4

THE PUBLIC GARDENS SPILLED OVER WITH BLOSSOMS AND GREENERY under the steady summer sun, and the quiet of the winter months was replaced with promenading couples, ladies having picnics, and rumpled children singing rhymes as they were herded away from fountains by patient nursemaids and harried mothers. The broad avenues were as bright as the beds of flowers, with ladies in walking gowns of cheerful cotton prints and men in vibrant silks, dressing to be seen. The poorer classes, not to be outdone, wore sashes and kerchiefs of crimson silk and indigo printed cottons, economy allowing for these small indulgences of color.

“It’s not quite so private in the summer, is it?” Theodor asked as we walked toward the greenhouse. The doors were open and the greenhouse, though currently lacking the novelty of a living garden in the midst of winter, was flooded with people exploring the aisles of exotic plants, exclaiming in wonder as they read the placards Theodor had written.

“No, but I’m glad your work hasn’t gone unnoticed,” I said. “Even if it means it won’t be as quiet next winter, I hope they come back to see it then. In winter, it’s magic.”

“If I hadn’t built it, I’d agree with you,” he said. “And even then, flowers in winter do seem a bit like something your charms ought to produce, not metal and glass.” He led me past the greenhouse. “I think I know a spot that will be a bit quieter,” he confided. The formal gardens gave way to the wooded park, where several picnickers stopped their progress to whisper as we passed. I tilted my head down, hiding my flushed face behind my enormous silk-covered hat. Theodor, with gentlemanly bravado, lifted his ebony walking stick in a show of pleasant greeting.

“Let’s go this way,” he said, diverting down a narrow path of crushed shells into the forest.

I lifted my skirts over a wayward root. I didn’t know the gardens well; though Theodor and I had spent countless hours here, most of them were in the greenhouse, often with Theodor in shirtsleeves and me with a large bib apron, repotting saplings or pruning roses. It was Theodor’s escape from the endless haggling and needling of the Council of Nobles, and though I never cared for dibbling in the dirt like he did, there was something close to normalcy about working alongside one another. I could forget, with matching lines of dirt under our nails, that he was noble and I was common-born.

“Ah, as quiet as I expected,” Theodor said. He ushered me into a quiet glade at the top of a hill, the branches above fracturing the sunlight and casting intricate, ever-moving shadows on a clear pool in the center. The pool cascaded to another just below it, and another, all the way down to a stand of willows, fronds brushing the water like languid golden fingers.

I gasped as I realized where we were—the waterfalls Theodor had brought me to when we had left Viola’s card party, shaken and afraid in the tumult of the weeks preceding the Midwinter Revolt. They had been frozen and staid in the cold, not the laughing cascades they were now.

“You remember?” He took my hands in his.

“Of course I do,” I breathed.

“Good.” Theodor grinned. “If you didn’t, it would make this rather awkward.” He pulled a thin chain of gold from his pocket, the links so minute that it looked more like a thick thread of winking metal. My jaw loosened and my eyes brimmed with sudden, sweet tears—I knew this tradition even if I had never seen the ritual unfold.

“I would tie my lot to yours,” Theodor said, draping the chain over his left wrist, “and bind our lives together.” He held out his hand to me. “Would you take the same vow?” I found I had no voice, but I laid my trembling fingers over his, and he brought the chain over my wrist, sealing a Galatine betrothal.

The gold bound our hands together only temporarily, but I knew what I was agreeing to, letting its cool links settle on my skin. I could swear that I almost tasted the traditional words Theodor had recited as he kissed me. I exhaled as he pulled away.

“Are you all right? To my understanding, most women eventually say something,” he coaxed.

“Yes, I—”

“You do want this, don’t you?” He lifted my chin to meet his eyes. “I know it doesn’t seem an easy road, potholed with stodgy old nobles, but I know this is right. For us, for Galitha—”

“Yes, this is what I want,” I stopped him, the gold chains on our wrists clinking gently together. I didn’t need to be sold on the prospect of marrying the man I loved, and better positioning myself to look out for the interests of my neighbors, my friends, the common folk of my country in the process. I had faced the fears I no longer needed to say, that I would never be accepted, and that I would have to give up the security and, indeed, identity of my shop. I had come to accept those fears, their attenuate risks. I understood now that inaction meant risking more than making a choice did.

“I know this means giving your shop up, eventually,” Theodor said. “I know that you don’t take that lightly, and neither do I.”

I nodded, then gripped his hand. “I know. I even know what I want to do—there are fewer charmed commissions than before, and Alice is already taking over more and more.” I couldn’t keep the shop, but the shop didn’t have to close. All my years of relentless work didn’t have to end with empty shop windows, a cold grate in my atelier, and the loss of my employees’ jobs. I could close off charmed commissions, finish those I already had in the queue, hire at least one more seamstress if not two—it was as easy to plan out as it was difficult to imagine my life without the shop.

“When the reforms pass, you can even sell it to her,” he said. “At whatever rate you think fair.”

Somewhere between all the money in Galitha and nothing at all, I thought with a wistful smile. “She could never afford the cost of what it’s worth. I would sign it over as a bequest.”

“Now, let’s see if I can do this right,” Theodor said, turning our still-bound wrists. He crisscrossed the chain, revealing a pair of minute clasps. With a gentle hand, he unhooked them, revealing that the chain was in fact two lengths of gold, one to wear on each of our wrists. I traced the gold with a tentative finger-tip; I’d seen bracelets on wealthy clients, while poorer Galatines usually used silk ribbons. The slight weight felt strange, a foreign, if welcome, presence. A constant presence, I reminded myself, as the binding wasn’t traditionally removed until the wedding. By then the ribbons poorer people used were ragged and stained, but, just like the metal wristlets the wealthy used, were saved as family keepsakes, sometimes worked into baby gowns or made into rosettes on a prized piece of embroidery.

The gold winked at me in the bright sunlight as I wrapped my arms around Theodor and let him sweep me off my feet and into a long embrace as the cascading water played a bright melody.