BLYTHE DID NOT SEE LIFE’S IMAGE THE REST OF THAT WEEK, NOR DID she hear
any traces of the song Aris had been humming.
The rest of their time with Elijah passed in a flurry of meals and outings. Spectacular gowns, gatherings, performances, and the constant buzz of movement and chatter around the palace. Blythe had grown accustomed to it over the days, several times catching herself forgetting that Verena was a world of make-believe and feeling the sting of its loss worse each time.
She was sad to see her father go, of course. But there would be a chance to see him again soon. The loss of Verena, however, was insurmountable. Blythe had come to appreciate mornings when she could throw her windows open to the tune of an accordion and afternoons spent strolling down cobblestone streets with hot chocolate in hand. She’d even come to appreciate her dinners with Aris and Elijah, chewing on whatever delectable Aris had magicked for them while he skillfully maneuvered around Elijah’s questioning. Or, rather, Elijah’s antagonism on many of the nights, for her father seemed keenly aware that there was something off about their charade. That, and he seemed to be growing fond of Aris.
Aris had been a surprisingly good sport despite how much of a toll maintaining their lie cost him. Day by day she watched as his shoulders bowed and his frame withered. After a week of maintaining such a grand facade, Blythe had no doubt that he was desperate for a respite. Still, she would have given anything for one more night in Verena. Her despair must have been evident in her very bones, for Elijah squeezed her tight as they said their goodbyes.
“It’s no Thorn Grove,” he whispered with a tenderness reserved only for her, “but I suppose it’s a close second. I’m glad to see that you’re happy.”
And to Blythe’s surprise, she was happy. Happier than she’d been in ages, though all of it was to be torn from her the moment his carriage departed.
“Aris,” Elijah acknowledged with a nod, glancing to where her husband stood behind her right shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“We’ll return to Celadon soon,” Blythe promised. “Next week, for the Christmas ball.” While Elijah smiled, sadness lurked behind his eyes. He never seemed to believe her, though looking around Verena she could understand why.
“I’ll see you then,” he told them. “And I’ll let you know what becomes of Grey’s.” Before they could linger on the topic, Elijah hauled himself into the carriage. Blythe gave him a final wave before the door was shut, her heart aching as the driver snapped the reins and the carriage started down the path.
With every clack of the wheels against cobblestone, Blythe’s heart dropped deeper into her stomach. Already the glinting threads throughout Verena were unwinding, loosening their hold. Soon all the servants would return to their houses, forgetting that Blythe or Aris were ever there. Olivia would be out of her life, and Blythe would be back in Wisteria, alone. There would be no sign of her left in Verena. No mark that she had ever set foot in such an incredible place. She and Aris, too, would once again drift apart, and Blythe despised how much that thought unsettled her.
She couldn’t look at Aris when he called for her, for she didn’t wish to let him see how seized by emotion she’d become. Yet she couldn’t ignore when he took her by the shoulders from behind, close enough to whisper his next words into her ear.
“Come here, Sweetbrier. There’s something I want to show you.”
She sniffed, grateful to the cold for freezing the tears before they could fall. “I’m not in the mood for games, Aris. You won our bargain, I concede.” She tried to shake him off, but Aris held tight.
“Must you always fight me?” He gave her a gentle nudge toward Wisteria, and Blythe all but dug her heels into the ground. There were still threads as far as the eye could see, which meant that she still had precious moments before it all disappeared. Moments that she intended to spend
right here, memorizing every detail of Verena.
When she refused to budge after another push, Aris sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and took her by the waist. Blythe gasped as he tossed her over his shoulder and made for the door.
“You brute!” she screamed, smacking at his back. “Put me down!”
“A troll, a brute… I really am so many things to you, aren’t I?” If Aris felt any of her protests—which Blythe was certain he must have, given her lack of restraint—he showed no sign of it as he hauled her inside. The moment she was dropped to her feet, Blythe swung around to face Aris, seething through her teeth.
