“Brave of you to call the High Warden a sore loser.”
“Brave of you to suggest you’d let me win.”
She is fiery.
I like it.
This small, fragile persona, it only runs so deep.
I wonder what is underneath it all.
“Then we’ll settle it tomorrow,” I say, earning me a warm smile. “You should sleep, Hawthorne.”
Nodding, she rises from the chair, moving to her door. She presses a hand against it before slipping in and giving me a small smile.
“Good night, Hawthorne,”
“Good night, Warden.”
Chapter 9
Elodie
By the time I reach the glasshouse the next morning, mist still blankets the glass domes, and the doors are unlocked, just as I expect them to be. The space is still a little worse for wear, but it’s certainly an improvement from what it was yesterday. The air is still damp, condensation coating the glass walls. There is less of a rotting smell, more damp earth now. I don’t know how long I’ll be here.
That thought still surfaces.
Sharp and unwelcome, but it doesn’t cause the same level of panic as it did before. I have a way home now.
I just need to focus and get through this.
If I were back home now, I’d likely have just grabbed my morning coffee from the same place I went to every morning. God, what I’d give to have a flask of coffee here right now.
Do they have coffee here?
Shaking my head, I try to focus on what I need to do. If I let the panic crush me, I won’t make it through.
Rolling up my sleeves, I tie back my hair into a loose bun. I’ve swept the broken pots and dead leaves away so I can clearly see the floor now, brick intertwined with stone. I sweep my hand across the freshly cleaned worktable, taking a deep breath. The little mushroom greets me again, this time on the workbench as it nibbles on a pile of dead leaves I left on the top. I smile over at it, laughing at the way its little body sits on the wooden worktop.
“You don’t happen to know exactly how to grow this special plant, do you?” I ask. Of course, no response, only a few blinks with its eyes before returning to its breakfast. I shake my head.
“Worth a try.”
Paper rustles beneath my hands as I sort through the scattered notebooks and loose sheets, but my thoughts drift elsewhere. To last night. To the chessboard between us. A quiet breath escapes me. The way he sat opposite, steady and unreadable. His eyes tracking the board, then lifting, briefly, deliberately, to my hands whenever I made a move. He never hurried. Never hesitated. After the first loss, he didn’t dismiss me. He simply adjusted and played harder.
Focus, Elodie.
The notes are all stacked neatly now. Attempting to sort them into some kind of order, I’ve used handwriting to pair pages together. I read over the notes, seeing one word appear again and again.
Widowsbloom.
I frown, pulling one page closer. The writing appears in a dozen different hands. Some underlined it, others circled. Sketches accompany it.
The flower is beautiful.
A tall, slender stem paired with leaves set opposite each other, the flower resembles a milkweed. Clusters of blooms rather than a single flower, but the colour is stunning: a pale, almost washed-out purple inked darker in the bloom's heart, a violet mixed with lavender. It should be familiar.
It almost is.
