Page 52 of Grave Flowers
“It’s all right, Mads,” she said. “It’s meant to be this way. I’ve died, but you have a long life ahead. You’ll be a wonderful queen of Radix when the time comes.”
“Don’t you see? It isn’t meant to be,” I protested. “I never wanted to be queen.”
“Then you’ll be good at it,” Inessa said. “Maybe you’re the hope for Radix. I would’ve ruled like Father, and you—well, you cherish freedom, so you give it to others. I think it’s why you love the grave flowers. And I think it’s why they love you.”
Without warning, she disappeared.
It was a gentle going, unlike the others when I’d been in distress. This time, she was there and then not, leaving as though she’d simply stepped through a door and closed it behind her. Next to me, on the bed, was the red dress. It was folded neatly. I stared at the red square of fabric. I touched my own hair. Dry. After getting up, I went to thetub and stared into it. It was also as dry as bone. So was the marble around it.
But the gentleness couldn’t continue. Not when realms of here and there had been ripped to let Inessa through. Pain rent my hand, making it feel as though my scar had been spiked in half. I bent over. Something dislodged from the scar, tearing my skin and tumbling free.
Metal clinked against marble. Weakly, I knelt. Drops of blood spattered across my hand. Was it more glass? I picked up the small object. It was slippery with blood. Shaking, I wiped it off on a towel and stared.
A silver knob sat in my palm. The bottom of it scrolled into an ornate design. The top part featured a jagged edge. It was serrated, as though a monstrous bite had been taken from it. Touching it gently, I winced as one of the prongs nicked my fingertip.
I recognized it. I went to my vanity. Perfume bottles, including my Radixan one, sat in a row like jewels on a necklace next to ribbons and hairpins, the sinuous fluidity of the ribbons strange near the militantly straight ruby-tipped hairpins. The tonics Sindony used in her daily war against my hair were to the right, almost empty since she always used too much.
My hairbrush was usually there as well, but its spot was vacant.
It couldn’t have simply disappeared. I searched through my chambers, peering behind furniture and in corners. Drawing back one of the drapes, I gasped.
At first, I wasn’t certain that the object I’d found was the hairbrush, but when I lifted it with two fingers, I saw it was. Black sludge covered it. Every bristle had been marauded. Some bristles were entirely torn out, but others weren’t, leaving part of the paddle bald and other parts with short hair.
I took a shaky breath and lifted the metal part that’d been expelled from my scar to the bottom of the handle. It was a perfect fit. Inessa must have bitten it off to satiate her hunger. I shuddered and droppedboth pieces. I hadn’t seen Inessa bite the brush. She must’ve been here earlier when I was gone.
I picked up the remnants of the brush. Like the mirror, I needed to hide it. I swallowed hard, flexing my aching hand. Neither Inessa nor I knew the true ramifications of her passing in and out of Bide, becoming a ghost in our world and a trapped soul in the other.
But those ramifications continued to impact me … and they were getting worse.
Chapter
FIFTEEN
Dawn came but I slept in late, exhausted. Sindony tried to rouse me a few times, but I waved her off. Finally, I woke up on my own but remained in bed. Last night hung over me. My skull pounded, even though I hadn’t hit my head, and nausea hung in my throat. Dully, I glanced down at my hand, looking at it as though it were a vase or book, an object not mine. My scar was almost translucent in the daylight trickling in despite the drapes. I turned my head away.
Brightness fell across my face. Sindony and the other girls gathered at the window. They whispered together and tried to peek around the drape without allowing in more light to disturb me. They were tremendously unsuccessful. Their whispers were much too loud, and the curtain lifted and fell and lifted and fell again, making the light flash.
“Girls!” I had to merely say the word and they jumped back from the window as one. The curtain mercifully descended against the window, narrowing the bright light to a thin strip.
“Apologies, Your Highness!” Sindony exclaimed. She clamped her hands over her mouth, remembering I’d asked for quiet. “Apologies,Your Highness,” she repeated, this time in an exaggerated whisper. “But Prince Aeric is in the garden, and so is everyone else.”
My heart plummeted as though it’d been cut loose from my rib cage. Terror coursed through me. Had the starvelings failed to adequately bury Luthien? These had never eaten a corpse before. Maybe they’d been unsuccessful. I hurried out of bed.
“A dress. Any dress. Quickly!” I ordered. Sindony came forward, Inessa’s red dress draped across her arms in a bright stream. “Not that one.”
I rushed down to the garden. A cluster of people gathered by the starvelings. I could see the back of Aeric’s head. Botanists with shovels and wheelbarrows moved back and forth from the flower bed. Annia fluttered about, wringing her hands in distress.
Cutting across the grass, I walked with my head held high, even as panic gripped me. People saw me and stepped aside, bowing and curtsying and suppressing sneezes from the grave flower pollen as I passed. Aeric turned around at the commotion. He walked to me with fast steps. I stopped, certain he was going to point at me and bellow for the guards. But when he reached me, he didn’t shout,Arrest her.Instead, his arm slipped around my waist, and his other hand curved around my neck. Shock and confusion made me freeze. His lips brushed against the side of my face.
Vaguely, I felt his stubble sweep across my cheek, and he said, “Good morn, Princess.”
I didn’t understand. He wasn’t ordering me to be arrested. He was … being romantic?Don’t touch him or let him touch you.Inessa’s words blazed through my bewildered mind. I jerked back from his arms and the warmth of his lips. Glancing around, I tried to make sense of what was happening.
That’s when I saw them.
Lost souls, beauties, enmities, dragonslips, moonmirrors—all of them.
I recognized their wilted leaves and drooping blooms—and their unconventional vessels: boots, two coffins, and a chamber pot. They were from the stall at the Oscura. Every single one I’d seen there was now here. Why? Did Aeric purchase them so he might use them against me?