“You’re the devil is what you are. You couldn’t let me have just five more minutes?” Given the pallor of his skin, she knew it wasn’t a fair ask. Still, she wanted it all the same. “You boast about how magnificent and powerful you are, yet you couldn’t last just a while longer?”
Aris was unflinching, looking down at Blythe with only a mild quirk of his brow. “Magnificent? If that’s what you think of me—”
“It most certainly is not.” What a relief it was that there were no longer servants bustling about, for they’d witness quite the spectacle as Blythe pressed close to argue. “You are a proper barbarian. You showed me the most glorious place in the world, then expect me to return to Wisteria with its hideous gray walls, and a sacrificial altar for a bed—”
“I told you to keep your new bed,” Aris corrected. “And it was never an altar, you ridiculous girl. What is happening in that brain of yours to think these things up?”
“I am not ridiculous.” She jabbed her finger into the center of his chest. “I am in love. And all I wanted was five more minutes to say goodbye.”
To his credit, Aris had far more patience than she deserved. He kept his hands folded, only an occasional twitch in his jaw to give away what could have either been humor or immense dissatisfaction. Probably the latter.
“Are you quite done?” he asked with a softness that threw her off- balance. Blythe peeled back, drawing her finger from his chest and smoothing out the glove.
“If I must be.”
“Glad to hear it.” He dropped his hands, strolling past her and toward the door they’d just come through. Blythe was immediately on his heels, not about to let him leave without her. He stopped when he reached the
door, making a fist around the knob. “There is no reason for me to give you another five minutes here. Should you be quiet long enough for me to speak, I would tell you that Verena may be a land of make-believe, as you so eloquently put it, but Brude is a city that’s as real as could be. And I will not promise you five more minutes here, because that’s not the only time that you’ll have.”
He opened the door then, and it was not snow and cobblestone that waited beyond it, but a desert of red sand with a glowing golden sunset beaming down. Before Blythe could take a step, Aris shut the door once more, then opened it again to an ocean, so unlike the one at Foxglove. One where the sky was warm and the sand pink. One where it was still morning, and the water shimmered as if filled with millions of crystal shards.
Aris pulled the door shut a second time, only to reopen it to the snowy streets of the place he called Brude once more. “We can go anywhere we want, Sweetbrier. Wisteria was made to travel.”
Words were inadequate for the way she felt. Her mouth was so dry that she gave up trying to respond as she stared out at the brightly colored houses and let the music of the accordion sweep over her. She stepped beside Aris, sliding her hand over his and around the knob.
“How does it work?” she finally managed, a gloved finger skimming the iron.
Aris peeled his hand away. “It’s my will. The house is a very part of my magic and soul. It does as I wish and will take me anywhere.”
She thought of the cracking stone walls that had filled the majority of the palace for so long. If Wisteria was an extension of Aris’s very soul, then what did that mean for the state of it?
“May I use it?” Blythe asked as she eased the door shut. Holding the knob felt like holding a key to the universe. Infinite possibilities awaited her; all she had to do was seize them. And yet when she went to open the door again, hoping to find Thorn Grove on the other side, Aris pressed his palm against the frame to still it.
“You are not a part of my soul.” As gentle as the words were, they felt like a slap. “But, if you’ll let me, I can take you wherever you wish to go.”
Longing clawed at her. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt such a bone-deep hunger, ravenous for the world that Aris was offering, a world that people could only dream of.
All her life she had wanted to travel. To be bound to no one and wander wherever it was that she most desired. Yet in the back of her mind, her family had always been by her side. She supposed that Aris was right to some extent, and that it was the nature of things to one day leave the nest. To mature and start a life of one’s own, separate from the familial ties she had grown up with. Even animals did it, raising their young only to one day set them free.
Blythe had always known that day would come, but no one had told her that moving forward felt like a goodbye she wasn’t prepared for. Even staring at the door and the limitless possibilities that awaited, Blythe’s thoughts turned to Elijah, alone as he wandered the halls of Thorn Grove. Was it fair to leave him behind? To selfishly enjoy the spoils of Aris’s magic while she abandoned him just as everyone else had?
