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The words resounded in the citrus cloud of the orangery with the effect of a hopeful prayer. It seemedimpossiblethat she was alive and thriving after all these years.
Her crown had already grayed the last time I’d seen her, and now it appeared sparser and a shimmery silver-white, slicked against her scalp in a tight bun.
I tipped the hood of my overcoat backwards, my gaze feasting on a memory come to fruition. A chapter from my past reawakened, blooming to life in front of me.
“Olly?”
The voice quivered with a mixture of vulnerability and grace, reaching out across the years to bridge the rift that had been left behind after these decades apart. She stepped forward from the entrance to the north wing, closing the black steel gates behind her.
“I mean,” she faltered, pulling her maroon scarf tighter around her shoulders. They, too, had rounded with age, the natural musculature sloping downwards. “Your Highness. Princess.”
“Please.” Despite myself, a chuckle left my lips. “Call me a bothersome chit again. None of these titles sound appropriate from your lips.”
She feigned a gasp, and the light tremor in her fingers became more obvious as she covered her mouth.
“I would never chastise you that way!” she insisted, stepping forward to peer at me from behind her silver glasses. “But you are a sight for sore eyes, little lamb. Look how you’ve grown.”
She placed her fingers against my cheek, stroking idly.
“Full of life. Full of color,” she murmured. “I never thought I’d see you again after…”
That night.
She didn’t have to complete the sentence. Unspoken emotion shimmered between us.
“After you, everything changed,” she whispered, rasping a brittle cough.
“Here, sit,” I cajoled, leading her to the stone lip around a citrus tree.
She sat, tutting when she found orange peels littering the base of the tree. She picked each fallen peel, murmuring under her breath aboutstill the same messy pup.
The peels disappeared under her voluminous shawl. Only then did she turn her attention back to me.
“I thought you’d be retired by now, Nanny,” I said, taking her fingers in mine. “What are you still doing wandering around the palace?”
“Ah, well, retirement doesn’t suit me,” she said around a chuckle. “I tried for a few months, but it didn’t stick. Zoei—Her Majesty—offered me a job in the kitchens and I was only too happy to accept.”
“Kitchens?” I echoed, aghast that someone her age would be toiling in the sweat-sodden trade.
She waved my concerns away. “Only supervising, little lamb. I don’t have to do anything I can’t. Don’t get all het up about it.”
“If you’re sure,” I acknowledged, folding her fingers over my own. How odd it was to think of her asfrail.Her bones felt like those of a bird’s, small and brittle in my own. This was a woman who had towered over Zoei and I, barking orders and insisting we eat, drink and sleep when we were not so inclined.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, her gaze tracing my features with the sharpness of a sketch artist’s pencil. “You took our joy when you left.”
“Surely not,” I insisted, wondering at Nanny’s sudden penchant for melodrama. She had never been one to give into soft feelings—it was one of the traits I feared and admired most about her. Perhaps in the years that had passed, the impenetrable walls had crumbled.
“It’s true,” she said, a faraway look in her gaze. “I remember it clearly. It was as though a bond had been severed between the two of you, but I was only there to watch Zoei suffer.”
Her fingers gripped mine, invigorated by a sudden burst of energy.
“But it wasn’t your fault,” she hissed, clasping my hand. “You did nothing wrong, but both of you suffered the consequences of your parents’ folly.”
“I’d always wondered…” I began.
“Wondered what, lamb?”
I paused, struggling to find the words. “I couldn’t find my footing once we were forced to leave Agnivale. I supposed I wondered if Zoei ever… If she seemed as though… If she wanted to…”
