“What the—Felicity Farrow, have you gone mad?”
Ah.Okay. Perhaps a retreat, then.
“Never mind. I just— Well, he has magic, so…” I pretend that a paragraph in the book has suddenly enticed me.
The scoff in his voice is clear. “Yeah, magic that he uses to put people in harm’s way on a regular basis.”
“Someoneknows where this flower is, but no one I’ve asked so far has any idea.”
“Yes, but if you’re genuinely considering askingthat pestfor help, then I fear you’ve lost your mind. Bashhateshim; you know this. He wouldn’t be happy about you inviting Willoh over for tea and a chat about flowers. Good gods,imagine.”
I let out a short laugh. Yeah. Imagine…I force away the memory of Willoh’s fingers skimming the palm of my hand before he swept us into the air.
Pest.Is that how I would describe him? Not really. Itistrue that he’s caused Bash an immense number of headaches and can do so easily with a few scathing words and swift flashes of magic. And yes, apparently he was the one who caused the tree in the north to die, which blighted the northern villages and threw them into tensionwith the citadel. But does that make him so dangerous that even suggesting a conversation is too much? I didn’t feel threatened when I spoke to him the other day.
“It was an idea,” I say, and shrug, like it wasn’t the only lead I had to find this flower.
“A crazy one.Wow…you must be really desperate for information to consider—” Card bursts into a laughter that echoes off the dusty stone walls. He wipes the corner of his eye. “My gods, sorry, that’s just— Wow. Amazing.Sure,let’s go ask Willoh Vane. Ha! You’re so funny sometimes.”
My fingers rest on a page about snapdragons, an exotic plant from a distant kingdom. Their cylindrical petals are curled like a mouth being squeezed shut, and there’s a label next to the illustration that readspresumption.Snapdragons are famous for sending messages about oversights and misread situations. Is there something I’m missing here? Willoh Vane went from being Bash’s best friend to bickering with him and occasionally drawing blood, and everyone just assumes it was because he poisoned the tree. But why would he have done that? What did he have to gain?
I’ve purposefully turned away whenever I’ve come across him in the past, simply to save myself from having to inform the queen, but now my lack of information has become a hurdle. I can’t ask a sorcerer about a magical flower I need to find because said sorcerer likes to rile my best friend’s fiancé every once in a while.How annoying.
I’m taking my time thoroughly combing through my thoughts as I often do, when the scuff of metal against metal grinds through the library doorway. A sound that unfortunately only means one thing. The Guards of Alrick are here.
“Ava!” Card greets the captain over my shoulder. His face hardens. “Lark.”
No.My stomach plunges. Two sets of footsteps stop behind me. I clench my hands into fists and stare at the snapdragons in the book.
“Felicity. I’m glad we found you here,” Captain Ava says. “The queen requests your presence.”
“She’s busy,” Card says, with the authority of someone protected by Bastion’s status. I don’t have that same leeway. I collect myself as best I can and turn to face Ava with what I hope is a steady expression.
“Of course.”
Ava rests her hands on the leather belt of her armor and offers me a sympathetic smile. She has closely cropped brown hair and dark skin, and despite her being only a little older than Card and me when she took over as captain, I told her truthfully that they couldn’t have chosen a better fit. It has nothing to do with the crush I had on her when I was younger either. She’s genuinely a good person. Unlike the guard at her side. Who I don’t look at.
The push of my chair scratches across the stone floor.
“Are you coming back?” Card asks.
“It depends,” I say. On what the queen wants. On how much information she wants to wring from me today.
I step away from my snapdragons. Let’s get this over with.
“Felicity,” Ava says, and gestures to the door.
There’s no way to further avoid Lark. My eyes fall on him and I’m back to that night all over again, my chest heaving from crying so much. My arms tired from clinging to Card. My heart crumbled like dried, distrustful lavender. If Ava is a steady olive tree, Lark is rue.Regret.
“Fliss,” he says. My name on his lips makes nausea rise to my throat. He inclines his head ever so slightly to let me pass, and when his dark blond hair falls over those lime-green eyes, I can’t stop the twitch in my fingers.
I used to run my hands through that hair.
Gods, I hate that I get these flashes of memories. I hate stumbling upon him around the castle so often. No, I simply hate all of him. Here he is acting like everything is fine—like I didn’t cry until I lost my voice, like he didn’t remind me all too well that my curse can be a knife. I haven’t forgotten. He’s fickle, and I don’t need to say it out loud to know it’s true.
Ava falls in beside me as we exit the library, her blue-and-silver one-shoulder cloak billowing behind. Lark brings up the rear, out of sight. Good.
“How have you been?” I ask the captain. A question like that from me is usually a cause for averted eyes and vague answers, but Ava is not so suspicious.