“We can visit Thorn Grove as often as you’d like.” Aris spoke at his most tender. Though he may not have known what was wrong, Blythe’s poker face needed enough work that he must have guessed something was bothering her. “As impressive as Brude is, it’s but a small part of where we’ll go. I am not trying to take you away from your family, Sweetbrier. I am not trying to pull you from the life that you know. All I’m trying to do is show you a world that you deserve to see.”
He reached his left hand out, where the faintest shimmer of light shone from his ring finger. Had he asked her a week ago, Blythe might have laughed in the man’s face or perhaps spit on his boots, depending on how much sleep she’d gotten the night prior. It was a wonder how a few days could change everything.
She’d trusted Fate and had been burned once before. Yet this time when he held out his hand, she took it and kept close when he smiled and opened the door to birdsong and pale sunlight that glinted through a forest glade. There was not a snowflake in sight but a gentle gale that stole leaves from vibrant trees and sent them away with the wind. As Aris drew her out, Blythe shivered from the summer warmth that slipped up her skin. She let her furs and cloak drip from her shoulders and fall somewhere behind her, then did the same with her boots, tossing them aside as she followed Aris across softened soil.
“It’s hard to believe this place was but a door away.” The only noise in the glade came from the gentle call of robins and the soft gurgle of water
from somewhere in the distance. There was no bustling. No rosy-cheeked denizens sipping mugs of hot chocolate as horses clopped along the cobblestone. Blythe doubted there was even a single home for miles. Unfamiliar trees sprouted tiny red-and-white-speckled mushrooms, and the forest floor showed no path or any signs of human touch.
It held a rare sense of wonder—one that made Blythe want not to stand and explore but to settle herself in the thickest tuft of grass she could find and lay her head against the earth to soak in the stillness of this thriving land.
She wanted to ask where they were, but such a question felt sinful. Like if Aris spoke its name aloud, time would somehow remember this place and it would forever cease to exist. And so she did not ask, but allowed the tension in her chest to settle as she took a seat in a patch of sun. Aris removed his gloves as he sat beside her, setting them neatly aside as he leaned back on his hands.
The quiet between them stretched for a long while—not fraught, but peaceful, neither of them feeling the need to fill the space with words. Eventually, though, she drew her stockinged feet beneath her and turned toward Aris.
“Why did you bring me here?” It was similar to the question she’d asked the night he’d taken her sledding. This time, however, he had a different answer.
“Because I knew you would like it.”
Blythe wasn’t sure what to make of how much those words pleased her, or of the desire that pulsed in her low belly. She sat straighter, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I believe it’s time that we discussed our arrangement in greater depth, Aris.” Since making the bond, they’d never discussed the logistics of their marriage in detail. If they were to build a life between them—no matter how unconventional—Blythe wanted to have a better idea of what she might expect. The seriousness in which she asked the question roused Aris’s interest. He leaned up, observing Blythe as though he were an astronomer scrutinizing the stars.
“What about it?” he asked, and at once Blythe felt as if she’d been transported several months prior, back to when she’d sat on the chaise across from him and had exposed herself so fully while offering herself as
his bride. Aris had laughed then, and as Blythe chewed on her words, she wondered whether he would do the same now.
Slowly, hesitating with each word, she said, “I’d like to know what… rules we might have. About navigating the roles of a marriage.”
Aris’s face twisted as he tried to piece together her words and why her cheeks were beginning to flare pink. He certainly was not making this any easier. “I don’t expect you to clean or anything of that sort. Even without servants there are no duties. Magic takes care of that.”
Blythe drew in a breath, anchoring herself. “There are some things, Aris, that magic cannot take care of.” She waited for the confusion to lift from his face. For his eyes to widen before he could right himself, and for him to clear his throat before she repeated, “What are our rules? Do we believe in the sanctity of marriage, or are we free to divert certain attentions elsewhere?”
