Chapter eleven
Valenna
Once safe inside her room, Valenna shut the curtains and slumped into a pool of silk and organza on the floor.
Stupid bloody Evander. Why couldn’t she just hate him like a woman with a little blasted pride?
She watched helplessly as purple aconite bled across the floor, followed by blue foxglove and lacy white hemlock. Poison ivy climbed the walls; mushrooms sprouted from the corners, their caps luminous, red as blood.
“Stop it, Valenna, you idiot,” she hissed at herself, panic pressing against her ribs. “Pull yourself together!”
She cursed, her anger building as the plants grew to her waist, climbed the wallpaper. Thunder rumbled in the armoire (what on earth was it doing in there?).
She was so frantic, she didn’t hear the knock at the door or the voice calling her name. She tore brambles from her arms, leaving long scratches. Her dress shredded, her palms stung, her arms bled, and as she let out a sobbing scream, someone slammed against the door, and it burst open.
Valenna whirled around. In the doorway stood Evander, clutching the latch in his fist like he might fall over if he let it go. Valenna froze—bleeding, disheveled, tangled in her own vines.
“What are you doing in here?” Valenna shouted, her shame blooming into fury. “This is my room! Get out!”
Evander raked his eyes over her body, then the foliage choking the room, and his expression changed as though he’d solved a puzzling math equation. “Is this magic … yours?” he asked.
“Go away!”
He shut the door and strode toward her. She shrank from him, tugging against the clawing thorns.
“Valenna, stop, you’re hurting yourself."
“Go away!”
“You’re bleeding!”
“GO AWAY, VANDER!”
He paused, his eyes tracking the blood dripping off her fingers. She wrestled with the thorns again, trying in vain to wrench her arms free.
“Stop it, Val,” Evander cried, crossing the space between them and grabbing her elbows. “Stop!”
“Leave me alone!”
“Please!”
His voice was ragged with horror, and she stiffened, trying to gauge his reaction.
Was he going to shout at her? Tell her she was disgusting and he hated her, and he couldn’t believe she’d ever tricked him into loving her? Would he descend the stairs and disappear? Would he collapse from the shock?
But he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he took a pen knife from his pocket and calmly cut the vines binding her. She’d seen him like this before—gathering his emotions like laundry and then folding them away, each in its designated drawer.
“There,” he said once her arms were free.“Now I can think.” He led her to the vanity, then indicated the chair. She sat, her heart in her throat as he took off his glasses and let out a long, slow breath.
“Is your head …” she began, but he cut her off.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” she asked stupidly.
He thrust out his open hand, indicating the poisonous garden spreading across the floor and up the walls.
“Probably for the same reason you never told me that you know who Raska is.”
