“And if the king sends us away without dinner, I’ll set him on fire, too.”
Hannah giggled at the ridiculous plan, which made Evelyn laugh.
“My girls! There you are,” the new king called, walking toward them. “What are you cackling about?”
Their father’s bushy red beard was the same coppery shade as Hannah’s and Rowan’s hair. Evelyn’s darker red curls didn’t quite match the rest of her family.
“Nothing, Father!” Hannah said brightly.
“Are we there yet?” Evelyn whined.
“Very nearly,” the king answered, unfazed by his youngest daughter’s tone.
How is this man still cheerful after three days on a ship?
“Come over here, ladies.Princesses, I should say!” King Tristan ushered them to the bow of the ship. “Now, look to the southwest.”
“Oh!” Hannah squealed.
Evelyn couldn’t see anything that would justify her sister’s excitement. There was water and the distant coastline, just like they had seen for days. “What are we supposed to be looking at?”
Hannah pointed emphatically. “That!”
Based on her family’s expressions, there should be a floating circus in the ship’s direct path. “I don’t see anything.”
“You can’t see the flowers?” her father asked.
“Um, no? We’re too far out on the water. No one could spot flowers from here.”
“Evelyn!” Hannah snapped. “The flowers in the sky!”
Evelyn had flashbacks from her childhood of an increasingly frustrated tutor losing patience as she incorrectly solved one math equation after another.
“Do you mean clouds shaped like flowers?” she asked, desperate to get an answer right eventually.
Her father frowned. “We’re approaching the southern tip of the continent. Can you see Gryon’s palace at the very edge of the coastline?”
Evelyn searched with more confidence. There was a tall structure just off the beach. “Yes.”
I thought we were talking about flowers?
“Above the palace,” the king explained, “reaching a thousand feet into the air, is a collection of flowering vines all woven together around a stem covered in thorns. At the very top of the stem is a giant red rose.”
A rose wrapped in vines was the symbol of Gryon. Evelyn could picture the image but could not see it in front of her.
“It’s an illusion, of course,” the king continued. “You know the magic of fae in Gryon is focused on manipulating the senses,and visual illusions are their favorites. Projecting an image of their emblem over the palace is?—”
“So amazing!” Hannah said, still staring at the rose.
“Super dramatic?” Evelyn countered. “But why can’t I see it?”
“I’m not sure, sweetheart,” her father replied. “Perhaps you’re too smart to be tricked by Perceptual magic.”
That doesnotmake me feel better. I don’t want to be the only one in an entire kingdom who can’t experience Gryon’s illusions.
Evelyn managed to make herself appear more like a damsel rescued from pirates rather than a deep-sea creature pulled to the surface for scientific inquiry. Hannah, no longer seasick, was even more radiant than before. Most people couldn’t immediately identify them as sisters. Hannah was slender, whereas Evelyn was curvy. Hannah’s straight copper hair would never tangle, unlike Evelyn’s dark red curls. They were both fairly pale, which was unavoidable in their northern kingdom. Hannah at least had freckles across her nose and cheeks, as did their older brother. Rowan resembled their father, minus the beard, and Hannah was practically identical to their mother. If Evelyn’s hair weren’t red, she might have asked about being adopted. But that question wouldn’t go over well, considering her mother died in childbirth with Evelyn.
The sisters wore purple gowns, Hannah in lavender and Evelyn in plum, with intricate designs of crystals on the bodices. Even their father had changed into finer clothing and added some jewels he’d inherited with the throne.
