“Maybe,” Jolter said. “But he’s still said yes to everything she’s asked. You don’t have nearly that kind of record.”
“Hmph.” They wouldn’t hear me, but I couldn’t help huffing. Jolter was right. But I wouldn’t make her ask for this.
Their conversation grew more muffled and then interspersed with chairs moving and feet shuffling.
I waited until her room was silent and knocked on the door.
She didn’t answer immediately. When a minute passed, I turned away and headed to my desk. Perhaps she did not want to talk to me tonight.
Two seconds after I sat down, the door opened. I jumped to my feet and strode to the doorframe between our rooms. Red puffed around her eyes, like she’d either cried or rubbed them. But she’d sounded so happy a few minutes earlier.
I bowed politely. At this point, I considered her more noble than any of the ladies in my court—her noble heart had given me permission tolive.Assuming she would tell me if she wanted to talk about whatever had turned her eyes red, I jumped to my purpose. “I want to thank you for the letter you gave me.”
She dipped her head in acknowledgement.
“I…” I was not sure how to say the things in my heart. It was not accustomed to having a voice. But I could not expect her to read my mind. “I would like to give you… several things too. Not as a payment or recompense, but because I am grateful. I…”
Her head tipped at me like she did not understand what I was saying.
“It should not cheapen a kind gesture,” I stammered, “just because there is gratitude behind it.”
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head the tiniest bit. “No, it should not.”
I blew out a breath of air. I had not ever considered myself unkind, but saying the generous words I wanted to felt foreign and unpracticed.
I swallowed and tried again. “I would like to give you access to the entire fortress. You have the freedom to come and go as you please. I’ll go and announce it in the dining hall forthwith so nobody should question you tomorrow.”
Her jaw fell just a little. I’d surprised her. Good. Perhaps I was already changing her expectations of me.
She cleared her throat. “What about the cave where the rose bush is?”
I met her eyes—her bright blue eyes. They held me captive, on top of a precipice. This was more than a simple question. She would release me when I answered, and then I would fall—down one slope or another. One side held certain doom and misery, but it was the easier side to tilt toward. The other side was shrouded, hidden in the uncertainty of her reaction, but it hinted at a happiness that had escaped me for years.
I reached for the doorframe. I knew very well that it would not keep me balanced on the fragile precipice on which I hovered, but it was the only stabilization I could touch.
I swallowed and leaped for uncertainty, hoping it was better than the misery I’d safely wrapped my life in. “I would like to trust you not to hurt the rose.”
Chapter 17: Callista
“Iwould like to trust you not to hurt the rose.”
The world blurred as I tried to blink back tears. For weeks, he had denied me any degree of trust, and now—to receive it so willingly—brought on a torrent of emotions.
And emotions meant tears.
But I wasn’t ready to cry. “I never meant to hurt it,” I whispered.
He stepped closer, into the middle of the doorframe. “I know. I can tell when you lie, remember?”
“But you didn’t trust me before.”
His voice lowered. “I have never allowed anyone into that cave before. That limit in your freedom, at least, was not specific to you.”
My eyes widened. “Nobody? Ever?”
He shrugged. “I let my cousins Robin and Guyan go in, but they’re both stuck outside the curse boundary now. The caveis a forbidden place because I want to protect the rose.” He glanced away.
“Did…” I almost stopped myself, but decided not to. He had to be used to me saying things as I thought them. “Did someone hurt it before?”
