The air smelled like rain—damp stone and rich soil. In the distance, gray clouds drifted over the hills like the dirtied train of a gown. Niamh made it no more than five paces onto the lawn of Woodville Hall before she noticed something amiss. A gloom. It was not only the weather, although it really was a terrible day for a lawn party. Everyone idled out on the grass with an air of boredom and confusion.
Niamh had never been to a lawn party herself, but Sinclair had painted the picture for her vividly enough. Guests should be playing battledore out in the fields, or clustered around tables, dealing cards and laughing behind their fans and gloved hands, or drinking themselves silly on punch. But the lawn lay empty. No tables, no games, no punch, no servants. Only a gaggle of aristocrats, waiting for something to happen.
How strange, she thought.
When she swept her gaze back over the house, she spotted Jack standing on the veranda with a grim expression, and Rosa’s father clearly scolding him. He jabbed his finger accusingly at the prince regent, then out at the not-party, which Niamh took as a sign to move on. She drifted through the crowds, hoping to spot a familiar face. People murmured as she passed. Her gown seemed to be drawing attention again.
The skirts billowed slowly around her even when she stood still, as if caught in the sluggish current of a river. She’d made it years ago in a fit of frustration. It had taken her days to create the lace overlay—and days more to embroider all of Gran’s exhortations to slow down into it. In theory, its enchantment and design were meant to embody patience itself. In practice, it only made her feel as though she were walking through a dream. She supposed her focus on slow down might have caused some unintentional effects. Today, it suited her fine. Last night, she hadn’t slept at all. She’d finished Kit’s new jacket for this event just as dawn had peered in through her bedroom window. The ache in her body and the bleariness of her eyes made her feel half-dreaming already.
At last she stumbled upon her friends beneath the shade of an oak. Friends. When had that happened? The word warmed her up from the inside.
Rosa sat primly on a swing rigged from a thick branch, her feet kicking in the open air. Miriam pushed her, occasionally glancing up at the ropes as they groaned beneath Rosa’s weight. Kit and Sinclair leaned against its trunk, deep in conversation. Kit looked more at ease than she’d seen him in days. The enchantment she’d woven into his jacket created the most entrancing effect on the fabric. It shone all over like plated armor. Just looking at him made her feel a little braver. Last night, she’d gathered her memories of courage around her like a shield: leaping off the cliffs into ocean below, taking those first steps onto Avlish soil, telling Kit exactly how he had hurt her all those weeks ago.
It was only when he met her eyes that she realized she’d been staring at him. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, Well? It did very strange things to her stomach. Perhaps she should have chosen a different gown, if only to keep her wits about her more.
Flushing, she curtsied. “Hello, Your Highnesses, Miss Lacalle, Sinclair.”
“You’re here at last,” Sinclair said warmly, with a tip of his hat. “Are you enjoying the liveliest party of the Season?”
“About that,” Niamh said. “What is going on?”
“The last of the staff quit,” Rosa said blandly. “I confess I’m relieved. My father is too busy yelling at the prince regent to hover over me.”
“What? But…”
The only staff members left were Avlish. Yet, last night Sofia had worried they were overworked and frustrated, taking on all the duties of the Machlish servants who’d already left. It left the nobility completely stranded. Niamh did not know whether she wanted to laugh or weep. All she could imagine were the skies opening up now, just to secure this party’s slot in the gossip columns as the worst of the Season. It would be a disaster. All of these bright day dresses hemmed in mud, all of those silk slippers soaked through, all the hard-won paper curls drenched and ruined. She shuddered at the very thought of wet silk.
“We were just about to fetch the croquet set ourselves,” Sinclair said. “Care to join us?”
Rosa dug her fingers into her temples and sighed deeply. “Oh, joy. You were serious.”
“It’s too dreary to sit around doing nothing,” Miriam chided.
The prospect of exerting herself any further sounded onerous, but the alternative—doing nothing—was far worse. “How fun!”
Together, they began their trudge across the lawn. At the far end, behind a thin curtain of mist, Niamh could make out the faint shape of a shed.
The clouds continued to thicken overhead. Sinclair laughed as a gust of wind nearly tore off his top hat. “Think you can do anything about this, princess?”
“Why would I alter perfection?” Rosa asked serenely.
Miriam fell into step beside Niamh and took her arm. Her face glowed with the chill in the air, and in the humidity, her curls loosened into a halo around her. “I feel as though I haven’t seen you at all since we arrived. You look like a dream today.”
“Thank you!” Niamh beamed. “How are you faring?”
“Well enough, I suppose.” She sighed. “Although I have to say, I feel somewhat out of place here. Burdensome, if I’m honest.”
