I felt the statues’ quiet encouragement on me throughout the day as I managed Brelliard and his crew through breaking up the newly exposed soil with repurposed gravel rakes, building lattice walls to section off the garden from the rest of the terrace and house, and constructing tiered planters for rare fruits, vegetables, and—if I could figure out a way to consult with the fae healer before tomorrow night—maybe a few medicinal herbs.
After breaking for a midday meal of vegetable pies, courtesy of the castle’s Mountain Goat day staff, we sowed the seeds, sprouts, and rootballs I’d spent all morning magicking.
My unexpected crew ended up planting not just the promised row of luntunia bushes but two extra beds bursting with moonlilies, starpetals, and the first green shoots of whispervine to crawl up the goats’ new latticework.
If I had full-strength Earth Fae power, the entire garden would’ve bloomed in less than a tick of the suns. Instead, I finally got firsthand understanding of how and why my father had developed such a bad back hump.
To grow the garden with my seriously diluted magic, I had to kneel over every single mound, press my hands into the soil, and whisper—willing each seed, rootball, and sprout togrow, please.
By the time I finished, my spine throbbed, my fingers were cramped, and the suns had moved to the opposite side of thecastle, which apparently triggered the fae in the garden to uncast early from stone sleep.
As I’d hoped, they were thrilled to see the garden’s progress with their own glowing eyes.
But that joy evaporated quickly when I announced I had to return to their king’s sleeping chambers before the suns fully set. (That note said I would be punished if I wasn’t there when he woke up—not that I couldn’t leave his room)
“I, too, would like to help make nature jewelry,” declared Rinthiah, the king’s personal door servant.
I’d learned over the course of the day that her name didn’t actually includeDoor. That was just her castle role title. Since I wouldn’t want to be calledHandmaiden Sallie Rose, I dropped their servant titles quickly.
As much as I appreciated Rinthiah, since she was the one who gave me something to wear and made sure I didn’t sleep on bare stone last night, I had to set the record straight.
“I promise you, gardening’s not as fun as it looks. You’re really not missing out.”
“The Eryx Oblation lies!” Brelliard bellows, his bray echoing through the crowd of servant fae. “Never have I known peace like this day, with my hooves in the dirt and the suns on my horns!”
“I solved a riddle that’s plagued me for months!” another goat brays.
And just in case that wasn’t enough to convince the castle staff that I was full of compost: “I only worked a few ticks after midday,” says the female goat who brought out the vegetable pies, “but I invented three new recipes. It did not even feel like toil.”
“Did anyone else forgive a dead relative while planting?” asks a goat behind me.
“Yes! I’m writing the male who broke our engagement a letter of repentance,” another goat answers.
“I, too, have a tale of forgiveness,” says Jaaliah, who introduced herself at the top of the work day as Brelliard’s wife. “Brell and I were quite cross with each other this morn when he insisted I come garden, but now we plan to make merry after last meal.”
To punctuate this declaration, Jaaliah hooks her single left horn under the first of Brelliard’s three right ones.
“In truth, I’ve never felt so randy after a full day of work!” Brelliard adds. So, so unhelpfully.
Then Nettling, the white goat with the blue beard who’d helped Brelliard drive the carriage that brought me here steps forward and says in the most reverent of tones, “I’m sure I heard my mother’s voice. She said she was well, despite her too-soon death from the fainting sickness.”
A sympathetic murmur ripples through the Stone Fae… followed by a collective glare in my direction.
“I, too, would like to commune with the voice of my dead mother,” says Peth, another door servant.
“My mind is so oft a race with stress,” grumbles Lyxnia. “A few hours of peace would be welcome.”
“My partner and I have not had sex in nearly a solar!” Rinthiah practically wails.
I begin backing toward the glass doors of the great hall.
“Honestly, I’dloveto night garden—I really would, but I wouldn’t even be able to see enough to instruct you. Darn these inferior, weak human eyes!” I make a big show of shaking my fist at my fate of being born without my own set of glowing, see-in-the-dark orbs. “Anyway, we can talk more tomorrow night—aka, the last time you’ll see me before I’m ritually sacrificed to your moon god. Until then, I really should get back before?—”
Everyone around me suddenly drops to their knees.
And I sigh. “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”
“Turn around, princess,” that smoke-and-glass voice commands before a single fae or goat can answer.
