Not sure how I managed to not laugh, not scream, not make a single sound when he pulled me up, but the cart was full of wooden crates, and we landed together in the narrow space between them, pressed close, both of us grinning like idiots.
Had the driver noticed? My hood had definitely moved—had he seen my face?
I doubted it—his whistling continued. We couldn’t see him from here, but we could hear the senseless melody just fine.
Holy Hour, we were on the cart for real—and it was rolling on.
March then fell down in the narrow space, sat on the dirty, wooden floor of the cart, and I did the same. It was narrow, so our shoulders were squeezed together, and the wind was in our hair, and soon the houses ended, and the bigger buildings began, the Court of Hearts passing us by on either side.
It wasbeautiful,more so than it had seemed before.
The red rooftops. The flower boxes spilling crimson and white from every window. The wide streets narrowing into lanes as the cart continued wherever it was going, the buildings growing older, the gardens wilder. People saw us sittingthere—a woman hanging laundry on a line strung between two trees, and a man painting the wooden fence in front of his house red. They saw us, but they couldn’t see our faces. We made sure to cover ourselves all the way. They still smiled and shook their heads, but nobody called out to the driver to warn him.
I absorbed everything I could, and March did, too. He watched it all with an expression that looked both like surprise andrecognition. His breathing had slowed down and his body had softened. Even the grip around my hand was a little looser—but in a good way.
Why wouldn’t he be more relaxed—he was home.
And I felt dangerously close tomyhome, too, sitting there beside him.
We jumpedoff the back of the cart while it was still moving, stumbling, catching each other, laughing—it was impossible to stop the sound from exploding out of me.
The driver continued on, whistling his tune, never even turning his head back.
We were on a smaller road now, unpaved, winding through a grove of trees with leaves so dark they were almost purple. The light that filtered through them was warm and red-tinted, and the air smelled of roses and soil and something sweeter underneath that I couldn’t place.
“Almost there,” March said as we walked ahead.
“You’ve been to this part of the quadrant before, right?” Just to make sure.
He nodded. “This is technically the middle of the second quadrant. I was hoping the cart would take us closer, but this will do.”
“Where exactly are we going?” I wondered.
“It’s a place,” March told me, turning to look at me, eyes zeroing in on my smile. “It’s my favorite place in the court.”
Just like that, I was now dying to see it, whatever it was.
“Don’t worry—nobody’s going to spot us. And if they do, they can’t see our faces—and if they do, we’ll run. Soldiers don’t usually hang out around these parts.”
He must have confused my curiosity for fear—and in fact, Ishould havebeen afraid. We were out here in the Court of Hearts all by ourselves, and if someone actually saw us…
“Ora, I know where to go. Where to run. Don’t worry—we’ll be safe.” Again, he mistook my silence.
“It’s not that,” I told him. “I’m actually not worried at all, and that’s the problem.” I hadn’t eventhoughtabout the queens or soldiers or anything at all while we’d been on that cart. We’d traveled a good ten minutes if I had to guess, so there had been time.
A grin. “It isn’t. You don’t need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think we could escape safely.”
And I believedthatwith my whole heart, too.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay.” He nodded.
Then we were on our way again.
We walked only for a few more minutes. The trees thickened and the light deepened, and I didn’t have the slightest guess where he could be taking me, but I resisted the urge to ask again. I wanted it to be a surprise, too.
Then the path opened up, and I stopped breathing.
