“No, thank you.”
Will laughs, then rests his chin on the back of his hand and looks at me so directly, my mouth goes dry.
“You really are unique, Farrow.”
A flush radiates across my cheeks, and I squeeze my spoon tightly. Oh no. I don’t know how to navigate this. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this since Lark, and I think I’m starting to really like him. He needs to stop. He can’t keep saying things like that.
No,I want him to.Compliment me. Call me unique and fascinating and intriguing and keep your eyes on me.
“But,” Will continues, giving his soup a stir, “on behalf of all grape eaters, I have to tell you that you’re lying. Grapes are very delicious.”
“I can’t lie,” I say with a weak smile, like it’s not the chain that binds my every breath.
I look out the window at the daffodils doing their best to endure the unusually cold weather. They’re not so much thriving as surviving, just as I’ve been doing for possibly my entire life. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been shoving down my feelings and pretending everything is fine. It was better than drowning in despair, I’d thought. Exist and persist, stare at nothing but the future, the next step, thenext order, the next bouquet, don’t let anyone down, be reliable, be polite, smile, help Card with his wedding planning, do what the queen wants. Stubbornly stare past Lark. Put everyone else before myself. Hold my tongue. Then Willoh Vane obstructed my path. He helped me off the forest floor, and now I’m here, in a new village with new flowers and a person who doesn’t find my curse annoying, who doesn’t nag me to speak faster, who not only supports me but also encourages my passion for floristry.
It feels like I’m claiming back the pieces of me that I lost. I’m reaching inside and remembering myself. I’m listening to my own wants and needs, not Lark’s or Card’s or the queen’s, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t care what they think. I don’t care. I’m choosing myself and I’m not willing to share.
Chapter Twelve
“So, what truth will you concoct to explain where your new flowers came from?” Will asks.
We stroll south on the coastal road, the thick forest on our left and patchy fields that stretch toward the ocean on our right, as per Pigeon’s advice. We’ve been walking for some time, and I’m running out of ways to stall. I don’t want this day to end.
“I got them from a village in Alrick,” I say, peering up at the hawthorn blossoms that border the tree line. Their tiny white flowers are almost fully bloomed, like scatterings of snow on thin frosted branches.
“It’s that simple, huh?”
“Why do I need to elaborate?”
“You don’t.”
I wander left to inspect a low branch of blossoms. Maybe I can cut a sprig off. Hawthorns are always very open to magic. They brim with hope and optimism, and I could make some of the flowers into hair accessories for days I need a little of that light.
“Do you have a knife or something to cut this?” I ask, standing on my toes to pull the branch toward me.
“I do not, but that can be easily solved.”
“What do you mean?”
He flourishes his empty hand. Between blinks, a pair of gardening scissors appear. He spins them around a finger, then ostentatiously presents them to me in both hands, my flower basket sliding to his folded elbow.
“For you, Princess.”
I come back to the path to inspect them. The scissors are as real as I am, no magic or illusion.
“How did you do that? You did the same thing with the Saint-John’s-wort potion the other week.”
“It’s one of the first spells we learn at the Library. It’s not that difficult. You’d probably be able to do it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Will says, and steals the scissors back. “You wanna learn?”
“Absolutely.”
I’ve never learned an actual spell before. All my magic comes from intuition and my mother’s guiding hand. The flowers I work with speak to me, and together we create an enchantment. This is different—this is taught spells and incantations. This issorcery.
“Okay,” Will says, and moves a step closer. He bends his head so it’s mere inches from mine. I swallow and let him arrange my palm face up, his fingers just as gentle as the time he healed my ankle. “So, the spell is ‘encho kaveh.’ ”
