Sure enough, the courtyard was full of rose bushes. Aden slowly walked around them, smelling the different scents and attempting to find one that smelled like his.
Every breath he inhaled buoyed his spirits. He had never noticed that the color of the flower affected the way it smelled, nor the way the sunlight played over the mountaintops.
Forgetting his strange new existence, he simply marveled at the beauty around him.
Chapter 13
“What have I done?” Isa asked herself as she watched Cam and Macklin walk down the road toward the canyon. They each carried a large rucksack on their back, and Macklin had insisted they divide the weight evenly. Somehow, though, Cam’s pack looked significantly larger. Maybe it just seemed that way since Macklin was so much taller.
Isa was glad Macklin had volunteered to go for help. She realized—with a pang of guilt brought on by his selflessness—that she would not miss his presence.
She turned back to the villa. Sleep or no sleep, it was time to look for the Floutast.
A movement from the rose garden caught her eye.
Bending over the bushes, inhaling the scent of each rose with all the delicacy of an artist, was the beast.
After smelling a particularly large red bloom, he snapped the stem to pluck it from the bush. The stem did not break completely, though, and he struggled for a few moments to twist it free.
Confused and intrigued, Isa took a step toward him.
He must have heard her, as he looked up instantly. He was some ways away, but his eyes squinted as he stared at her.
She had caught him staring at her earlier today while they’d been walking back from the canyon. Annoyed, she left him to his roses and made her way to the library.
The library room felt older than the mountain villa itself. The windows were positioned high up the stone wall to allow for every possible fingerbreadth of shelving space. And every possible space was, in fact, used for shelving.
The tall stacks of books and scrolls were delicately lit by the slabs of morning light coming through the tall slit windows. Even though no one had been in this room for nearly a year, dust constantly swirled in the pools of light.
Isa coughed, waving her hand in front of her to clear the air.
Here, she could focus and forget the difficulties of their situation. Slipping a large apron over her dress, she surveyed the task at hand. While she knew the location of every book in the library at home, she was not as well acquainted with the one here.
Floutast was over two hundred years old, so he was likely in the far-left corner.
She went to the farthest shelf along the back wall and started gently sifting through its contents.
When she came across something interesting that she had not read herself, she placed it in a separate stack for perusing later. Depending on how long it would take to rebuild the bridge, she might have some time for extra reading.
She was soon too focused on her task to notice the pattern of light changing across the shelves as the morning sun rose in the sky.
A loud sneeze broke through her heavy concentration.
Stifling a gasp of surprise, she turned around to find the beast standing in the center of the room, gazing up at the shelves that were even taller than his own abnormal height.
“I wasn’t expecting so much...Achoo!” he sneezed again.
“I believe the last words I said to you were ‘Don’t set foot in the east wing.’” Isa did not appreciate being interrupted. Nor did she appreciate the visual reminder of the danger she had placed them all in by asking the beast to remain.
The beast’s shoulders dropped. “Ah. Right. I thought you were referring to the bedrooms in the east wing.” He turned to leave.
“I was referring to the east wing, and I meant the east wing.” Her heart was still pounding from the surprise of finding him right behind her.
“I’m going,” he said, walking toward the door.
It irked Isa that he had not apologized for disregarding her rule or for startling her.
Before he could walk through the door, however, his dog bounded into the room and started dashing through the shelves.