He opened his mouth, only to snap it shut, fully at a loss for words. It was as stumped as she’d ever seen him, and Blythe found the nervous knots in her stomach untangling as she observed his struggle. Though she’d wanted to find a hole to crawl into only seconds ago, now she found that she wanted to laugh, caught off guard by how surprised he was and more entertained than she ought to have been by the idea of teasing him.
“You do know what couples often do after marriage, right?” she pressed, a sly tone in her voice that Aris homed in on.
“Of course I do, you insufferable girl,” he grumbled. “But you are aware that for me there is no obligation of preserving a bloodline, aren’t you? Or that I cannot bear children?”
She expected as much. “That’s all very well because I have never intended to have children.”
This caused the space between Aris’s brows to pinch, which Blythe was quite used to. People always reacted so strangely when she told them her preferences, so she’d eventually stopped saying anything. She preferred for her time to stay wholly hers and not to lose it to childrearing she’d never been interested in.
“Then why are you asking?”
“You cannot presume that I would only be interested in such relations for the purpose of a child? I am but one and twenty years of age, Aris, with what I hope is a very long life ahead of me, filled with pleasures of the body
as much as the mind. I am not asking anything of you. We can live together with this bond between us, and that will be the extent of it. I can find others to connect with for any additional purposes.”
“And how will you do that,” he asked, holding up his left hand, “when you and I cannot be separated?”
A blade of grass had slipped between the fabric of her stockings. Blythe stared as it scratched at her legs, refusing to look at him as she whispered, “I hadn’t gotten that far just yet.” Admittedly because a significant part of her was hoping for the first option, if only to get it out of her system.
As it was, over the past month there had been several thoughts that she’d not been able to shake from her mind. First was the night she’d seen him by the hearth, his shirt loose and hair astray. As uptight as Aris was, it had left more of an impression than she’d realized to see him so undone. More prominently, however, was the memory of him months ago, back at the Wakefield estate. Before she’d known the truth about who he was, she had let Aris help her overcome her fear of a tea she worried might have been poisoning Eliza. She’d let him sip from the tea when she couldn’t, then he’d taken her face in his hands and pressed his mouth to hers. She recalled—in exorbitant detail—how it had felt when his tongue had slid against hers. How her heart had raced and her body had urged her forward, craving more. It wasn’t a kiss, exactly. He’d been helping her test the drink for poison. But semantics aside, there was no denying that her mind had been forever soiled with desire despite how much she’d tried to stifle it.
She’d thought of that moment on more occasions than she cared to count, and as she leaned back against the grass, propped up on only her elbows to watch Aris, Blythe wondered whether he ever thought of it, too. Given that his eyes were on her legs, skimming up the length of her calves and thighs, she guessed he just might have. She kept quiet, pointing a toe and slowly extending one leg to give him a better view. All the while her eyes remained on his face, watching as his expression hardened, eyes flashing with a dark curiosity.
“Are you soliciting me, Sweetbrier?”
“I’m not not soliciting you.” If she was going to be daring, then she might as well not hold back. “We can leave emotion out of it.”
Though a battle warred on his face, Aris drew closer. “I am not who you want, love. Remember that you despise me.”
“Oh, I remember.” She brushed his leg with the tips of her toes. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.” Vastly curious. So curious that she thought she might explode. She was married now, after all. If ever there was a time for her to explore such desires, this was it.
He, too, must have felt at least some curiosity, for there was no mistaking the hunger darkening his eyes. Blythe skimmed her foot along Aris’s thigh, then up to his chest, waiting to see what he might do. To her surprise, he grabbed hold of her ankles, pulling her closer to curl his fingers into the bare skin just above her stockings.
His eyes found hers, full of challenge. He was testing her. Making sure she didn’t have second thoughts. But Blythe had never met a challenge she didn’t like.
If he was in, then so was she.
