“I named my horse Papou,” she told him. “My father found me a mare about a year after we visited, and I insisted on naming her after you.”
This set Lyra’s eyes to rolling once more.
“You named your mareGrandfather?”
“I was little,” Adeline said, with a shrug and a gesture at Papou. “I thought it was his name.”
Papou laughed heartily, his eyes disappearing into folds of wrinkles with his smile stretched wide, thin shoulders juddering beneath his ears. Then, still chuckling, her grandfather reachedinto his embroidered tunic and produced a slightly crushed nycta flower.
“I am honoured. And in return, a little gift for you,agameni.”
Warmth tugged at Adeline’s chest, and then at her lips. She set her half-eaten bun on a side plate and hurriedly wiped her hands on the nearest napkin, the delay earning her a low tut that she could only assume came from Lyra. She ignored her cousin and reached for the flower in her grandfather’s outstretched grasp.
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing his hand with her free one as she drew the flower toward the glow in her chest and smiled. “I have fond memories of these.”
She stroked a careful fingertip along the flower’s edge. The delicate pink petals were slightly bruised at the edges, purple where they’d been crushed within her grandfather’s tunic. Still, the perfume they wafted was heavenly.
“Yourememberthe flowers, then?”
Adeline glanced up from inhaling the sweet nycta scent, and blinked slightly to find Papou leaning forward in his chair, his stare tight with intent; unblinking. Unease coiled in her lungs, and she released it with a small, huffed laugh, glancing around to her aunt for some explanation to her grandfather’s sudden intensity. But Eleni was watching her too, her brows knit as she glanced from the nycta to Adeline, something expectant in the weight of her gaze. Even Lyra seemed mildly interested for the first time, her eyes fixed to the flower even as she angled her head rather pointedly away from Adeline.
“Well, yes,” Adeline said finally, pinning her smile in place against the heavy atmosphere that threatened to flatten it. “Yes, I remember them. Dhalias is famed for them, after all.”
Nobody spoke. Not a single golden-brown stare even wavered.
Adeline laughed again, more forced this time. She waved the flower a little, and her family’s eyes tracked it like honeybees after its perfumed pollen. Her laughter died off into ringing silence, and Adeline stiffened.
What is happening here?
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, “is there some custom I’m forgetting? Something I’m supposed to do with this?”
The silence lingered for just a fraction longer than one might expect; just one stilted moment where someoneshouldhave answered her. But then Eleni’s frown flickered, her smile taking up once more.
“Oh,” she said, and the wave of her hand might have seemed airy, if not for the slight swallow between her words. “Nothing to worry about. Customs and such, they’ll all come back to you eventually.”
Adeline cast a doubtful glance back to the flower, then up at the Vanjirs—and at that moment she could almost believe she’d imagined the strangeness that had passed between them all. Lyra was examining her long, sharp nails, testing the point of each one against a fingertip and frowning to herself, apparently dismayed by their bluntness. Eleni had already turned away, waving forth the palace staff who had appeared at the door with trolleys of fine crockery. Only Papou watched her still, less intent now and more thoughtful.
All the same, Adeline shifted under his gaze. She smiled, then cast about the room and watched the staff set the table for dinner, hoping for some topic of conversation to present itself so she wouldn’t have to stand idly beneath her grandfather’s confusing focus.
“The palace is so beautiful,” she said finally. It was the truth. Their home, with the wilderness forever creeping in from outdoors, flowers and vines winding around every open archway, was a place lost in time. Ancient and imposing, and despite it all, still endlessly warm and welcoming; she had been at home here, once. “I’m grateful for your hospitality.”
Papou gave a dismissive grunt. “Hospitality is nothing. You are family,agameni. Our home is your home.”
With nothing more to say, Adeline gave a gracious bow of her head—then jolted upright when the gesture drew an abrupt snort of laughter from her grandfather. His eye twinkled, softer than the intense stare he’d worn just a moment ago, and he shook his head fondly as he waved Eleni to his side.
“Ah, but she isso—” The old man broke off, frowning thoughtfully as his weathered hand rolled in the air, wafting around for the right word until he eventually said something in rapid Dhaliaan. Eleni’s answering smile was unfamiliar; soft and sombre.
“He says you aresolike your mother. That you have her bearing.”
“Her bearing,” Papou agreed briskly.
Adeline barely heard him. The balmy air had chilled, something cold and forceful sweeping outward from the cavern of her chest. She could not say what the chill had done to her face, but with a single glance at her expression, Eleni’s smile dropped. Papou went on, oblivious, reaching out to pat her hand where it curled tight around the wilting nycta stem.
“We were sorry to hear of Selma’s loss. Truly. Was it peaceful,agameni? Her passing?”
Adeline could not speak. Was her voice frozen, too? Was that where the lump in her throat had come from?
Eleni whipped at her father’s arm, hissing something in a string of Dhaliaan that Adeline could vaguely translate as “a few weeks”and “be tactful.” Papou glanced around, his dark eyes wide, lips sagging. She managed to shake her head, and wheezed out a barely audible, “It’s—Don’t worry.”
