He brought his gaze back to mine. “I do not know. It is… suffering. I do not know if it is simply old or if it has been attacked somehow.”
“I don’t know much about roses, but maybe I can try to help it? I’m very good at growing lemons, and roses always grew easily near my lemon trees.”
A sad smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “It is kind of you to offer, but it is a magical rose. It does not respond to most things the same way a normal rose might.”
I smiled back, pleased that I knew a secret he did not. “I can see magic.”
His eyebrows raised slowly as the import of my statement sank in. “What do you mean?”
“I can see magic. If I had time to watch the rose, I might be able to see if the problem is with its magic. All I had time to notice before was the massive amount of bright magic around it, but if I focus on it closer I might be able to tell you something new. Even if I can’t fix it, maybe the diagnosis would help.”
I shrugged. “Or I could treat it like a normal plant. But if you’d like me to look at its magic, I can do that too.”
He bowed his head. “I would be grateful.”
“Maybe you would worry less if we went together?”
He raised his eyes again. “I do not worry at all. I would be honored if you let me come and watch, though. The plant is veryimportant to me.”
I tipped my head at him, trying to understand. “You do not worry at all because I don’t want to torture you for your mistakes?”
“I do not worry,” he corrected, “because all evidence points to your honesty. I would be wasting energy if I spent it worrying about things that others want me to be upset about when I know they will not hurt me. I…”
He stepped closer, into my side of the doorframe, and lowered his voice. “I will not hurt you, either.” They were such simple words, but they thickened the air with unsaid implications. Did he mean he wouldn’t hurt me tonight? Orever? What if my brother came again?
“May I accompany you to the rose cavern?” he asked again.
“Of course.” I was still trying to decide what he’d meant a moment ago, but he bowed again.
“Let me go announce your right to be anywhere you choose to everyone in the Dining Hall while they are gathered for the evening meal. Then I’ll come back and take you to the rose cavern.”
He waited for me to nod before turning away and leaving the room. How would his people respond to the idea of a fae running free through their fortress? I thought of Lady Carmine who had almost thrown some kind of awful magic at me and all the glares that had met me on my first night weeks ago.
Was it silly to try to avoid all of them? I liked Mylo. And Koan and Jolter. And the dress-maker Mylo had sent. And Anna. And little Jorlan. That was six elves who had been friendly to me and only one who had really almost hurt me. Unless you counted Koan and Jolter, but they were more like confused friends.
So odds were at least six to one that most elves would befriendly too.
Still, I’d rather the king’s company through the fortress more than the risk of meeting another prejudiced elf. The theater had held at least three hundred elves—if there were three hundred people in the fortress, then odds were fifty of them would be trouble if I met them alone.
And those kinds of odds made me very happy to wait for an escort to leave the room.
Aedan returned fast enough that he could not have taken the time to eat while he was in the dining hall. He knocked on the hallway door and bowed again when I opened it.
“You don’t have to bow every time we meet,” I said. “I’m not royalty.”
He gestured down the hall. “You have a royal status in my mind.”
My heart did a quick little flip at such a sweet sentiment. It was a painful emotion, like a butterfly fluttering through a windstorm. I shouldn’t be attracted to an elf who had done the things he’d done.
But I’d already decided not to hold his mistakes against him. And he was making more of an effort to be better than I’d ever expected.
Of course, it had only been a day since his confession. A few emotional words could not prove any degree of intent.
When we turned into the dark rose tunnel, a glowing ball of light appeared above our heads and floated just ahead of us. I huffed a small chuckle and pointed at it. “This, by itself, is an excellent reason for me to have waited for you to go into your rose cave.”
“The light?” he asked. “Can’t faegather light?”
I almost snorted. “Yes,faecan gather light, but I’m half human, remember? I nearly tripped a dozen times when I came alone.”