“Who could ever think of you as a burden?”
Miriam lifted a shoulder. “No one has ever said as much. But the feeling has never gone away. In Castilia, Rosa’s decision to associate with me prevented her from making relationships that might have made her life in court easier. I cannot allow myself to get in her way again here.”
“Anyone would be fortunate to spend time with you.” Niamh rested a hand atop hers and squeezed. “Besides … I’d say the king is far more effective than you are in preventing Infanta Rosa from making friends here. Did you see him at dinner last night?”
Miriam snorted. “True enough.”
“Still,” Niamh continued, “I understand how you feel about not wanting to get in the way.”
Out in front of them, Kit and Rosa walked arm in arm through the grass. Of all things, jealousy tugged at her. Foolish, she scolded herself. She had always known his situation—and her own station.
Miriam did not answer. She was busy watching the royal couple with a strange, wistful glint in her eyes. She exchanged a look with Niamh before hurriedly glancing away.
The five of them stopped before the shed. Weeds grew wild around its foundation, and a rusted padlock hung from its moldering door. It looked like it hadn’t been opened in half an age. Sinclair rattled it and regarded Rosa with a sly smile. “You may need to zap this thing off, Your Highness.”
Kit retrieved a rock from the ground and smashed it over the lock. It fell to the ground in a shower of rust and hardened mud.
“Well,” said Sinclair. “That works, too.”
Rosa hummed pensively. “Certainly less of a fire hazard.”
“And more style,” Miriam agreed.
Kit pulled open the doors. Inside, a collection of long-abandoned tools littered the floor, along with an old croquet stand filled with mallets. Each one’s handle was banded with a stripe of color. He hauled it out and stepped back so the rest of them could choose their colors. Rosa snatched up the black one covetously. Niamh selected the pink one with a rush of pleasure. Pretty things, no matter how small, never failed to delight her. While Sinclair began hammering the iron hoops into the earth, Niamh hefted her mallet. She swung it in a wide arc, testing its weight as it scythed through the air.
“Careful,” Kit warned. “You could do some damage with that thing.”
“Then it sounds like you are the one who should be careful,” she said teasingly.
“Is that a threat?” he asked, matching her tone.
Her stomach twisted itself into another wicked knot. She had no pert reply to that. Mercifully, she was spared from floundering when she caught a glimpse of a figure emerging from the fog. Their coattails billowed in the wind, a dark banner unfurling over the whispering grass.
“Who is that?” Niamh asked.
Sinclair shaded his eyes and grimaced. “Well. This is awkward.”
Within a few moments, Jack came clearly into view. The wind had made a mess of his hair, and his gait seemed uncharacteristically loose—almost uneven. He even smiled at them as he approached, and it gave Niamh the same impression she imagined witnessing some sort of rare cosmological event would. Rosa and Miriam immediately curtsied to him. Niamh remembered her manners a moment too late, murmuring Your Highness under her breath.
“No need for such formalities,” he said. “May I join your game?”
Kit stared at him as though he had spoken another language entirely. For once in his life, he seemed to be entirely speechless.
Sinclair, however, recovered enough wherewithal to reply. He clapped Jack on the shoulder, a bit too hard to be friendly. “Of course, Jackie. Grab a mallet.”
With that, they each took their first shots—an altogether unremarkable round, apart from Niamh almost breaking her own ankle bone with a misaimed swing. Rosa, meanwhile, abstained from effort altogether. Her ball sailed lazily through the air and thunked to the earth no more than a few yards away. But when Jack knocked his ball against Kit’s and sent them both flying far afield of the course, the air went brittle.
Seething, Kit rounded on his brother. “What are you doing?”
“I am playing the game. I see you are still a terrible sport.”
“No,” Kit replied slowly. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have guests to entertain—or appease, for that matter? Or perhaps you should focus on your staff first.”
At that, irritation broke through Jack’s unusual languor. But instead of replying to him, he turned to Rosa. “What say you, Infanta Rosa? You’ve seen enough of Avaland’s troubles to weigh in on them. I’d like to ask your opinion.”
Rosa, who had been politely pretending not to eavesdrop, regarded them with a preoccupied expression. She leaned against her mallet. “You truly want my opinion, sir?”
“Indeed I do.”
“It seems to me that you are under siege, holding a disadvantageous defensive position. If you give the Machlish what they are asking for, you will end the worst of it.”
Jack seemed bitterly amused. “And when my court moves against me for adopting such a weak position and insulting my beloved father’s legacy? Or when the working class rails against me for treating the Machlish as their equals?”
