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“What is it?”
“Happy birthday.”
Hawthorn paused, as if the words were alien to him. Had anyone spoken them at all to him today? There had been no proclamation, no toasts in his honour—
But of course they hadn’t. The point of the tournament was to cover it up, pretend it wasn’t happening. No birthday. No time passing.
But plugging up your ears doesn’t stop the clock from ticking.
Three years until he turned eighteen.
Three years until the curse was unleashed.
And now Juliana was right there at the centre of it.
Going straight from a hut in the woods to the plush royal quarters of the Acathian Palace was quite the change, but Juliana was nothing if not adaptable. By the end of the first week in Hawthorn’s service, she had memorised every guard change, every shift, and knew the faces of every servant in the palace. Most, of course, had not changed since she was a child, and it helped that she already knew every alcove, nook and cranny of the sprawling palace of silver and vines.
The newest member of staff was a food tester by the name of Mithel, a thin, spindly chap with a permanently sour expression. He only seemed to exist at mealtimes and vanished into the shadows between them. There were a few others new to her, but no one of note.
The main problem with her new position—other than it was exceedingly dull—was Hawthorn.
She had not quite considered when she accepted the job how much time she would actually be required to spend with him. Or, if she had considered it, she assumed that she’d be just watching him, standing outside his room, lurking in the shadows.
But no. Far, far too often the job involved actuallytalkingto him.
In fact, Hawthorn rarely seemed to stop talking. He’d bark at the servants one minute and treat them like old friends the next. He took forever to dress in the mornings because he’d stop to rattle off an anecdote about gambling or the best way to make wine or some old folk story he couldn’t quite remember the name of. He’d ask Juliana’s opinion on just about every frivolous thing, from the colour of his tunic to which ridiculous ruffled shirt he ought to wear.
She never gave her honest opinion.
And he never listened.
He was also exceedingly free with his body. Juliana was no means embarrassed about her own, but Hawthorn had a way of… flaunting it. She was aghast the first time he’d summoned her into the adjacent washroom and found him soaking in the bath with nothing but a creamy film of bubbles hiding what was beneath.
“Wine, Jules, if you don’t mind,” he declared, stirring the water with a long, pointed finger.
Juliana’s cheeks went bright red.
“You look flushed,” he remarked. “Are you too hot? Mayhap you should have a cold soak when I am done.”
It was impossible to tell if he was doing it on purpose.
She half missed the days he used to torment her.
Markham had vanished not long after the tournament had ended, giving no time to explain himself. He re-appeared before the end of the week, bringing with him a sleek horse the colour of waxy honey or fields of wheat, and a grin that Juliana hated almost as much as Hawthorn’s.
“Are you giving me a horse as an apology?”
Markham handed her the reins. They were embroidered with green thorns that matched her palace uniform. “Only if it works.”
The horse nudged her cheek, velvet-soft. Juliana felt her anger ebbing away. “Do I get an explanation as well as an apology?”
“I have my reasons,” Markham returned. “But I think this is where we should be for now, with the curse approaching…”
Juliana stroked the horse, her fingers playing with her mane. “Do you think it can be broken?”
“All things have a way of being broken,” he said sagely.
Juliana sighed. “You should have been a faerie, the way you play with words.”
