This time it was Petunia who lobbed something across the room—a scroll clamp that bounced off his shoulder. “I don’t know how you tolerate being in his presence for longer than a minute at a time,” she muttered.
“With great difficulty,” Mariselle replied, “and at no small cost to my sanity.”
“And why,” Evryn asked, tugging a chair back with an annoyed scrape, “are you sitting on the floor? Has it escaped your notice that there are numerous civilized seating options around the cottage?”
Mariselle didn’t bother looking up. “Why should we not sit on the floor?”
Well. He supposed that was as good a reason as any.
With a resigned sigh, he sat and pulled his own pile of documents closer. “I don’t recall seeing you here two nights ago, Lady Petunia,” he remarked as he shuffled through the papers. “Will you be gracing us with your presence every evening?”
“It isn’t as easy for me to slip away as it is for Mariselle,” Petunia replied stiffly. “So there will be some nights when I’m unable to accompany her.”
“Ah, so on those occasions, you’ve no qualms about abandoning your poor, helpless cousin to my dubious care?” Evryn asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Kindly do us all a favor and return to the task at hand, Rowanwood,” Mariselle said, not bothering to look up.
Evryn opened his mouth to deliver a suitably cutting retort, but what emerged instead was,“Your elbow, love, a work of art, it bent and pierced my very heart. No joint on earth could so beguile—”He clamped a hand over his mouth, his cheeks flaming as both women collapsed into peals of laughter.
“Oh, don’t stop there,” Petunia encouraged around her giggles. “Please, continue with your passionate declaration.”
“It bends! It glints! It holds such style!”Mariselle recited, gasping for air between giggles as she clutched Petunia’s arm. Petunia let out a most unladylike snort as the two of them doubled over, holding onto one another, entirely undone.
So utterly lacking in decorum were they that Evryn briefly wondered if he’d stumbled into some sort of bizarre alternate reality where Brightcrests behaved like actual people rather than porcelain automatons.
“That poetry book was positively inspired, Mari,” Petunia said between residual giggles.
“It was rather brilliant, wasn’t it?” Mariselle replied, trying—and failing—to smooth her expression into one of innocence.
“The most fun I’ve had in ages. We really ought to start on a second volume.”
Ah. So Petunia had contributed to the atrocity. That explained a great deal.
Another thought suddenly struck Evryn as he took in their conspiratorial grins and unguarded ease. Had Mariselle told her cousin about his secret identity as E. S. Twist? The notion sent a fresh wave of panic through him. She’d promised not to reveal it to anyone, but what value did a Brightcrest’s word truly hold?
He couldn’t ask directly—if Petunia didn’t know, he’d be revealing the very secret he was concerned about. Thinking quickly, he tore a corner off the nearest piece of parchment and scribbled a note, then tucked it into the front of a book and carried it over to where Mariselle sat.
“I believe this belongs on your pile, not mine, my precious pixie biscuit,” he said, placing it beside her.
Mariselle frowned, picking up the book and opening it to look inside. While Petunia leaned over the diagram once more, Mariselle extracted Evryn’s note and scanned its contents. Her expression darkened momentarily before she crumpled the paper in her fist and turned back to her work, pointedly ignoring him.
Frustrated and still uncertain, Evryn returned to his chair and attempted to focus on the documents before him. He had seen mention the other night, after they’d retrieved the dream core, of an enchantment that would allow him to determine the condition of the underground lumyrite network without the laborious process of excavation. He had no notion of how a spell like that might work, but it seemed the logical next step was to locate it and attempt this assessment.
He would do his part, certainly, to the extent of his ability. But he still harbored serious doubts as to whether this ambitious undertaking would actually succeed. There were glaring holes in the dream magic side of this operation—namely that neither girl possessed the sophisticated magical abilities their project required.
He listened to them now, picking up fragments of details about portal stability and threshold weaving and something to do with layered wards thatwould prevent nightmare entities from crossing into Dreamland. It all sounded ridiculously complex. Did they even know what they were talking about? Unlikely, considering that the most Mariselle was capable of was extracting dream essence. And as for Petunia’s manifestation, he couldn’t even recall what unremarkable ability she possessed. Certainly nothing spectacular enough to be memorable.
Still, despite his doubts, Evryn couldn’t deny the surge of anticipation he had felt the other night as he’d stood on the central platform of the original pavilion, surrounded by what remained of Dreamland’s lumyrite-inlaid structure rising around them like an elegant cage. His fingers almost itched to find the fractured pieces, to meld them back together, to sculpt and reshape crystal into forms of both beauty and function. It was his own unique magic that had stirred to life then, eager to be set free.
Probably not surprising, considering opportunities to truly exercise his abilities were rare. After his manifestation, he’d created countless ornamental pieces for Rowanwood House until every mantel and alcove boasted some lumyrite trinket or another, but once those spaces were filled, his talents had been largely relegated to curiosity status. He’d sought other outlets for his restless spirit then—first pegasus racing with its heart-stopping thrills, then writing with its subtler but no less potent satisfactions. Both pursuits he sorely missed, now that his time was consumed by tedious society events and this project that would no doubt amount to nothing.
He continued to leaf through leather-bound volumes and portfolios, searching for more information about the underground lumyrite network. But he found his attention repeatedly drawn to the two women on the floor. Their quiet chatter and occasional bursts of laughter proved distractingly incongruous with his mental image of Brightcrests as humorless, rigid aristocrats.
Mariselle, in particular, seemed transformed, her usual cold poise replaced by genuine animation as she explained something that sounded oddly as though it involved cotton candy and flamingos, her hands moving expressively through the air. This version of her—passionate, focused, almost radiant with enthusiasm—was entirely at odds with the calculating ice princess he’d known for years.
He found himself wanting to reach for a quill and one of his notebooks. Writing was how he made sense of contradictions like this—the gap betweenappearance and reality, the way people presented themselves versus who they truly were. It was his way of untangling complex emotions, of examining the subtle hypocrisies of society, and of capturing those rare, unguarded moments when someone’s mask slipped to reveal the person beneath.
Who was Mariselle Brightcrest if not the cold, cruel adversary he’s always believed her to be?
