Page 44 of Foresyth Conservatory
And yet, beneath the soft breath of early warmth, there lingered a quiet tension—a reminder that winter had not yet relinquished her claim. She was only waiting—patient and unseen—to play her final hand.
Sequoia was sitting on a bench, nibbling on a blackberry jam sandwich, the edges dripping sweetness. She looked deep in thought, but her eyes brightened when she noticed me approaching.
“Dahlia, come join me,” she said licking her fingers, scooting over to make space. Her coat and scarf lay in a pile on the ground next to her.
“It’s strangely warm today, but I think it might still rain; the air is so heavy,” I noted.
“I love being out here, no matter the weather. Look, you can see the inklings of spring, ready to burst forth.” I followed her gaze, but all I saw were dried rose bushes. Perhaps she had a keener eye than I did.
“I just wanted to check on you. See how things have been with Aspen since our reading. It was . . . a lot.”
A pang of guilt twisted in my chest as I remembered how hard I’d pressed her for answers. Normally, I didn’t lose sleep over extracting information—especially from someone I suspected. But with Sequoia, it felt different. Not like strategy, but trespass. And for the first time in a long while, it felt less like investigation . . . and more like crossing a line.
“You can say that again,” she replied, splitting her jam-laden sandwich and offering me half.
When I shook my head, she tucked the other half of the sandwich back onto the napkin in her lap and gestured for me to sit. I settled beside her, our knees brushing lightly. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious, her effortless grace a mirror to my own rough edges. I fidgeted with the clasp of my necklace, trying to free it from the tangle of my hair.
“Let me do that for you,” she offered. Before I could protest, her fingers moved gently through my tangled curls, gathering them to one side. Her hands brushed across the nape of my neck as she freed the clasp from my hair, her fingers moving with the fluid grace of flowing water. Her calm confidence was almost electric, charging the space between us.
“How do you do it?” I asked.
“The clasp?”
“No, being you. You move through the world like a feather through silk.”
She giggled, and I felt a pang in my chest. I wanted to hear her laugh like that many more times.
“There’s nothing I have that you don’t, Dahlia,” she said, meeting my gaze. “Many things are difficult for me, but tapping into my femineity has always been the easiest.”
“That has been anything but easy for me,” I confessed. “I wish I could be comfortable in my own skin, but it’s like I need a costume for the world to accept me.” It was the same way I felt with my bookstore patrons; they only saw the image I projected, never the person underneath.
I turned my gaze toward the garden, to the withered rose bushes bowed beneath the weight of winter. I could feel her eyes on me, steady and searching, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet them.
“I see you, Dahlia. Costume or not,” she mused.
I turned to her, and her eyes were like two pools of caramel, warm and inviting, pulling me closer. I wanted to trust her; I wanted to believe that we could truly be friends. Until Foresyth, I’d rarely had peers of my own. It had always just been Gabriel and I, tucked away in the alcoves. But these students were different from Gabriel—they didn’t just want to read stories and myths, they wanted tolivein them, create new ones of their own, even. It was simultaneously exhilarating and unsettling.
“I actually came here to give you something.”
“Me?”
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a small wooden box. “I just fixed it up recently; it was missing a gear. I thought you might like it.”
Sequoia took it from my hands, examining it from every angle. Finally, she opened it, and an airy musical tune began to play. She squealed in delight.
“A music box, how lovely. Thank you, Dahlia.”
“It’s the least I could do . . .” I drifted off. The guilt of my reading was still hanging heavy in my chest, despite havinghelped her on her Druid paper. The music box didn’t erase the ache in my chest, but I did feel a little bit lighter seeing her in such delight.
“Nonsense. You’ve already done so much for me. I’m glad to know I’m no longer alone in this House. It can be so lonely, being around people all day but not having them see who you really are. But now, neither of us are alone,” Sequoia said, closing the music box and taking my hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
And this time, I didn’t instinctively pull back. Instead, I let my fingers interlace with hers. We stayed there, holding hands for a while. Despite the circumstances, a part of me was glad to be here, too.
*
After lunch, I made my way back down to the lab. Most students frequented the library after meals, but I preferred studying alone. Aside from the occasional visit from Nina, who sometimes worked on her taxidermy, I had the lab to myself. It felt like a sanctuary, a place where I could think and study in peace.
Today, I wanted to set Julian’s case aside, if only to focus on the numerous research topics I’d been assigned. I had handed in my runic paper outline to the Meister, but now there was the looming Council meeting. Falling behind on my research tasks would only weaken my cover, and I couldn’t give Aspen any more reason to suspect that I was a detective.
