A Ruin of Roses (Deliciously Dark Fairytales #1)(57)

“I’ll need to dry the everlass this evening,” I said as I let my mind roam. “Someone needs to remind Nyfain.”

The seamster, Cecil, sucked in a startled breath. “How dare a lowborn hagbag like you call the master by his given name? You shouldn’t be messing around with his prized everlass at all!”

“Call me a hagbag again and I’ll punch you in your beanbag,” I replied.

He looked up at me slowly, met my gaze, and just as slowly looked back down. Message delivered, message clearly received. He stopped protesting.

Then: “I have new inspiration!” he cried. “I must start again. I was doing it all wrong!”

He worked faster the second time around, thankfully, but it was still another hour before we got out of there.

“I’ve never seen him work so quickly,” Hadriel said as we headed outside. The next order of business was finding me a garden to redo. “I mean, he certainly wasted a lot of time in the beginning, but he really seemed to find his way after you threatened him.”

“And now we know what it takes to hurry him up,” I said.

“You shouldn’t have to go back for measurements. Once he has direction, he usually starts churning things out. Sometimes it just takes forever for that direction to come to him. Right, okay, where’s this garden you had in mind?”

It took me roaming the outside grounds, sadly burned and browned without a team of people to look after them, to find it. I thought about asking after the gardening team, but I had a pretty good idea of what had happened to them. If they could make use of a pitchfork, they probably hadn’t lasted long.

I caught sight of my tower room and cut that way. “It’s just over here.”

Except it wasn’t. A brick wall rose in front of us, covered in a mess of vines.

“Oh no, you can’t choose this one.” Hadriel shook his head as I met the wall of the castle.

I started around the other way, finding the same thing. A glance up confirmed that I was in the right place. I just hadn’t noticed the garden was walled because I’d been looking down. It must’ve been hidden within the overgrowth, which meant the overgrowth was extreme.

“See?” Hadriel said. “There’s no way in. You— What are you doing?”

I found a part of the wall free of the thorny vines and jumped, hooking my fingers around the edge. I pulled myself up and threw my leg over, rewarded with a bite of pain in my calf from the thorns of an out-of-control blackberry bush. Sucking air through my teeth, I adjusted and sat, confronted with a swell of plant life.

“Holy crap, this place is in a state.” I looked up at the tower window, accessing my memory of the layout from looking down. “If I fall in, Hadriel…tell someone.”

“You shouldn’t be up there. That garden is off-limits!”

“Nyfain didn’t mention any gardens being off-limits.”

“This is not something that has to be mentioned!”

Well, that just made it more attractive.

I stood, taking a moment to find my balance, and walked the top of the brick wall. There was a mess of roses to my left, and a thicket of thorny vines beyond them. I had no idea what those vines were, but I planned to cut them all down.

“I’ll need some gardening tools, Hadriel,” I called. He nearly hopped along the ground beside me, incredibly anxious. This garden had probably belonged to royalty at one time—their private grounds. I’d read about that in the history books. But guess what? The royals were all dead, and the king had sucked. I wouldn’t at all feel bad about taking over.

At the side near the castle wall, the massive overgrowth turned into tall and brittle weeds. They crowded within and atop rows that must’ve been used for growing herbs or produce of some kind. I wondered how the dirt was. I turned and lowered myself down.

“Come back out,” Hadriel called. “Seriously, come out. This is a terrible idea.”

“It’s just a garden, Hadriel.”

“It’s the queen’s garden!” he replied. “The queen’s own garden.”

“She’d probably want me to return it to its former glory, then.” I meandered through the space, taking stock of any plants I could identify, weeds or otherwise. I’d need to check the library for anything I didn’t recognize.

“The king forbade it. He forbade anyone to touch any part of the grounds except for the everlass. He said that was the queen’s role—the management of the grounds—and without a queen, there could be no grounds.”

“And look at the fix he’s gotten us all in with his terrible decision-making. Besides, he’s dead, Hadriel. His royal decrees or whatever don’t mean squat anymore.”

I bent and dug my hands through the dirt. Something scraped my finger, and I grimaced, pulling it out to look. A drop of blood welled up, and I smiled. I fed the blood back into the ground.

“You see?” I held up my finger even though he was still on the other side of the wall. “It drew first blood. It has chosen me. Now all I need to give it is sweat and tears, and we’ll be all set.”

“Since when do you talk like a warrior? They are plants, Finley. Come out of there this minute!”

“Nah.” I continued sizing up the space, working out in my head what I’d need to do first, and what tools I’d need to accomplish it. I wondered if anyone could be spared to help.