a woman I knew once placed her orders in Lawrence. I’ve been a time or two for her to pick things up. It’s not far from the manor. In fact, I could have crossed your path before. Though I do think I would remember that.”
Josie frowned, and I cleared my throat at the idea of women around my cousin. “Anyway, Áire was years ago. Hellveig was alive,” I said. “She received some honor from the school.”
“Hellveig,” Willoughby muttered. “Witch. Served her right what happened,” he said.
For a moment, I didn’t speak. He added a few more of her character flaws into the banter, explaining to his Jocelyn just how horrible she had been, but without the deeper details—the details he could never know, and for some undetermined reason, the whole thing felt intrusive. It bothered me to the core.Willoughby hadn’t known my governess, not like I had. He’d met her once or twice. His information, while shallowly accurate, could have only been curated from word of mouth, and I-
“Svana?” Josie whispered.
She looked at my hands; my knuckles were white from how tightly I held my reins. I made them relax.
“It was a terrible accident,” I reminded her. “I’m afraid she fell down the stairs.”
Willoughby said, “Or a rightfully vulgar death for such a vulgar woman. Stairs are not a pleasant means. I wonder if she thought about her wrongs on the way down.”
“I don’t think she thought of anything; it was an accident,” I said.
Josie nodded, determinedly, and she reinforced my statement, louder than I had given it. “A terrible accident. I’ve heard that story. She slipped on the landing, I think; Elías found her.”
With that, her knight agreed. “You’re right. It's unbecoming to speak so ill of the departed. I apologize, Your Highness, Miss Jocelyn. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I wasn’t bothered,” Cyrus told him.
“I didn’t apologize to you,”he whispered.
The canopy of flowers above us ended with the last of the grove, and without their shroud, the sun beat down onto my cheeks. I closed my eyes to take the moment to cleanse myself of Miss Hellveig, but Isaac had other plans. Her head whipped suddenly. Yet, before she could make a scene of it, Cyrus’ fist closed over mine, and he pulled the lead back sharply. Ice stopped.
“Off,” he told me.
“Are youmad?”I asked. “She made a little fuss, and you-” She moved again. I reached forward to brush her hair, but that made it worse. “She’s fine.”
Edith whinnied, and then Ice. Then Cyrus frowned.
“This is as good a spot as any,” he told Ser Willoughby, who slowed Josie and Tails.
Cyrus’s eyes were stern.
I scoffed. “If you expect me just to stop every time she gets a little uncomfortable, how will we break her?” I asked. “You told me the process, and while I remember maybe half of it, I’m certain discomfort was a part of it all.”
He waited, eyes traveling to my cousin, who’d appeared at my side to help me down. I made a big deal about relinquishing the reins to the sword as I left Ice’s back, butnotwith the help of Ser Willoughby.I dismounted all on my own, and while I did stumble when I met the dirt, and promptly twisted my ankle, I was able to right myself by spite.
I fell toward Josie as she worked to lay our blanket. Then we sat.
She leaned in. “Are you alright?”
“Quite,” I said.
She smiled.“Mr. Evergreen is being protective. That’s good.”
“Annoying, actually,” I said.
She laughed. The boys bound the horses and came to be with us.
“Does Svana not look beautiful today?” she asked my Sword.
