The bell had rung to mark the day's end, but no one came to fetch her.
No tutors. No formal dinner.
Just a note delivered by a red-faced maid: "Lady Seraphina will dine in her room tonight."
She didn't eat.
Not immediately.
Instead, just before the sun slipped behind the trees, she stepped outside. No shoes. No guards. No permission.
And I followed.
Of course I did.
---
The estate gardens were well-kept — trimmed hedges, neat rows of herbs, flowers that bloomed without chaos.
It was too tidy. Too shaped.
But at the far edge, just past the marble walkway and the statue of her grandfather, there was a patch the gardeners hadn't tamed. Wild roses. Ivy. Pale lavender curling where it pleased.
She knelt there.
Touched the petals.
Said nothing.
I stood beside her, silent.
She didn't ask why I came.
I didn't ask why she left.
That was our agreement now — unspoken, but understood.
---
"The others don't notice this part," she murmured.
I didn't answer. I waited.
"I think they pretend not to. Because it's not perfect."
She plucked a fallen rose petal and rolled it between her fingers.
"It's messy. Like me."
Still, I said nothing.
"Do you think I'm messy?" she asked after a while.
"No."
She turned her head slightly, studying me.
"Not even a little?"
"Messy isn't the word I'd use."
"What would you use?"
I crouched beside her.
"Unfinished."
She frowned. "That doesn't sound better."
"It is. It means you're still shaping yourself."
"Everyone says I have to be shaped by others."
"They're wrong."
---
A bird landed nearby. Small. Brown. Watching us.
She noticed it before I did.
That made her smile.
Just a little.
---
"I watched the steward today," she said, sitting cross-legged now, heedless of the dirt. "He limps when he thinks no one's looking."
"Which leg?"
"Left."
"Why?"
"Old injury. Or maybe bad shoes."
I gave a slight nod.
"Good."
Her eyes lit up.
"Good?"
"You noticed something no one mentioned."
She grinned, then caught herself — the kind of smile she'd been trained to suppress.
"I like this game," she said softly.
"It's not a game."
"I know," she whispered. "That's why I like it."
---
Silence settled again.
The kind that wasn't awkward.
The kind that only happened when two people didn't feel the need to fill it.
She ran her fingers across the dirt.
Then spoke without looking at me:
"My mother hated gardens."
I said nothing. I rarely did when the subject shifted to her.
"She said they were a waste of time. Beauty that faded. Work that achieved nothing."
She looked up.
"But I think she was wrong too."
I didn't nod. Didn't agree aloud.
But I stayed.
That was enough.
---
"She used to say I smiled too easily," Seraphina said, voice quiet. "That I needed to stop being soft."
I watched her hand curl around a stem — not the flower, but the thorn.
"She told me I would break before I bloomed."
The thorn pricked her skin.
Just enough to leave a mark.
She didn't flinch.
I reached forward and gently moved her hand away.
"You're not soft," I said.
"You're just not finished."
---
The sun dipped lower.
Golden light laced the grass.
She tilted her head back to watch the sky.
"I want to be hard to read like you."
"You don't."
"I do."
"Then people won't know when you're hurting."
"Good."
I turned to her.
She looked serious.
Resolved.
And far older than twelve — just for a moment.
But then the moment passed, and she blinked fast, like she realized she'd said too much.
"I don't mean—" she began.
"I know," I said.
She looked down again.
"I just… don't want to give them something to use against me."
I understood that.
Too well.
---
She stood.
Brushed off her skirt.
Then offered me a hand.
"Come on," she said. "I'll sneak bread from the kitchen if you don't tell anyone I sat in the dirt like a peasant."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Deal."
---
We walked back slowly.
No one noticed our absence.
No one cared that her hair was tangled, or that there was mud on the hem of her dress.
But I noticed.
She didn't walk behind me.
Or ahead of me.
She walked beside me.
And I realized:
For all her training, all her tutors, all her pressures—
She was still choosing who she wanted to become.
And tonight, she chose not to be shaped.
She chose to grow.
End of chapter