The blue garden held its breath for us.
Moonlight stitched through the glass, the roses stood very still, and the palace clocks two courtyards over remembered how to be quiet. Arthur's arms circled my waist from behind—warm, steady—and the whole terrible, busy day finally stepped back far enough that I could hear myself think.
It still hurt.
Not the clean pain of a blade or the bright sting of a spell. A bruise with memory in it.
Evelyn was my mother. That was the trouble.
When I was small, she was Count Springshaper's wife, my father's wife in the eyes of the House and the Empire's polite ledgers. She braided my hair. She taught me the elegant names for colours. She whispered goodnights in a voice I trusted because I was three and that's what three-year-olds do. She never loved me. I didn't know that yet. Children take love on credit and only learn later what was never paid.
