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I think it’s hard for him to be here.

With the son his father left him for.

“The Fae Isles are breathtaking,” I say, forcing my attention back to her.

“Quill tells me the most beautiful flowers grow there, and I have this silly goal of collecting them all. I just need Riven to come around and send an invitation.”

“Why flowers?”

She lifts a shoulder. “I think I felt like one when I was Adelphi’s Sacrifice. Something pretty to look at, fragile, and with a short lifespan, you know?”

“That makes sense.”

“Do you see them the same way? Fragile, fleeting?” she asks.

“Not at all. To me, flowers are capable, resilient, and can even change the world. As a floramancer, I can work wonders with their innate magical properties.”

She cocks her head. “A floramancer? What’s that? Do you have botany divination powers or something?”

I laugh more to myself than her. “Something like that.”

“Go on,” she says, taking a sip from her mug.

I don’t have to guess at what’s inside—the crimson staining her lips is a dead giveaway. For a beat, the sight twists my stomach. After losing two of my closest friends to vampires, it should repulse me. But it doesn’t. Not as much as I’d expect. And that unsettles me more than the blood itself.

Still, I find myself leaning into the conversation, startled by how easy it feels to open up to her. “So after I died,” I begin, “I came back able to use the magical properties in flowers and plants to heal other living things.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I’m actually working on a compendium that will detail the various uses of each type of flower.”

“I’d love to read it once you’ve finished.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be finished,” I say with a sigh. “There’s just so much to chronicle, and now that I’m in the Fae Isles, there are so many new to me species to study.”

Her jaw drops. “Then I’m definitely coming to visit. Maybe for the ball?”

“What ball?” I ask.

“Sorry, I must’ve gotten my correspondence mixed up.” Her eyes fill with curiosity. “Tell me more about you. I mean, I read your story so many times growing up, but I never in a thousand years thought you’d be real. You were always this…” She trails off and presses her lips together.

“This?” I prompt.

“This... force. Incredibly brave. It’s going to sound silly, but I aspired to be more like you.”

I wince. A murderess?

“That’s… very kind of you.” I reach for where Achlys sleeps beside me on the settee and pet him. “Though almost everything written in that story is a lie.”

“Truly?”

I nod. “I never attempted to summon an army of the undead to rebel against my coven for the role they played in the war.”

I merely killed an innocent girl and ran for my life. But the truth wouldn’t serve the narrative they needed to rally the mortals against creatures, so they rewrote me into a creature of wrath and vengeance, the villain their tale demanded.

“Huh.” She picks up her drink. “So they didn’t exile you from their coven and lock you away for hundreds of years?”

“Nope.”