The courtyard was what Evan's real estate agent would have called "a masterpiece of landscape architecture." He would have called it "obscenely large and probably a nightmare to maintain, also why is everything so much."
Fountains burbled with water so clear it looked like liquid glass. Birds chirped in harmonies that sounded rehearsed. Flowers bloomed in mathematically perfect arrangements, color-coded and height-graded like they'd been to finishing school. It was like a screensaver come to life, if screensavers had unlimited budgets and no concept of restraint.
Evan took a cautious step onto the cobblestones. They didn't crack. Progress.
He took another step. A nearby fountain burped—actually burped—sending a jet of water three feet higher than intended. Birds in a nearby tree took off in unison, their flight pattern suggesting panic rather than migration.
"Okay," Evan muttered. "So the wildlife is also terrified of me. Good to know. Add it to the list."
He approached a stone bench, considering sitting down. The bench, sensing his intention, developed a fine network of cracks. Not dramatic cracks—just a subtle spiderweb of stress lines that definitely hadn't been there a moment ago.
Evan decided to keep standing.
From a second-floor window, he caught a glimpse of a young woman watching him. Dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Sharp eyes that missed nothing. When their eyes met, she didn't look away in fear. She grinned, waved, and mimed something that looked suspiciously like an explosion.
Evan raised an eyebrow. She gave him a enthusiastic thumbs-up and disappeared from the window.
"Who was that?" he asked Elara.
"Lady Emma, milord. Your... cousin, thrice removed? The family tree gets complicated around the War of the Silver Thistle."
"Of course there was a War of the Silver Thistle." Evan closed his eyes briefly. "Was it fought over... a thistle?"
"Politics, milord. It's always politics. The thistle was just the excuse."
"Like a really aggressive metaphor."
"Precisely, milord."
Evan sighed. Back in his old life, office politics involved stealing someone's lunch from the fridge and leaving passive-aggressive notes about the copier. Here, it apparently involved wars named after garden weeds and family trees that required a flowchart.
He turned to say something else to Elara and accidentally made eye contact with a stone gryphon statue. The statue, defying all laws of physics and good taste, tilted slightly on its pedestal. Away from him. Like it was leaning back in fear.
"You know what?" Evan said to the gryphon. "I'm not even surprised anymore. You do you. Lean away. I get it."
A gardener pruning a hedge froze as Evan passed. The shears trembled in his hands. The hedge, perhaps sensing an opportunity, grew three inches in as many seconds. New leaves sprouted. Flowers bloomed. The gardener stared at it like it had personally betrayed him.
"This is ridiculous," Evan announced to the general universe. "I'm just a man! A very confused, very pretty man who destroys furniture by breathing and makes hedges anxious, but still! Basic courtesy! I haven't even done anything!"
The universe, in its infinite wisdom, responded by causing a nearby apple tree to drop every single one of its apples at once. They landed in a perfect circle around Evan, none of them touching him, arranged like some sort of fruity crop circle.
"...Okay, that was actually impressive," he admitted.
From the window, Emma's laughter echoed across the courtyard. It was bright, unafraid, and slightly unhinged. The sound of someone who was watching chaos unfold and enjoying every second of it.
Evan decided he liked her. Anyone who could laugh at disaster was okay in his book.
***