Aris was upon her a second later, taking Blythe by both thighs and hiking her down so that he could come on top of her. One knee settled between hers, and then his mouth was on hers a second later. Though she was certain that this was a very bad idea that both of them would soon regret, she didn’t stop herself. Throwing inhibitions to the wind, Blythe leaned in to the wants of her body, winding her legs around his waist and threading her fingers through his hair, gasping against his lips as he took her bottom one between his teeth. His fingers curled against her thigh, gripping on to her like she was something to devour.
He smelled of wisteria and tasted like honeyed scotch as she drank him in. His touch was rougher than she’d expected, and his body harder as she arched against it, wanting more. So much more.
His hand slipped farther up her inner thigh, and she wished at once that she’d never let Olivia put her into a bloody corset that morning. She ached to rid herself of it, her breaths too sharp and her body far too confined.
When Aris’s hand stilled, she tipped her head back to seek his stare.
“You don’t have to stop.” God, she sounded like she was panting. “I don’t want you to stop.” With one hand draped around his neck, she pulled him down to capture his lips again, ready to lose herself in the taste. His fingers stroked a mere inch from where she most wanted him and she drew in a sharp breath. But Aris stiffened as if something had pulled him taut, straightening his spine and snapping him from her. He tore away from Blythe, fingers combing desperately through his hair as he stumbled back.
There was a wild look about him that had Blythe sitting up, her chest rising and falling too fast for her corset. The world blurred at its edges, her vision hazy.
“What is it?” she whispered, smoothing out her stockings. “Aris, what’s wrong?”
He was on his feet before she’d even finished asking. “This was a mistake.” He was already gathering her discarded boots and coat. He circled back only for her hand, the world winking away from them the moment he took hold of it.
They were back at Wisteria in a flash of light, no longer near the front door but in Blythe’s room. She fell onto her bed, her back and the soles of her feet still damp from the grass.
“I’m sorry,” Aris said as he set her boots by the door, refusing to look her in the eye. “That should have never happened.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Blythe promised. “I’m fine, Aris. Are you?”
With her coat still strung over his arm, he hurried to her armoire to put it away. “Yes,” he said too quickly. “My apologies. We can discuss our arrangement another time—”
He went deathly still as the armoire swung open. Blythe sat up, her chest thundering as she saw the flash of gold inside.
Life’s mirror. Death had been the last one to touch it and had not returned it to the vanity where she’d kept it tucked safely away.
There was no stopping Aris as he yanked the mirror out, trembling.
“Where did you get this?” She’d never heard his voice quite so soft.
Quite so scared.
Blythe pushed to her feet, taking two strides to close the space between them but pausing before she got too close. This wasn’t the man whose lips had been on her only a minute prior. This was someone new. Someone wild and fevered.
Blythe held her hands before her, placating. “I can explain.”
He pressed his other hand against the mirror, cradling it against him with the tenderness of a newborn. It took a long while before his eyes flicked up to her, burning with their intensity. “Then explain.”
Every thought fell from her mind at once, for what could she possibly say to him that didn’t sound so hopelessly useless?
“Not long after we came to Wisteria, I saw a hall that I swore hadn’t been there before. The blasted fox ran through it, so I did, too,” she tried, though the words felt ridiculous. “I followed the path and we came across this room—”
She cut off the second his grip around the handle tightened, the veins in his forearm pulsing. “You went into her room.” As softly as he spoke, the malice in his accusation sank into her gut and twisted there. “You had no right. You had no right to take her things, or to—” He cut off with a quiet choke, palming the wall as he swayed on his feet. “I wasn’t even sure it still existed. I can’t believe it showed itself. And to you, of all people…”
Blythe said nothing, knowing her words were unwanted. The sharpness in Aris’s eyes had glazed over, and she had the distinct impression as he nearly crumpled in on himself that he’d forgotten she was here at all. She held her hands close, scratching at her cuticles as she debated reaching out to him. Debated telling him to take a seat and breathe. But before she could make up her mind, Aris heaved a shaking breath and he snapped his head toward her.
“Stay away from me.” His grip tightened around the mirror, and those were the last words Aris spoke before he disappeared in a flash of light.
