Page 5

“I’ve been thinking about you often here. There are fields of sunflowers near the manor, and every time we pass by I think of you, how yellow is your favourite colour and how the golden petals of the flowers would match your perfect hair. One day, we will eat a picnic in that field and I shall weave the flowers into your pretty blonde hair. Have I told you already how much I love your hair?”

“This is making me feel ill.” Camellia rolls her eyes.

“Well, help me stop her then!” I grasp for the letter, but Gilia sprints away.

“I hope you don’t mind this, but I’ve been speaking to your father. There is something I’ve been planning since the night I returned from the ball. I hope that this letter reaches you before he spills my secret… it’s something I hope you’ll love.”

“What is it? What’s the secret?” Heather almost falls out of her seat.

I swipe at Gilia, but Iris leaps up and holds me back. Heather grabs me too.

Little traitors.

“It doesn’t say.” Gilia scans over the letter, turning it over and back again. “It’s just paragraphs upon paragraphs of soppiness,” she scoffs before glancing at me. “Go on, tell us what the secret is. Please.”

“You have to tell us!” Heather whines.

Shaking both her and Iris off me, I grumble, “I don’t know yet.” When I finally snatch the letter back, I shove it straight into my pocket before stomping over to my seat.

“What do you think it could be?” Blossom asks me. “And why would he need to involve Father?”

Ignoring them all, I bite angrily at my pastry. The second breakfast is over, I’m spending the rest of the day in my bedchamber with only my sewing machine for company.

Gilia’s lucky I’m not as awful as her. Otherwise, I’d be lining her next gown with the scratchiest wool I could find.

“Perhaps it is a gift?” Camellia suggests.

“Then why involve Father?” Blossom asks.

Liliana, the youngest of us all, leans forward in her seat. “Maybe it’s more dance gowns for all of us? Perhaps he needs Father to give him our measurements, just like Prince Orion did⁠—”

“Do not speak that foul prince’s name,” Blossom snaps.

Liliana whimpers as I swallow the rest of my pastry.

I don’t like to think about what happened to my eldest sister. How Father practically sold Amaryllis off to an awful prince and how she was left with no choice but to drive a dagger through Orion’s chest.

Thankfully, it’s been almost six months since then, and in her letters she seems very happy, living with the assassin who helped stage her own death.

But now Dahlia is gone too, there are only ten of us left. Ten girls around the breakfast table. Ten girls in our dance circle each night. I hate how big the palace feels now two of us are no longer here.

“You must have some idea what he’s planning,” Camellia asks me from across the table.

I shrug. “I really don’t.”

There is something that I hope it could be... but Father would never agree. If Lux wanted me to visit him, I’d have to sneak out of the palace. And after my adventures with Blossom when Dahlia first went missing, I think I’ve done enough sneaking for a whole lifetime.

Judging by their scowls, I can tell my sisters are not happy with my answer. But they don’t have time to interrogate me as footsteps thunk from the hallway.

The door swings open and Father marches in. Immediately, our chatter stops and Gilia scurries back to her seat.

“Good morning, girls.” Father takes the seat opposite Blossom.

“Good morning, Father,” we all reply.

He gives Liliana a warm smile as she readies him a bowl of porridge with fruit.

“Thank you, dear.” Patting her head, he accepts the bowl from her.