“In the event you are replaced, a new regent will likely use force against them to appease the people—your opponents—who put power in their hands. That will only worsen the situation, potentially inciting an all-out revolt. Such mismanagement would smooth the path for your reinstatement as soon as your father passes. In the very worst-case scenario, I ask for a favor from my father, or your pretty wife from hers.” She paused. “That is my humble opinion, of course, Your Highness.”
“And there you have it,” said Jack. “By God, she has solved all of my problems in seconds.”
Rosa narrowed her eyes with displeasure, clearly aware that he was making some sport of her. Muttering something in Castilian under her breath, she hit the ball, sending it soaring toward a distant iron post.
Once she ambled out of earshot, Kit seized on Jack. “Are you drunk?”
“It has been a very long couple of weeks,” Jack replied tartly. “Why should I not enjoy myself, on my own private lands? Mother would surely approve of getting drunk to mark the occasion of her house’s grand reopening.”
“Because you’re making a complete fool of yourself,” he hissed, “and you are about to let everything fall and crush you underneath it.”
Jack looked at him for a long time, through bleary eyes. Then he laughed so hard a tear ran down his cheek. “Oh, this is rich.”
Oh no. Niamh shrunk back a few steps. She had witnessed enough of their fights by now to know this would not end well.
Kit recoiled, but he masked his hurt with a scowl. “Mother would be ashamed of what you’ve become. You talk about family as though it means something to you, but you care more about our poisonous legacy than the family you have left, much less your own subjects.”
“Mother? Ashamed of me?” Jack tilted his head. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Kit’s anger fizzled, doused by uncertainty.
“If you believe Mother would have spared even a single thought for our current situation, save for what gowns she would have worn or which of her appetites could be sated, you are completely delusional.” Jack smiled ruefully. “I suppose it makes sense, however. You always were her little pet.”
Niamh sucked in a breath. Even the wind ceased to stir.
Thus far, it had been the unruly crash of Kit’s waves against Jack’s unmoving shore. She had never seen Jack remove the cool impersonality of his roles, either as a prince or a stand-in parent. She had never seen him mire himself in mortal things like pettiness or resentment. Someone had to intervene before this turned ugly. But Rosa and Miriam had quietly slipped away, and Sinclair urgently waved Niamh over to him. She felt completely rooted to the spot.
Kit’s eyes darkened, a warning. “Jack.”
“I do not know what’s gotten into you, pretending at notions of duty.” Jack sneered. “As if it’s ever meant a thing to you. There was never an ounce of Father’s discipline and dignity in you.”
“Not like you, of course.” Kit trembled with barely restrained fury. “It’s like I’m looking at him now. You try to conceal it, but I see his temper caged up inside you.”
Jack’s expression turned dangerous.
Niamh gasped as plants shot up from the earth. On Kit’s side, briars tangled around his feet, rising like a battlement, each of their wickedly sharp thorns aimed at Jack with malicious intent. On Jack’s, shrubs in horrible, jagged shapes sprang up around them. They bloomed with heavy, bloodred fruits. The very color of them screamed poison.
Niamh stepped out of the way when a thorn pierced the hem of her skirt. “Ehm … Your Highnesses?”
They did not hear her.
“If you know what is good for you,” Jack said quietly, “you will bite your tongue.”
“What, you want to hit me?” Kit squared up to him. “Go on. Do it.”
“It would hardly make a difference, for I cannot very well beat gratitude into you! These last few years, I have arranged everything perfectly. All you have to do now is behave yourself, but you are so selfish and spoiled, you cannot even manage that. You fall apart at the slightest provocation—and you cut and run the moment things get difficult, just as Mother did. What good were either of you to me?” He threw down his mallet. The very corner of his lip quivered before he mastered himself, all imposing, impenetrable marble once again. “You are the very worst of both our parents, Kit. From the day you were born, you have done nothing but create problems for me to solve.”
The ground rumbled beneath them. A briar vine launched toward Jack, its spikes extended like claws. Jack did not even flinch. He clenched his fist, and the vine withered, its leaves desiccating before her eyes. The brothers stared at each other, all of their armor stripped off. Something passed over Jack’s face. Without a word, he turned and walked away.
Sinclair trotted up to Kit and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Kit, are you all right?”
“Don’t.” Kit shrugged his hand off. His breaths came in short gasps. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Before Sinclair could reply, he stormed off. In his wake, foul-tempered plants bloomed in riotous clusters: poison oak, nightshade, wolfsbane. They surged from the earth, only to strangle one another just as quickly.
