The castle of Aloriya was perched at the edge of the wood, among the peaks of the Lavender Mountains. The spires stretched like shafts of broken bone toward the stars. It was much prettier at night, when all the windows were golden and warm, driving away the coldness that clung to it in the daytime, lit up like a body that had finally found its soul.
After Papa was well on his way to the castle, I slipped out of my apron, poured myself the last bit of coffee from the press, and stepped out back into the garden. It was a quarter to eight in the morning; the shop didn’t officially open until eight o’clock. My finger was still bleeding a little, so I ran it across the doorframe, and from it moss grew in a thick green patch, like a swipe of paint across the weathered wood.
I sat down on the stone bench outside the door and leaned back against the house.
The gardens were small, but what they lacked in space they made up for in colors—leaves of green and kaleidoscopes of flowers bloomed on stems and in the latticework creeping up the house, having taken decades to climb. Roses thrived in the side gardens, and strange star-shaped flowers clustered in the corners of the yard where my mother had planted some foreign Wildwood seeds. Papa and I didn’t sell those—they might have just been flowers, or they could have been cursed, and while we didn’t want to lose the memory of my mother, we also couldn’t risk any part of the Wildwood spreading.
The village knew my mother came from outside Aloriya—something that didn’t exactly help my dating prospects. There were only so many young people in the Village-in-the-Valley, and I’d gone to grade school with almost every single one of them; we all knew each other’s stories—where we came from, what we wanted to be someday, who we wanted to marry—but no one was as whispered about as I was, the girl whose mother had been an outsider. Then, later, the girl whose mother got lost in the wood. The pickings were slim to begin with, and I honestly didn’t have time for the ones who “could overlook my oddities.”
It also didn’t help that most of the village thought that my best friend was a stupid fox that wouldn’t stay away from me, no matter how many times I tried to shoo him off. I had rescued him from a hunter’s trap near the wood two years ago, and since then, he apparently thought we were inseparable.
“Can you stop nosing through the baker’s garbage?” I scolded the little jerk as he slunk out from underneath the bench, a hunk of some sort of pastry in his mouth. “One of these days Mrs. Cavenshire’s going to catch you.”
The fox didn’t seem to care. He never cared. He just kept going through the baker’s trash, then would hide in our garden, hoping that I’d keep away the hounds when they came sniffing around. Now the fox hopped up on the bench beside me and gave me an unreadable look.
“Fine,” I muttered, and scratched him behind the ears. He began to purr—which was probably the most charming thing about him. “Today’s the day, you know. Anwen’s getting the crown. She’ll be Queen Anwen Sunder.”
The fox gave a lazy yawn.
A voice interrupted my morning solitude. “Queen sounds awfully pretentious.”
I glanced up toward the pergola on the other side of the garden as a gangly pale white boy in threadbare trousers that barely came down to his ankles, a wrinkled button-down shirt, and a brown vest came in. He had two fresh croissants in his hands from the bakery next door, and a wide smile on his face that made his cerulean eyes glimmer. A sliver of long golden hair escaped his newsboy hat, giving him away. As if his grace hadn’t already.
“Shouldn’t you be at the castle?” I asked the princess of Aloriya as she handed me a croissant.
“Shush and eat,” Anwen replied, lifting the fox up from his spot and putting him on her lap as she sat down.
I twirled a lock of her golden hair around my finger. “Your disguise is coming undone.”
“Again?” Wen made a disgruntled noise and took off her hat. Long golden hair spilled down her shoulders, reaching her lower back in soft curls. “It doesn’t matter. You’d recognize me anyway whether I was a boy or, I don’t know, a goat.”
I laughed. “I should hope so; we’ve been friends since we were six—”
“Five,” she corrected.
“Are you sure?”
“It was right after your father caught you cutting your own hair and you had bangs like—” And she angled her fingers slantwise across her forehead. “Do you think I’d forget something like that? My brother wouldn’t stop making fun of you for weeks.”
I shivered, remembering, and handed her the cup of coffee. “Well, I certainly forgot until this very moment. Your brother hated me.”
“I don’t think he did at all,” she replied, and took a sip of coffee to wash down a bite of croissant. “I miss him.”
“Me too.”
We sat and ate our breakfast quietly.
There was still so much to do before the coronation. I had to finish up the rose decorations and tend to the arrangements already in the store, all before I loaded up the wagon and made my way to the castle to help Papa set up for the rest of the afternoon. I felt exhausted just thinking about it. And I kinda didn’t want the coronation to come—ever. Because once Anwen was crowned, everything would change.
Anwen rubbed the fox behind his ears. “Cerys, do you think I’ll be a good ruler? As good as my brother would’ve been?”
I gave a start. “Why wouldn’t you be?”
She let the fox nibble on the rest of her croissant and gave a half-hearted shrug. “What if . . . what if the crown doesn’t take to me? Father died so suddenly, and he never gave me the chance to wear it. It keeps the curse and the creatures of the forest at bay, but how?” She outstretched her hand, and as she brushed her thumb and forefinger together, a flame bloomed in the air. It took my breath away every time she called her magic, the same magic that ran in her ancient bloodline. The same magic that razed the cursewood three hundred years ago. The flame flickered on the tips of her fingers. “Do I do something? I don’t know.”
“You’ll figure it out—you’re a Sunder, after all. It’s in your blood, in your magic,” I replied, and put my hand over hers to smother the flame. “And whenever you need me, I’m here. I’ll always be here for you.”
“Promise?”
I was the royal gardener’s daughter. There was nowhere else I was supposed to be. “I promise, Anwen Sunder.”
A small smile graced her lips. “Thank you.”
We shared the rest of the coffee as the cool morning mists that surrounded the Village-in-the-Valley slowly lifted. The sun was bright and golden, and the sky was blue, and spring grew warm and light in the air. Papa was right. It was going to be a beautiful day.
The fox shook his head, having gotten bored with us, and hopped off Wen’s lap. He began to slink around the gardens.
“If you go for those strawberries . . . ,” I warned him.
Wen snorted. “He’s just a fox. He’s not going to listen. Honestly, I don’t see why you put up with him.”
I cocked my head. “He’ll make a great hat someday.”
She gave a laugh, and then, unexpectedly, she turned to me. “Cerys, will you be part of my coronation tonight?”