the golden evening light streaming in. Enjoying the balmy weather, people filled the battered gardens and damp salons, breaking out the wine and liquor, nibbling on dainty delights as they exchanged the most valuable currency on Calanthe: gossip.
Also, despite Lia’s determination to avoid a formal celebration, the news of her return and recovery had clearly run like wildfire ahead of us. Between her reappearance and the storm breaking, a vast party seemed to be in the making.
As I escorted Lia—Ibolya demurely trailing in our wake and Sondra stalking not at all demurely, but more or less gracefully at the rear—I watched as people glanced our way, then did a double take. First shocked into bobble-eyed silence, they then burst into whispers that grew rapidly to louder exclamations, the ripples widening out until more people came literally running to see.
Lia observed it, too, her expression smooth and remote, but her keen mind nearly audible as she filed away how each person reacted—both initially and when they thought better of it.
She graciously accepted their greetings and well wishes, ignored their subtle inquiries about her health—and their attempts to get a good look at her regenerating hand—and crisply cut those bold enough to ask blatant questions or launch into petitions. Only when Lord Dearsley approached, spine straight and chin high, the same young man escorting him with a solid grip, did Lia truly smile.
Slipping her arm from mine—as she would only use her good hand with me, even though I kept telling her the twig hand, as she called it, didn’t bother me—she let Dearsley take her hand in both of his. He bent over it, kissing the back with reverence, a fine tremor running through him. When he straightened, tears brightened his pale eyes.
“Your Highness, we celebrate Your return to Your rightful place.”
“Thank you, Dearsley,” she murmured. “I am overjoyed to be back where I belong, and forever grateful to Conrí for all his service.”
I nearly choked at the layered meaning there, and she cast me a mildly curious glance through her lashes. Her innocent expression might’ve fooled me into thinking I was the one with the dirty mind, if her eyes hadn’t sparkled with mischief. Now that I knew her tells, I could detect her wicked humor at work. Not that I had much hope of combating it.
“The storm has passed,” Dearsley said, waving at the clear skies, “and Calanthe is…?” He trailed off delicately.
She shook her head minutely. “I must travel to the temple in the morning, to retrieve My ladies and complete a few tasks I left undone.” Her face a mask of polite regret, she fed Dearsley the proper cues.
“Ah yes.” He nodded vigorously, half bowing over the hand he still held, clutching her in his palpable relief. “All else can wait for Your Highness to tend to Mother Calanthe.”
“Not all,” she corrected. “Conrí has briefed Me on the situation, and I know it’s evening, but I’d like to sit down with you—perhaps in an hour?—to discuss and review everything.”
“I’m at Your Highness’s disposal, naturally.”
The news spread through the people lingering nearby, though they pretended to be conducting their own conversations rather than shamelessly eavesdropping. A few even scribbled notes and handed them to fancily dressed children who took off running. Hopefully we wouldn’t face a mob of her admiring people at the temple.
Dearsley departed, promising to meet in an hour, and we moved on.
“Where to next?” I asked under my breath.
“I’d like to take a stroll in My gardens,” she replied as we entered the lavish, though soggy, gardens.
“Stroll?” I echoed, wondering if I could get her to sit down somewhere. She looked paler than she had, but I doubted she’d take the suggestion to rest very well.
“Amble, Conrí,” she replied in a dry tone. “It means to walk slowly, without particular direction.”
“I know what it means,” I growled, though without rancor. If she felt well enough to needle me, then that was a good sign. “I just wondered what your goal is.”
She turned down a curving path that glowed with its own light. Night was falling swiftly and fully, as it did on Calanthe, but lanterns hung in the trees, small starry lights shone sprinkled over shrubs, and people reclined around firepits in jeweled colors, or enjoyed parties in lamplit gazebos, wine and food spilling over the tables. They raised glasses to their queen, cheering her, and she inclined her head, though not waving as she would’ve before. Instead she kept her twig hand entangled in