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I sigh. “We weren’t. But the lady allowed us to tend her garden.” I chuckle sarcastically but Rainer’s frown deepens. “Forget-me-nots and roses were always my favorite, but the lady didn’t have very many…of either. The roses were hard to keep alive. Maybe it was the soil—anyways, I once tried to smuggle a rose, but—” I bite my lip and glance at the floor.
That was one of the few times the lady hit me herself—the back of her hand across my face. And, of course, she implored her husband to punish me when he returned home that same evening.
“Nevermind,” I whisper.
“There are thousands of roses,” Rainer says, picking up on my obvious mood shift. “Did you know that different colors have different scents? Different meanings?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. Instead, he glances at his nails, twisting a ring around his finger anxiously. “They’re not meant to bloom without sunlight. Not native to the Umbra Court, where the days are gloomy, the skies dark. But my mother didn’t care. She grew them anyway.” His lips tilt up as he meets my eyes. “I learned how to care for them, with the help of pixie magic. I learned how to grow almost anything. Except her favorite rose of all.”
That explains a lot. His troubled nature, from missing his mother. His penchant for gardening, to feel closer to her.
My lungs constrict when I realize I’d tried to ruin his late mother’s flowers with my fit all those weeks back. I already carry guilt about that outburst, but it grows tenfold.
“What happened to her?” I whisper.
My need to know is selfish. I seek reassurance that I’m not alone in my grief. That despite being as different as they come—fae and human, rich and poor, prince and Tradeling—we are the same deep down. Despite the things that separate us, our lives are truly not that different. The pain we carry in our hearts is the same.
He closes his eyes, as if he’s wincing, then so quietly I almost don’t hear it, he whispers, “She was murdered.”
“I’m s—”
“Don’t,” he growls.
When he opens his eyes, they’re darker than the pale blue I’ve come to find solace in. They’re a stormier color. Almost cobalt. But before I can get a closer look, he turns and walks off, leaving me behind without another acknowledgment.
“Rainer, wait—” I call after him, but he puts a hand up and shakes his head as he stalks off.
“Take whichever books you like, but do not touch my plants.”
He strides out of sight.
I glance around the cozy library, but the moment of excitement has passed. In its place is sorrow for the prince.
This must have been his mother’s wing.
The library, the plants.
Surely they all belonged to her.
It’s why the wing is unused, untouched.
As I exit the room, I spot Rainer rapping on one of the doors. I linger at the library’s entrance, waiting to see who answers. And when Fern greets him, tugs him inside, and slams the door behind him, my chest grows hollow with jealousy.
Apparently I had it all wrong. I thought she was a victim. Trapped here against her will. But she’s important enough to stay here, willingly, in Rainer’s late mother’s wing.
The chasm in my heart grows, and I’m more alone than ever.
sixteen
We Are Not Friends
Alessia
The next morning, after training, I clean up and change into something comfortable—slacks and a tunic swallowing me whole. I tie my hair back into a braid to keep it out of my face. My body is here, but my mind is faraway, swirling with thoughts of Char, the woods, and Rainer. I can’t help the nagging feeling that it’s all connected.
Maybe it’s because I dreamt about Char again last night—or rather, her last words to me. Her apology for lying. At first, I had thought she was apologizing for saying she’s not my family. We both know that was a lie. But, what if that’s not what she was apologizing for? What if it was something bigger.
She had her secrets—such as the healing salve, her insights on the fae, her warnings about the woods. Granted, so did Felix.
So was I the only one in the dark?
