“I heard that, too. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe you’re both people?” he suggested.
“The lily and the thorn,” she mused. Perhaps she could become a third person. Someone entirely new. Not Lily and not Thorn, but a person with both faces combined into someone better. Someone good. “I like that,” she decided.
“Lilythorn,” he said in a reverent voice.
His gaze dropped to her lips.
The moment stretched on.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she asked breathlessly.
“First things first.” He drew back and went down on one knee, heedless of his cream trousers. Pulling out a velvet-covered box, he opened it, and revealed the most beautiful jewel Thorn had ever seen. “Will you marry me, Lilythorn? Will you take this ring as a promise of my love and commitment? Will you be my bride?”
Her thoughts had screeched to a stop, then whirled into frantic flight like bluebirds scattered by a hawk. “Marry you?” she echoed in disbelief.
His face fell. “Yes. Do you not want to? I thought…”
“I want to!” she burst out, afraid she’d already ruined everything. “It’s just that—” She broke off, uncertain what she could say to explain her tumult of emotion.
He stood, expression full of concern. “Too fast? I didn’t mean to rush you. I was just so… excited.”
“No, it’s not that.” She laid her palm on his chest. “I still can’t leave here. I have to meet my mother and there’s Jada and my father and some plot of his that Rose is going to explain, but I don’t know anything yet. I don’t know if I…canmarry you?” She finished on a question, feeling foolish. “I want to do the right thing,” she added more firmly. “For once in my life.”
“You haven’t done that many wrong things,” he told her with a quirk of a smile, then laid his hand over hers on his chest, pressing it against his heart. “But I understand what you’re saying and I’m realizing I skipped over the important parts. Rose said Icould tell you what she discovered. She wants us to get married, if you want to. It’s her gift to us.”
She had worried about that since her last conversation with Rose, who’d been so righteously furious with her—and who hadn’t been back since. “Is Rose… angry with me?”
“No, no, not at all. She’s having a hard time and—”
“Why, is she hurt? Did something happen?”
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Sebastien said fervently, curling his fingers around their joined hands. “Rose is upset, yes. She was… close to her father, to your father, and discovering she’s been lied to all her life has her upended in a way I’ve never seen her be. I know it’s nothing compared to what you suffered, but it’s hard for her and she needs time to sort things out in her mind. She also has requirements to finish for graduation. I can promise you that she’s actually happy to be free to choose what to do next. And shewillcome see you. I just… I asked to be the one to tell you all of this. Maybe that was selfish.”
“Lied to.” She fastened on to that part. “About me—or is there more?”
He raked his golden locks back with one hand and glanced at Bunny in exasperation. “Yes, I know I’m bungling this. Less advice and more silence while I order my thoughts. Oh, ha ha.” He gave Thorn—Lily now—a sheepish grin. “Bunny just questioned whether Ihaveany thoughts to order.”
“Bunny,” she scolded. “How unkind. Just tell me the story from the beginning, please, Sebastien. Let’s sit.”
She led him to her spot by the pond under the weeping willow and listened as he related the tale of her birth and Rose’s, and what their father had done. She would ask Rose to repeat it, as some of the details seemed fuzzy, but as the story wound on, a new, tingling and buoyant hope filled her heart. Shecouldmarry Sebastien. She only had to pretend to be Rose. She didn’t much like that and worried that Rose might be morehurt than Sebastien realized. If Thorn became Rose, then who would Rose be? She would be usurping everything that belonged to Rose, her sister’s entire future that she’d worked so hard for. Rose was sacrificing her own happiness for theirs. “Is this what Rose wants?”
“Yes,” Sebastien assured her. “I felt I could speak for you when I promised Rose that, whatever she decides to do from here—whatever you decide together—you and I will support her in every way. She’ll talk with you soon about how you two want to handle your father’s plans and this subterfuge.”
Handle it. Thorn had no idea, but she trusted that Rose would. She felt guilty that she’d be getting everything and Rose possibly… nothing? “Is there any other way out of this?” she asked, not of anyone in particular.We’re apparently the same person,Rose had said. A joke, Thorn now realized, but there was truth in jest. Only one of them could truly live, just as with Witch Gornicka and her copy.
“You don’t have to marry me,” Sebastien reminded her with a questioning lilt to his voice. “We can find another path through this. This is Clotaire’s plot, not ours.”
“But Iwantto marry you,” she protested, almost plaintive. “I want all of it. It just seems like I’m taking everything from Rose to have that.”
Sebastien looked thoughtful, taking her hand in both of his. “You have such a compassionate heart, my Lilythorn. Amazing after all you’ve been through. I think Rose would tell you that you’re not taking anything from her that she actually wants, but I understand if you want to wait and hear it from her.”
Thorn considered that, immensely grateful that he’d listened and understood. “I won’t marry you until Rose and I have talked things through. I trust that she has a plan for all of this. But…” She trailed off, feeling shy. “I would like to marry you.”
“And I would like to marry you, my delightful Lilythorn, withpetal-perfect skin and eyes dark as night. I plan to tell you every day for the rest of your life how astonishingly beautiful you are.”
“Even after I’m old and shriveled?” she teased, flustered.
