Entwined(8)

“I’m so sorry,” said Azalea. “I shouldn’t have left you all.”

Bramble snapped to attention. She leaped to her feet and threw her orange at Azalea. It hit Azalea’s shoulder and bounced to the floor.

“You shouldn’t have!” she said. She snatched Flora’s orange from her hands and threw it. Azalea didn’t move, and it hit her on the side of the head and bounced onto the frilly rug.

“How dare you desert us like that!” Bramble threw Goldenrod’s orange, and it hit Azalea on the shoulder again. Bramble began to cry anew.

“At least try to dodge them!” she said.

In two strides Azalea was at Bramble’s side, pulling her to her shoulder. Bramble sobbed. The girls flocked to Azalea, the younger ones clutching her skirts, all of them a wrinkled mess.

“You’re all wet,” said Bramble, between hiccups.

“I know,” said Azalea. Her hair dripped.

“L-Lea,” said Clover. She always had difficulty speaking, as though every word took her entire effort. She pushed a smile. “We…have something…to show—show you. L-look.”

A frilly bassinet stood in the middle of the room, and Clover pulled Azalea to it. A tiny bundle of lacy blanket and dark curls lay inside.

The baby was the tiniest Azalea had ever seen—and she had seen quite a few, now the eldest of twelve. It could fit inside her cupped hands. And a girl, too, judging by the tiny, frilly bonnet. Azalea pulled off her soggy, wet gloves and touched the baby’s curled fingers.

“That would be L, then,” said Azalea. All her sisters had been named alphabetically, as the King liked everything very much in order. He was particular that way. He even had the jam jars in the pantry indexed.

“Mother n-named her,” said Clover. “It’s Lily.”

“Lily,” Azalea breathed.

Graceful, delicate. The baby reminded her of the white garden lilies that bloomed through the snow. Mother always knew what was just right.

“M-Minister said that Mother…h-held Lily,” said Clover. “Before she—”

Clover didn’t finish, because she began to weep anew. Everyone began crying again, sobbing and wet hiccupping. Azalea felt lost, as though she had leaped into the air, a jeté, and kept falling and falling, her stomach turning and waiting to hit the ground that wasn’t there. She pulled the handkerchief from her sleeve, and the silver flashed.

Promise me…

The tingling prickled to her fingers.

Azalea took a deep breath and moved her feet into fourth position, then traced her toe behind her and dipped into a kneel. Dancing always steadied her. She wiped Jessamine’s and Kale’s tiny faces, which were streaked and wet. She cleaned their noses, too.

“Do you know,” she said, moving to Ivy, “what we haven’t done?”

Ivy shook her blond curls.

“We haven’t introduced ourselves to Lily.” Azalea pushed a smile. “It’s her first day here, and all we’ve done is cry at her. It won’t do.”

Bramble grimaced. “Oh, really, Az—”

“Come along,” said Azalea. She stood and held out her hands. “Join hands, trace the left foot back into a curtsy position number two.”

No one moved.

Azalea didn’t give up. The girls looked a mix of surprised, shocked, and disgusted as she dipped into a fifth-position curtsy, lowering to her right knee and pointing her left foot in front of her, so it peeked out from her muddy hem. When she straightened, their expressions had softened.

“Your dip was unsteady,” said Bramble. “When you switched the balance to your other foot.”

“Introduction to royalty curtsy,” said Azalea, holding out her hand to Bramble. “No one balances as well as you.”

Bramble pursed her lips into a thin red line, but she took Azalea’s hand and stood. In a sweep of long red hair, she lowered into a deep curtsy in a lithe, supple movement. She extended her arm out to the bassinet.

“Too late to back out now, young chit,” said Bramble. “Welcome to the royal family.”

Azalea took Ivy’s five-year-old hand and bowed to her. Ivy twirled underneath Azalea’s arm, and curtsied to Lily. Jessamine took Azalea’s other hand, and curtsied with her, and then all the girls, eyes red, joined hands. The dance flowed through them, and they moved as one in a reel. Blood flowed to Azalea’s cheeks, warming them in a wash. Ankles together, step back, brush forward, touch, bow, in graceful, practiced movements. Their skirts brushed together.

They raised their heads and broke apart, looking shyly at one another, as though not quite sure what had gotten into them.

It was…magic. But not the sort like the tea set. Last winter, when Azalea had fully realized parliament’s role in her future marriage, Mother had brushed Azalea’s hair, dried her face, and brought her to the ballroom. There she taught Azalea a midair mazurka.

“Do you feel that?” Mother said, when Azalea had mastered the dizzy, brilliant step. “That warm, flickery bit inside of you? That’s magic. The deepest sort. So deep it doesn’t have a name. But it is magic, just the same.”

And now, though their eyes were red and puffy, Azalea’s sisters weren’t crying anymore. It was the warm, flickery bit that did it. They even managed weak smiles.