“I feared we had lost you to the Shaded Lands entirely,” Jasvian added, with the faintest curve of a smile. “That you had fallen so thoroughly in love with the place you might never set foot here again.”
Kazrian smiled back and did not say that, left to his own devices, Jasvian would very likely have been right. He would not be here at all if their grandmother had not insisted.
Lady Rivenna had officially handed over proprietorship of The Charmed Leaf Tea House to Iris at the close of the previous Bloom Season, and precisely no one had been surprised when she had, almost immediately, purchased a vacant building at the far end of the very same lane and embarked upon a new venture.
A confectionery, of all things. The Honeycomb, she called it. No scones—Orrit would sooner set fire to his own ovens than leave The Charmed Leaf, and no living soul could rival his legendary recipe—but enchanted confections of some sort.
Evryn had been commissioned to install a lumyrite lattice throughout the building to power the enchantments required for crafting magical confections. Aurelise, after returning from one of her recent visits, had recounted the resulting clashes between their grandmother and Evryn in hilarious detail. The arguments over placement and configuration had been quite something, because naturally their grandmother, who possessed no lumyrite ability whatsoever, would not hesitate to instruct Evryn on the use of his own magic.
The lattice was laid successfully, but it turned out that an old building steeped in generations of residual magic from its former occupants did not take kindly to new infrastructure. Different enchantments clashed. Systems misfired. Nothing could be relied upon to function as it should, his grandmother had complained in her letters.
In the end, she had all but commanded Kazrian to return to Bloomhaven. She had informed him that The Honeycomb required someone who could diagnose and repair lumyrite systems, that he was the only Rowanwood whose ability suited the task, and that it was utter nonsense that he had been away so long. He would return. He would fix her confectionery. And with any luck, he would secure a wife this Season while he was about it.
Kazrian had agreed to two of the three.
“I still cannot fathom what they had you doing over there,” Rosavyn said, giving his shoulder a squeeze that turned into an impressed pat. “Wrestling dragons?”
“Well. Notwrestling, precisely.”
“Rowing on that lake, I expect,” Iris said, her eyes bright with amusement as she reached over and gave his other shoulder an appraising squeeze. “Did you not thoroughly trounce both your brothers the last time we visited?”
Jasvian folded his arms. “By a negligible margin.”
“If the two of you are quite finished inspecting me,” Kazrian said mildly, “I should like the use of my shoulders back.” He looked past Iris, intending to mention the tapping door handle to his grandmother, but paused.
Lady Rivenna was bent forward in her chair, and Coralie had both hands clamped around the older woman’s left shoulder, squeezing with the earnest focus of someone performing Very Important Work. The Rowanwood matriarch held perfectly still, her head inclined slightly as though the three year old’s assessment warranted serious consideration.
Kazrian directed an amused glance at Rosavyn—look what you’ve started—before addressing his grandmother. “I noticed a brass leaf on the back door handle that’s come loose and is tapping. I could take a look at it? I’m sure it would require only a quick adjustment.”
“Like the ‘quick adjustment’ that left my pianoforte playing itself at three o’clock in the morning for a fortnight?” his grandmother said wryly, sitting back as Coralie released her.
“That was years ago, Grandmother. My abilities have?—”
“Uncle Kazriannnnn!”Coralie shrieked. She launched herself from Lady Rivenna’s side in a blur of tangled dark hair and mud-stained muslin and collided with his leg at full tilt.
“Thank you for the offer, Kazrian,” Iris said, moving toward Emeric, who had just discovered a small garden hand fork beneath Jasvian’s vacated chair and was brandishing it with wide-eyed delight. She gently extracted it from his grip and held it out to the garden gnome who was hurrying over, looking deeply apologetic about having misplaced his equipment in the vicinity of a toddler. “But I’m afraid it’s a project the kitchen pixies have taken upon themselves,” Iris continued. “They’ve some notion of enchanting the back door to hum a little tune whenever someone comes through, and from the sound of it, they are still very much in the experimental stages.”
“Pick-a-back, pick-a-back, pick-a-back!” Coralie begged, tugging repeatedlyon Kazrian’s trouser leg as she stared up at him with pleading eyes that were almost exactly like her mother’s.
Kazrian required no persuading whatsoever. “If the lady insists,” he said at once, crouching with his back to her and his arms open behind him. Jasvian was already there, scooping Coralie up and settling her onto Kazrian’s back, where she immediately locked both arms around his neck.
“There now,” Kazrian said, straightening with a wide grin and hitching her a little higher. “A far better use of my shoulders.”
He set off at a cheerful trot around the arrangement of garden chairs, Coralie bouncing, giggling, and shrieking instructions.“Faster!”and“That way!”and“We’re being chased by DRAGONS!”
Jasvian settled back into his chair, beside the one Rosavyn had just dropped into. A few feet away, Iris was crouched down in front of Emeric, who was now in the grip of a passionate and full-throated outrage over the swift and unjust confiscation of what had clearly been the most magnificent object he had ever held.
“I know,” Iris said gently, catching his flailing hands. “I know. It was a very fine fork. But we do not stab things before luncheon, my love. That is an afternoon activity at the earliest.”
Emeric was unmoved by this reasoning and let out a wail of deepest betrayal.
Lady Rivenna rose from her chair. “Oh, you poor dear,” she said, looking down at Emeric with a sympathy so grave and sincere that one might have thought the child had suffered a devastating personal loss. “What a dreadful injustice. One moment you possessed the finest weapon in all the garden, and the next—cruelly snatched away.”
“Because he would likely have poked his own eye out with it,” Iris grumbled, sitting down beside Jasvian and allowing him to fold her hand into his. “But never mind that.”
“Come with me, my darling,” Lady Rivenna murmured, bending closer to Emeric with the conspiratorial air. “Shall we go inside and steal a scone from Orrit?”
Emeric’s tears ceased as though a tap had been shut off. He raised his arms.