“Kit!” Sinclair pressed a fist against his lips. When his hand dropped back to his side, his face was drawn and pale. “Damn it.”
Niamh hurried to Sinclair. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen Jack act that way.”
“Should we go after Kit?”
“Yes, probably,” he said, his voice hoarse and distant. “The last time he was like this … I don’t know. I don’t know what he’ll do.”
He sounded afraid, the same as he had when Kit’s magic lashed out at him in the park. “What do you mean?”
Sinclair dragged a hand down his face. “It’s not his fault, but his magic can be dangerous when he gets like this—to himself and other people. Maybe I’m a coward, but I can’t do it again. Last time taught me to be a little more selfish.”
A prickle of unease went through her. “Then I’ll go. Someone needs to make sure he’s all right.”
“No. We need to get Jack.”
“I do not think Jack is in any state to deal with this!”
As she brushed past him, Sinclair caught her elbow. She made to thrash out of his grip, but he steered her back around. “All right, hold on. I understand that you’re worried, but perhaps we should think this one through together. First of all, you look like you’re going to keel over. You’re as pale as death.”
“I am fine.”
“I’m not done.” He gave her a stern look, then sighed. “Listen. I didn’t want to bring it up like this, but I don’t see any other way around it. I love Kit, and you’ve been a good friend to me, so I won’t mince words. I’m not an idiot.”
Niamh stared up at him. Her breath snagged in her throat, and she had the distinct sensation of free-falling. “I … I beg your pardon?”
“Come now, Niamh.” Sinclair looked anguished. He stepped closer to her, until hardly any space remained between them. He took her by the shoulders and dropped his voice low, as though to speak any louder would give them away. “Give me some credit here. It’s like watching an entire opera play out every time you two so much as make eye contact with each other. If I’ve noticed, then it won’t be long before the wrong person does. Don’t tempt fate.”
A thousand feelings tore through her at once. Humiliation, fear, anger, sadness. She couldn’t make sense of this jumble. She couldn’t deal with the fact that he’d pulled her heart out and thrown it, still beating, at her feet. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that Kit was unharmed. “Then help me, Sinclair. It won’t look so bad if it’s both of us. Will you really take that risk?”
“I can’t do it.”
“I can handle this.” She met his eyes steadily. “I am not afraid of him.”
Thunder rolled overhead. The first of the rain began to fall.
“Fuck,” he muttered. Sinclair shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Fine. I’ll walk with you as far as the edge of the woods. Everyone’s gone inside, but there are windows everywhere. So just … Be careful. And don’t come back together, for God’s sake.”
She clasped the lapels at her throat. “Thank you, Sinclair.”
He nodded. And when she committed to what was quite possibly the worst decision of her life, he was right there behind her.
The sky was downright ominous, with gashes of dark clouds that blotted out the sun. The rain fell in gouts, plastering her hair against her skin. In a matter of minutes, it would soak through both Sinclair’s coat and her dress. Already, her fingers had gone numb and white as bone in the chill. She could not afford a flare-up of her symptoms now of all times.
Past the tree line, the grounds of Woodville Hall grew wild and untamed. Out ahead of her, a field of pale lavender shivered in a sudden gust of wind. Niamh hiked up her skirts and waded in. With every step, the cloying scent of lavender and petrichor wafted up from the earth below. Her shoes sank deeper into the mud as she approached an old wrought-iron gate. The latch was rusted shut and groaned angrily when she tried to shimmy it open. Instead, she threw her weight against it—and promptly regretted it when her hip throbbed in protest.
She’d have to scale it, then.
Niamh drew in a breath and hoisted herself over the top, scrabbling to find footholds in the scrollwork. Her fingers resented being curled to fists. Her swollen joints cried out in protest, and it took nearly all her strength to climb the short distance. The pointed finials jabbed into her guts and tugged a few threads loose in her bodice. By the time she spilled over the other side, great smears of orange marred the front of her gown. She landed in a heap, spattering mud all over herself.
She picked herself off the ground and squinted into the gloom. Once, maybe, there had been a garden here. But now, it was all overgrown and ruined. Purple clover blossomed riotously in the garden beds, and the mint had claimed half the property for itself, the greedy thing. Dandelions pushed determinedly through the cracks in the stepping stones. How gorgeous this place must have been when there was someone around to take care of it. Still, there was something lovely about it all. The dark earth, redolent and alive. All these stubborn, wayward things, thriving in their neglect.
As she stepped carefully through the weeds, tendrils of green snagged at the hem of her dress and curled around her ankles. Another vine wound itself around her wrist almost longingly. They tried to root her in place, but they were slender enough that it required no effort to yank herself free.
