“Rowan Briar?”
His chest tightened. “Yes.”
“Can you come with us, please?”
Sage held on to his wrist, a question and a promise.
Thorn met his gaze. “I’ll find you,” he said.
Sage nodded. Thorn turned to go, stopping with a muttered “ow” when the tiger bit his earlobe. He returned it to Sage and followed the guards and their prisoner out of the cemetery, looking over his shoulder at boy and figurine. Even from a distance he could read the trepidation on Sage’s face. But Thorn believed that everything would be all right.
And after all, belief was stronger than wishes.
* * *
The tall, slender boy closed the door to the funeral parlor behind him, digging out his keys to lock up for the night. He didn’t see the other boy across the street, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“You know, you’re really bad at making wishes.”
Sage jumped and whirled around, dropping the keys with a clatter. His eyes widened when he saw Thorn.
“You’re all right,” he whispered. The little tiger poked its head out of his pocket.
“I said I’d find you.”
Sage’s mouth trembled, as if wanting to smile, but he didn’t give in to the urge. His gray-green eyes looked Thorn up and down. Looking for signs of injury or worse. But there was only the cut on his neck made by the mercenary, and it was already healing.
“Well, it’s been a while,” Sage said. “You can’t blame me for worrying.”
Thorn ducked his head. He should have sent word to Sage somehow, but it had been a busy few days. Days of talking to the authorities, higher and higher up the chain of command until he was pulled into a meeting with the chief inquisitor, a severe woman who was now rounding up the stone quarry owners and questioning them for their involvement in his parents’ deaths. For their part in concealing the findings of the Briars’ research.
Justice. It still felt like a hollow word. Strangely, he was happy for the pain of the cut on his neck, the bold red mark it made. It was physical proof that he had fought for this and won.
Sage wandered over to him, from the moonlit-drunk side of the street to Thorn’s shadowed one. “And I’m not bad at making wishes.”
“No?”
“Just take a look around.”
Thorn had. All of today he’d wandered Rastre in a daze, hardly believing what he was seeing. Magic. It was everywhere. With Sage’s third and final wish, he had unleashed this upon the city: the knowledge of what sat between a person’s ribs, the swirling little galaxies of possibility. He’d seen a little girl channeling her power of heat, laughing with glee when her fingertips came alight with flames like birthday candles. He’d seen an elderly man glowing like a jade lantern. A harried mother accidentally frosting over the front of her house until icicles hung from the eaves. He’d seen…so much.
The result of his parents’ work.
In this way, he thought, perhaps they were brought back after all. He saw them in people’s smiles, in their wonder.
“And you?” Thorn asked. “What trick can you do?”
Sage took the tiger from his pocket and placed it on his shoulder, where it sat and swished its tail from side to side. “Life.”
“Life?”
“My garden. My parents always thought it was odd that it bloomed through winter. I didn’t think much of it—just thought I was good with plants, like how I was good with animals.” He patted the little tiger’s head. “I guess I was tapping into a bit of me I didn’t understand.” He looked up at Thorn through his lashes, his dimple returning with his smile. “Until now.”
Thorn’s heart beat. He was alive. The simple fact rushed through him, spectacular and surreal, like a word you say too many times until it’s lost its meaning. But this, this was nothing but meaning, and he felt it from crown to toes.
Magic, he realized, took so many forms.
And when Sage leaned into him and their lips met, it was more powerful than any wish.
The Bloom of Everdale is ready to choose a consort, and I have come to win his hand.
The Garden Palace is sculpted in the likeness of the summer star flower, its walls overlapping like petals as they curl and climb toward the center, where a thin spire of glass glitters in the sun. It is surrounded by a wide canal painted silver along the bottom to give the running water a perfect iridescent shimmer. Thin bridges arch elegantly over the canal, leading to one of the six gates that give entry to the palace, each one more delicately constructed than the last.
My invitation directs me to the Silk Bridge, and as I step onto the pedestrian pathway, I am amazed to discover that the name refers not only to the fine weave of jewel-toned pennants flying above my head but also to the bands beneath my feet. What at first glance I took to be narrow boards of wood are layers of silk pressed and bound into planks that extend the width of the bridge. For an instant, I forget my purpose here and stoop to run my fingers over the material. It is both soft and worn from years of foot traffic, while also as firm and strong as a plank of wood might be. It is a metaphor for our nation, and I am astonished at its quiet perfection, astonished to find it directly beneath my feet.
If I win the Bloom of Everdale, if he chooses me to be his consort, this bridge will be a part of my home. I will walk across silk boards, learn the layered corridors of the Garden Palace, even feel the kiss of sunlight through the glass spire daily if I choose. And I will bring my mother with me. If I win.
When I win.
Of all the warriors who answered the first call and endured weeks of trials and dozens of opponents, only three of us have been invited to compete before the Bloom. We are the finest, the strongest this nation has to offer, but only one of us is his perfect balance, the force to his precision, the protective wall to his perfect vulnerability. When this started, my mother rushed home with a flyer crushed in one fist and my sword clutched in the other. Her eyes were a little wild, her cheeks glowing as she exclaimed, “You will change the path of our family walks now and forever! Pack your things.”
I’d answered the first call with a trembling kind of desperation, my mother’s hopes always stirring in my heart. Now I don’t feel desperate at all. After weeks of trials, dozens of opponents, and a lifetime of thin soup, I know I can win.
“Strength in the slight,” I whisper in an attempt to release the swell of love that threatens to unsettle me.
“Grace in the might.” The answering voice is both reverent and amused, like silk itself in my ears.