“I’m cursed to tell the truth. They have to believe me.”
He shakes his head. “You’ve spent too much time here with me. They’ll be suspicious if you suddenly return and start accusing the queen of plotting.”
“But Bash knows you were saving my life.”
“Yes, but most people in the citadel believe I’d do anything to tear him down, regardless of if it’s true or not. Sending you back as a mole wouldn’t be that far-fetched.”
“I hate to agree,” Mum says, “but he’s right. After you fled, every available guard was ordered to comb the forest looking for you. That’s why it took me a few days to arrive. I’m sorry, Willoh—I didn’t know when the best time to bring it up was—but there’s a warrant for your capture, for your…execution.”
I harden, but Will simply rolls his eyes. “They can try.”
“Perhaps it would be better for you both to stay inside the wards for the time being,” Ruth says. “Especially with Morgana returning to Alrick.”
“We can’t do nothing,” I say, and look beseechingly at my mother. “We have to tell them!”
“Morgana brings nothing but calamity,” she says. “You will stay as far away from her as you can.”
“Mum, please. We show them that Will saved my life. We tell them the whole story. If the rare flowers are dangerous and there’s a chance they’ll be used at the wedding ceremony, then we have to warn them!”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“Stop trying to control me!” It leaves my mouth like a clap of thunder.
Mum doesn’t reply. Her silence says everything, and from her taut expression, she’s not willing to budge. But there’s a frothing anger in my chest that won’t cease. Too long. I’ve been playing this game too long, and the one situation in which my curse can actually help, she refuses to let me.
“Never once have I done something without considering how others will be affected,” I say. “I choose the right words, choose which secrets to keep and which truths to share in order to keep other people happy. Card called me a people pleaser once and he was right. But I’m the one who collected those flowers, so I’m partly responsible for whatever happens. I want to do something about it.”
“Fliss, sit down,” Mum says, her voice an arrowhead. “You’re not yet fully healed.”
“The wedding istomorrow.”
“You are going to stay here and rest. That’s final.”
“Rest?”
“Yes, Felicity. Staying out of it is the best thing for you.”
“If they use the flowers and it hurts Bash in some way, if it hurtsCardin some way—” I can’t finish my sentence, because truthfully, I don’t know what I would do in that situation. I have no idea what it would push me to do. Despite all they’ve done, all the betrayals and accusations, neither Bash nor Card deserves whatever chaos Morgana is bringing.
“Honey,” Mum says, but I’m done listening. I stomp out of the cottage, out into the wind and the flowers that don’t try to control me.
“Is this your version of stress-haying?” Will asks from over my shoulder.
My fingers pause from tearing apart a group of weeds I’d found by the bench at the front of the cottage. My blood is thrumming. To learn that Mum and Morgana’s manipulation is why I’m cursed, and then to have Mum refuse to let me use it for good is outrageous. I can’t believe her.
“I’m very irritated right now,” I say in warning.
“I can see that.”
I throw down the weeds and clamber to my feet. Will’s face is impassive, his hands tucked in his usual maroon jacket.
“Why aren’t you freaking out?” I ask. “There’s a warrant out for your death.”
“I figured one of us should try to keep a cool head. I’ll take my turn after you,” he says, and gods forbid, gives me a huge grin.
I grasp the air like I’m battling with it and yell. Will waits, and when my throat cracks and exhaustion waves in, he takes a step forward and wraps his arms around me. I bury my face in his chest. Gods, I could linger here forever, surrounded by his warmth and that soothing, familiar scent, clinging to his back like moss on bark.
“I don’t want to go back inside,” I grumble into his jacket.