Kit clearly did not want her here. She could practically feel his will coursing through the flora, even without the telltale gold running through each leaf and petal’s veins. Her vision swam with exhaustion, and she shivered with cold. But she refused to leave him alone in his suffering.
“Kit!” she called, but the squall of the storm swallowed up her voice.
She passed beneath the shade of gnarled apple trees and through vegetable patches gone to rot. At last, as the trees thinned out, she spotted a figure crumpled on the ground: Kit, wreathed in silver rainwater. His jacket and cravat lay in a sodden heap in the mud beside him, and his shirt was translucent with damp. Like this, he looked so frail.
“Kit?” Niamh hurried toward him, kicking up mud in her wake.
He didn’t look up. “Go away.”
She came closer, tentatively. “I know you may not want to see me right now, but I…”
He turned toward her. His loose, wet hair clung to the sharp planes of his face. Through the rain pelting the earth between them, she saw his eyes burning bright and gold. “I said go away.”
Thorns shot from the earth, forming a perfect circle around him. Niamh yelped, stumbling backward. By a stroke of good fortune, she managed to keep her footing. Before she could process it, sweetbrier vines wound around him, caging him in a thicket. They were garlanded with white flowers and red berries, and water beaded on each delicate petal like droplets of divine blood.
Niamh’s pulse raced, hard enough that she felt it in her wrists, in the tip of each finger. Never before had she seen magic quite like this. Powerful enough that she might believe the Fair Ones still walked among them. It was awesome and awful all at once.
Kit was nestled within the thorns and wild rose like a seed kept safe within its shell. His shoulders trembled, and when he looked at her, she saw that he was in two places at once: here and not here. It brought Niamh back to herself. This was not a god nor a prince. He looked like a frightened child. As the vines tightened around him, they cut into his skin. Blood, golden as sunlight, seeped into his shirt.
“Let me in,” she said, attempting to inject some sternness into her tone. “Right now!”
He did not reply.
The wind lashed her braid against her back. Niamh had half a mind to clamber back over the fence and fetch a pair of gardening shears from that moldering shed. She was drenched and shivering with some mixture of fear and cold, but she would not abandon him here. That was only what he believed he wanted.
“I’m not going anywhere. I can be very persistent, I’ll have you know.”
He hardly seemed to recognize her. His eyes blazed like a lantern in a dark wood. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I can’t control it.” The thorns seethed around him, and another vine whipped toward her. Niamh stumbled back. This time, she let out a little shriek and landed flat in the mud. Grime splashed onto her, and the impact rattled into her shoulders.
Her emotions had always ruled her magic, too. Accessing it had only ever been a matter of feeling. But it had never hurt her like this. Even when she was sad, even when she was angry, magic lit her up from within. It felt like light, blossoming within her like petals in the rain. For Kit, it was another beast entirely.
Once you strip off all those thorns, he’s not so bad. She had glimpsed that truth long ago. All his anger and aggression were the sword and shield in the hands of his fear.
“Please, Kit.” She righted herself and knelt just outside the reach of the thorns. “Talk to me.”
“Why? It doesn’t matter,” he rasped. Another vine erupted from the earth and coiled viciously around his arm. He pressed his forehead against his knees. “All I do is ruin the lives of everyone around me.”
“It does matter!” Niamh set her jaw. “What your brother said was cruel. That doesn’t mean you have to punish yourself, and it doesn’t mean you have to push everyone away.”
He was silent.
“Don’t force yourself to bear it alone,” she pressed. “Please.”
Slowly, the vines fell away like layers and layers of armor sloughing off. His eyes faded back to amber. Somehow, they were still the brightest things she had ever seen. For the first time since he ran off, he looked at her. Truly looked at her.
Recognition lit his eyes. “You.”
“Kit.” As soon as she stood, exhaustion, greater than any she’d ever known, settled over her. Blackness crept in at the edges of her vision. Distantly, she decided it was a bad idea to stay up all night again. “You’re going to be all right.”
Kit’s lips parted with surprise. “Niamh?”
Her knees went weak. She felt disembodied now, floating somewhere far above herself. Her center of gravity slipped from underneath her, as quick as a cut to the throat.
“Niamh!”
Before she hit the ground, she slumped into something solid. Kit. Her head lolled into the crook of his neck and shoulder. Some part of her knew she should be mortified, but it was so warm in his arms. So oddly comforting.
“Are you hurt?” As she slid into the encroaching dark, the last thing she saw were his wide, panicked eyes, and in them, the look of a man who had finally realized the worst of his weaknesses lived outside himself. “Answer me. Please. Did I hurt—?”