Entwined(9)

“Come now, Flora,” said Azalea, taking Flora’s dainty hand. “A secondhand curt—”

A fuss from downstairs interrupted her. The entrance hall door slammed; a commotion of servants, the bark of the King’s voice. The girls’ eyes lit.

“The King,” said Flora.

“He’s back!”

“Steady on.” Azalea pulled the younger girls back and smoothed their skirts and hair. Then, with shaking hands, she wrapped Lily in a blanket and herded the girls down the hall. The King. Finally! He would know what to do. He was the most steady gentleman Azalea knew. And he hadn’t seen Lily yet—surely he hadn’t.

The corridor on the second floor opened to a mezzanine, which overlooked the entrance hall. The King stood at the bottom, speaking in low tones to Mr. Pudding, who kneaded his cap.

Like all of them, the King wore his clothes from yesterday. His uniform was muddy and wet, and several of his medals had been torn off. A streak of blood smeared across his face into his closely trimmed beard. Even so, he stood stiff and formal, regal and proper as always.

“…in the library. I have business to tend to. I will not be disturbed, Mr. Pudding.”

“Aye, sir, but th’ princesses, they’ve been eager to see you, sir—”

“I cannot abide them,” the King snapped, in a loud-enough whisper that it echoed in the hall. “I cannot! Keep them away from me, Mr. Pudding!”

Azalea looked quickly from the King below to the bedraggled, wide-eyed girls next to her. Clover held her hands over her mouth.

Azalea blinked away the shock, pursed her lips together, tucked Lily’s blanket about her tiny neck, and descended the stairs to the entrance hall in a glide.

“Er—no—miss, I wouldn’t do that,” said Mr. Pudding as she strode past him to the library door.

Azalea knocked but didn’t wait for an answer. She slid the door open. The King stood over his desk, sorting through the top drawer. He pulled out a key.

“Sir!” said Azalea. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

The King walked toward the door. Azalea ran forward to meet him.

“Look,” she said. She pulled the blanket away from Lily’s face and showed him the tiny, bonneted bundle.

He didn’t stop to look.

“Mother named her,” said Azalea. “It’s Lily. We thought you’d—”

The King clamped his hands firmly on Azalea’s shoulders, turned her about, and guided her almost roughly to the library door. Azalea tried to shake off his iron hands.

“Sir—you don’t—sir—”

The King pushed her into the hall.

Azalea twisted around to see the heavy wood-paneled library door slide shut. A faint click-click signaled the door locking.

Azalea opened her mouth, but no sound came out. It caught in her throat.

The girls peered down from the mezzanine above, wordless.

“It’s just a guess,” said Bramble after a moment, “but I don’t think he’s in the mood to see us.”



Not until Azalea had tucked in the weepy, sniffling girls in their tiny third-floor room, combing their hair and telling them stories, and made sure that Lily was settled in the nursery with the nursemaid, did she slip away to Mother’s room. Eathesbury tradition required the steward of the family to sit up the first night to watch over the deceased, but Azalea could hear Mr. Pudding’s hacking sobs from across the palace, and she joined him in Mother’s room, pouring cups of tea to soothe him.

Azalea cried, seeing the holly, pine, and dried flowers strewn about the room. She bit her lip so hard it numbed, to keep herself from glancing at the bed, but in the end she had to. And it surprised her. Mother lay on the bed, dressed in white, with flowers in her auburn hair.

She looked peaceful. For the past months, when Azalea had seen her, she had lines on her face and pain in her eyes. Now, she rested. The old magic tea set, still sitting on the end table, didn’t have the spark of feistiness to it anymore. It slumped on its tray.

Azalea sat on Mother’s stiff flowered sofa, picked up the silver teacup, and turned it over in her hands. The silver cooled her fingertips. Engraved on the bottom of the cup was a tiny half-moon with three marks through it. DE. The D’Eathe mark.

Azalea considered the picture of the High King D’Eathe, which she had once found while cleaning the north attic. An ancient, pockmarked fellow with no hair and dark eyes, scowling from the canvas. Even just the memory of his portrait made Azalea shudder. He captured and tortured people foolish enough to wander onto the thorn-shrouded palace grounds. Stories of the High King tearing a person apart, starting with the thumbs, then to the ears and toes, tugging them to pieces like a cricket, to see how long they would stay alive, haunted Azalea in her worst nightmares.

And then, the worst story of all: After they had died, he kept their souls. Their bodies would be found, strewn across the city, but at night, when the palace windows glowed through the thorn vines, the very same person would be seen, silhouetted against the candlelight, walking the halls.

Thinking of it terrified Azalea. Even so, for the first time in her life, she was glad of it. Because if the High King did capture souls, it meant that a person had one. It meant that there was something to the warm, flickery bit inside of you. It meant that Mother wasn’t hurting anymore. Azalea clung to that hope, desperately. If that were true, Azalea would believe in anything.