The merrow had been housed right here on Eleni’s vast grounds, in a manor that bled into the open walls of the main palace. Their new home was dotted with small stone basins that flowed with the same fragrant wine his friends now sipped. From the brief impression he’d had on his way to his rooms, it was not uncommon for courtiers and palace guests to go about their day with an empty goblet strapped to their person.
“Fair,” he said, nodding. He could see how such an amenity might make day to day a touch brighter. “But the doors?”
“What about them?”
“The lack of them,” he said dryly.
Al shrugged. “You get used to it.”
“But—” Kai floundered for a moment. Mother knows he had not settled easily into Selma’s court, but he had been grateful for a place to shut himself away with his thoughts. To pace and agonise behind closed doors, since he’dhada door to close. “What aboutprivacy?”
“That’s what the knockers are for.”
“But surely you can hear everything that happens from room to room—”
Al cut him off with a groan.
“Then learn to wank off quietly. Or were you hoping to findprivacywith someone in particular?”
Os threw his head back to the skies and pleaded for the Mother’s mercy, but Al just gave a suggestive pump of his brows. Kai spun around to find that rolled-up pair of socks he’d been planning to throw, and aimed directly at his friend’s smarmy grin.
Chapter Six
Adeline
“What do you think?”
Adeline eyed the spread of pastries — there were dozens of them. Piles of the same glossy, gleaming buns neatly arranged on multiple sets of tiered plates that crowded the long wooden dining table. It was… excessive. A little bizarre, really.
“I think,” she said slowly, “you could open a private bakery.”
Aunt Eleni laughed.
It was not the sunny, buoyant sound that Adeline recalled from her golden summer on these shores, though perhaps those memories were warped now — exaggerated by the contrast to her parting memory of her aunt. The sight of her standing on that dock, brow knitted fiercely and tears streaming freelydown her cheeks while Adeline’s father bundled her aboard their departing ship, never once turning to wave goodbye. They had not left on the highest note, and their every meeting since then had been formal. Performative. Niceties exchanged beneath the sharp eyes of Selma’s gossiping courtiers. This was new territory for them both, but she could appreciate that Eleni was trying —exceptionallyhard, if the overabundance of sweet treats was any indication.
Adeline had first mentioned her craving just hours ago, on their awkward carriage ride from the docks to the Imperial Palace. They’d bounced through the cobbled, uphill city streets and for a moment, Adeline had straddled time itself. She had been a child again, her father by her side, laughing as he scrambled to keep up with her scattered attention so he could explain each new sight and sound and scent. It was his voice she’d heard in that moment as she took in the world around her.
Those pink flowers spilling over the walls are nycta — our national flower. Blooms year round, but it’s positively humming with honeybees in the summer.
Smell that zest in the air, Mischief? Clementine buns, from a world-famous bakery.
See the way the road sparkles? That’s the sunlight catching little flecks of crystal in the stone. It’ll be warm beneath your feet when we step outside.
Hold your breath Ade, we’re passing the fish market. Ah now, it’s not that bad.
But ithadbeen that bad, all those years agoandagain that very afternoon. Just as she had at the age of seven, Adeline reacted a second too late, body tightening both with her withheld breath and an odd sense of betrayal, for she’d been filling her lungswith the sweet scent of baked goods mere moments before. The smell of brine, hot and wafting beneath the midday sun, was a solid force with enough might to rock the carriage. She’d given an involuntary groan, and at her side, Eleni had exhaled on an awkward laugh.
“You always did forget about the fishmongers,” she’d said.
Sitting too still on the plush carriage bench, her fingers sunk tight in the cushions beneath her, the Empress had watched her niece with those familiar brown eyes. Her own eyes; her father’s, too. On Silas’s face, Adeline would have read that same expression all too easily — it was hope. They’d not spoken in so very long; so many hurt feelings and unanswered letters ago. Some surly, regressive instinct within had her reaching for a quirked brow and a clipped reply, but she stopped, drawing herself up short with notable effort.
Unanswered letters.
Adeline had tensed against the thought, seized it lest it form legs and run away with her — but the slight bulk in her skirt pocket was a brand against her thigh, burning and insistent. A letter she would never answer.
She had made herself smile; made it warm.
“Well if memory serves, I’ll need at least three clementine buns to erase the hot fish taste from my mouth.”
