Fox mulls this over for a moment, then says, ‘Just a feeling. My instincts served me well. But don’t you owe it to yourself to find out why? Don’t you think it’s fate?’
Grandmother’s words come back to me.
Fate has many faces, my darling one. Make sure you look them all in the eye.
I hardly dare breathe as I let Fox slip the golden chain back over my head.
The darkness inside my chambers has long since dissipated, leaving no trace of Elva’s newfound abilities behind. Golden roses still lie strewn across the floor. Slowly, I crouch down and pick one up. The petals are soft like velvet, the thorns glittering in the early-morning light. It’s beautiful. Perfect, really. I hate it.
A strange sort of calm descends over me. I tug on a blue cord by the door, then gather up every rose scattered around my feet. Next I move over to the countless overflowing vases, pulling out stem after stem until my arms are full of them.
No more. No more will I think of Haldyn Castellion as anything other than the Crown Prince or the future emperor. An acquaintance, an ally, perhaps, but that’s all.
There’s a knock at the door. The serf gawps at me, his terrified expression tinged with confusion as I hand him the gigantic bundle of golden roses.
‘Please take these to the prince’s rooms,’ I tell him. ‘Feel free to just leave them on the floor. Or alternatively, dumping them on his bed would be a nice touch. And when he returns, tell him … tell him that Blaze sends her regards.’
‘But – but my lady –’
‘Thank you,’ I say, and shut the door.
I sleep all morning. Flint and Spinner come to see me around midday, but I just pull the sheet over my head.
‘I was right to be wary about Hal’s intentions,’ murmurs Flint. ‘He must have known about this betrothal for months. What was hethinking?’
‘Poor thing,’ I hear my chaperone whisper. ‘She must be heartbroken.’
But as I set off for Queen Hydra’s rooms sometime later, I realize that what I actually feel is sort of …good. Like I’ve shed one skin and donned another, this one thicker, more difficult to bruise.
The queen is sitting waiting for me at the long golden table.
‘Ah, Blaze,’ she says, standing up as I curtsy low in greeting. ‘Tea?’ She pours me a cup, stirring in a spoonful of honey.‘Now, what is it that you would prefer to focus on today? Rain perhaps? Waves? Ice?’ She smiles. ‘Portals?’
An hour later I’m perched on the end of the table holding the teacup I’ve just lifted out of the small pool shimmering in front of me. Queen Hydra had sent the cup down the waterway from the second portal at her end, and now she wants me to try to send it back.
‘Concentrate, child. Name the place you want the object to go. Hold that image in your head. Picture it with your mind’s eye.’
‘But what if it gets lost?’ I ask.
‘Then I’m afraid you would owe His Imperial Majesty one silver teacup.’
I take a breath, visualize the destination, will the cup to go there with every fibre of my being, and drop it into the pool before me. There’s a prolonged, painful pause. Then the queen reaches into the pool in front of her and pulls it out.
She beams. ‘Very good.’
Queen Hydra gets rid of the second portal with a wave of her hand and tells me to try to send the cup to any part of the room I choose. I do as she says, gasping in astonishment as it appears again and again, by the window, next to the door, through a section of the wall. Afterwards she has me attempt something different.
‘Portals can prove excellent methods of concealment. One can use a portal to send an object to a destination, but also have it remain there, hidden. This time you don’t want the cup to pass through the waterway, but for it to remaininsidethe waterway, accessible only to someone who knows exactly where to find it. Let us start off simple. Why don’tyou try hiding the cup here, in the portal I have drawn upon this table?’
I nod, trying to clear my mind.
The teacup hits the water with a small splash and sinks slowly beneath the surface. Closing my eyes, I will the cup to remain there, tucked away inside this secret corner of the waterway, out of sight but always within my reach.
An image swims across my vision. I see a pool – it’s the training pool in the Keep. And I’m falling into it, fallingthroughit, landing in a small golden room on the other side. When I look up, the ceiling is made entirely from water, suspended above me like glass.
My eyes fly open.
The pool.
