Elswyth bristled at the name. She’d asked the staff to call her Elswyth, but they still used her formal title.
She turned back to Mrs. Rose. “I never said anything about cakes.”
“Of course not. Those are for me.”
Elswyth smiled. Mrs. Rose had taken quickly to being her headof staff in the year since they’d left London. It helped, of course, that Elswyth was now one of the richest women in England.
“You know, you should really wait until the staff isn’t around to practice walking. He’s supposed to be three months old.”
Mrs. Rose scoffed. “He’s advanced for his age. A prodigy!” She nuzzled his head, then wrinkled her nose. “A prodigy who needs a changing.” Then she set off down the hall, calling for servants.
Elswyth put her gloves on the rack and then went up the stairs. She’d taken her rooms in the wing where her mother’s chambers used to be. Gall’s funds had financed the reconstruction of the house, even her mother’s old greenhouse, where Elswyth had established her own small laboratory.
Her father waited in his study, drinking a steaming mug of tea. He looked more hale than he had in the previous months. The warping on his face was gone, and she’d excised most of the growths on his body. A tube snaked from his arm to a contraption sitting on a rack nearby. Amber fluid flowed from the device and into his veins. He was healthier, thanks to her treatments, but the prolonged sickness had taken its toll. Gray consumed his thinning hair, and small red veins showed in his nose. But in the absence of drink—and the financial stress on their house—he seemed rested somehow. Perhaps knowing the truth about Persephone contributed to this, as well.
The curtains to the study were open, and sunlight poured through. When he turned the pages of the book in his lap, dust swam through the air.
“Are you finished?” Elswyth said, moving into the room. She took a seat across from him in a beam of sunlight. It filled her, restoring her spirits after the long day. Not that she needed the vitæ anymore—the amberheart provided a seemingly unlimitedsupply, although she knew that was not possible. It seemed to her that the vitæ within was condensed somehow, made so solid it had become stone. She never felt tired after using floromancy now, never fainted or starved herself. Having so much power was intoxicating.
The only downside were the dreams. She couldn’t be sure that they were connected, and yet the strange dreams only occurred when she wore the stone to sleep. Sometimes, she saw Persephone, trapped in her tree. Sometimes, she saw a giant made from shifting dark leaves with antlers like branches casting long shadows over the earth. But most of the time she saw Silas, trapped in amber like an insect, his eyes darting back and forth, pleading with her to let him out. Those dreams troubled her the most.
She had thought… Well, she had briefly considered the possibility that Silas might not be dead. She did not see him die, after all, although he was surely gravely injured when the ceiling collapsed. And his body had not been recovered in the wreckage. It was silly, she knew. Perhaps wishful thinking, or perhaps a delusion driven by guilt. Silas had known about Persephone. He had kept that knowledge from her, and she would never forgive him. But as time had passed, she began to accept that Silas had just been another insect trapped in Gall’s web. He had loved someone and had been willing to do anything to get her back. Was that so different from what Elswyth was willing to do for Persephone?
Silas must be dead. And yet… something whispered to her that he might have somehow survived. Gall had displayed impossible feats of floromancy, thanks to the amberheart. And Silas had worn the amberheart often… Was there some way he’d been able to heal himself? Elswyth again confronted the fact that she did not understand what was possible or impossible anymore. Floromancyhad proven time and time again that it had ways of hiding its secrets.
Her father lifted the book in his hands. “I’m very nearly finished. I must admit, Elswyth, when you told me you were writing a book, I imagined something more… exciting.”
Elswyth smiled. Her lady’s maid entered, bringing her tea. She thanked her, taking her cup and picking at a plate of cucumber sandwiches. “You know I could only ever write the truth.”
Her father closed the book with a snap and then handed it over to her. She took it, admiring the cover, with its golden words embossed over a field of green leaves.Applications of Floromancy in the Age of Industry, by Lady Elswyth Gall, née Elderwood.
She’d written the book over the nine months she’d spent locked away, pretending to bear her “son.” Dr. Gall’s estates—which she’d quickly sold—contained additional laboratories and journals, full of puzzling theories. She’d studied them extensively, adding her own research on the living engine, and that had formed the backbone for the book. Her debut was making its rounds within academia, and preliminary reviews were reluctantly positive—she was still a woman, after all. Now, at least, they had to accept that she was a brilliant one. She’d already been invited to continue her research at both Cambridge and Oxford.
“Yes, but… I suppose it was not the truth I expected.”
“We’ve been over this before,” Elswyth said.
“And you know my stance,” he said.
Elswyth sighed. “I feel the same. But I will not expose Gall or the queen.”
“Though they deserve it,” her father said. He looked at a portrait of Persephone on the far wall.
“Perhaps,” Elswyth said. She thought of Dr. Gall at the end ofhis life—how his voice had changed, how the ivy had crawled beneath his skin, how he’d spoken about the amberheart. She couldn’t shake the feeling that, like everyone else, Gall was influenced by forces beyond his understanding. Still, she had no proof of this. Only a feeling. A whisper, somewhere in the back of her mind.
“Regardless, to expose Gall would be to put myself in danger, and his alleged son. And to accuse the queen of involvement would be suicide for all of us. I will not endanger Percy.”
“The boy is already in danger. For Eden’s sake, Elswyth, she’s already sent one assassin after you. What’s to stop her from sending another? Percy will always be in danger because of who his father is. Queen Viscaria will not suffer a bastard to live if it will muddy the lines of succession. The stability of the empire depends on it, and her grandson’s wife has just given birth to a girl.”
Elswyth’s lips pressed to a line. Prince Oliver had indeed married Venus Forscythe. She gave birth to a daughter quite soon afterward. Some saidtoosoon. The baby was a curious sight, with Venus’s golden hair, deep olive skin, and dark amber eyes.
“As far as Viscaria knows, the baby died with Persephone. There is no royal bastard, only Percival Gall, Oleander’s son and rightful heir. Conceived on our wedding night, before the tragic fire at the Royal Gardens took my husband.” Elswyth wasn’t sure of that, of course. It was plausible, perhaps, but unlikely that she had conceived a child with only a night spent with her husband.
Her father shuddered. “Doesn’t it bother you? Carrying that monster’s name?”
“I’ll wear it if I have to, to keep up appearances. But I’ll always be an Elderwood inside.”
Her father smiled—an expression that was becoming less rare as he healed.
