Sarah
The atrium is on the smaller side, built onto the far back side of Sydney’s manor. Snow glides off the domed glass ceiling, falling in giant piles along the exterior glass walls.
Beyond the glass, the world is cast in silver as the clouds choke the sun and cloak Shadowcrest in darkness.
Cosette was right about a storm coming. Wind rattles the walls of the atrium as I walk through the maze of plants planted directly into the ground, where a stone path gives way to patches of raw dirt and soil. Blake is fast asleep in a sling against my chest, my shirt clutched in his tiny fist.
“Does Sydney take care of these plants?” I ask, running my fingers over massive leaves belonging to tropical plants that definitely wouldn’t survive, even in this humid, deliciously hot atrium, without delicate care.
“Oh, Goddess no,” Cosette snorts, shaking her head. We meet up again, having taken different paths to the center of the room, where there is a wide, open space dotted with chairs and a bistro table. “Dalia and I like to come here to have our afternoon tea. We do the best we can with the plants, but as you can see–” she points to some rough looking foliage, overgrown and starting to brown in spots, “We’re housekeepers, and plants don’t need housekeepers, do they?”
I gently sway on instinct, patting Blake’s back. “No,” I smile. “They don’t.”
Cosette gives me a playful roll of her eyes and motions to the ground we’re standing on. “I had Queen Madeline’s head housekeeper send over her requests for the floral arrangements. I figured this would be a good place for you to work. Plenty of space.”
I nod along as Cosette, who has been walking around with a tidy clipboard during our tour of the atrium, begins to give me the run-down about what the queen wants for her fancy party.
It’s all doable. Bouquets and centerpieces. A few large, potted arrangements for the entrance of the building. Some floral streamers that will need to stretch from one side of the room to the other.
But I glance at the sad group of pots and buckets full of my severely neglected flowers Sydney brought over from my shop and sigh. I don’t have enough for this.
Cosette, who might be a mind reader, gently taps a pen against her clipboard.
I turn back to her, arching a brow.
“I compiled a list of the nearest greenhouses and asked about their inventory, so all you need to do is tell me what kind of flowers you need, and they’ll be delivered as soon as possible.”
We both glance at the windows hugging the room, where the wind is howling in great, white and silver funnels outside.
“Most likely in the morning, when the storm passes.”
That will give me a single day and night to finish everything before the party.
I don’t really have a choice, do I?
“That’s fine,” I tell her, but my heart lurches at the idea of doing this much in that small amount of time. During the festival this summer, I’d been contracted to help decorate a few of the smaller balls, but I was one of what felt like many other florists who all worked as a team.
This, I’m doing completely on my own.
And I have to absolutely crush it.
My brain starts whirling–a flash of color and texture. I imagine the arrangements as if they’re right in front of me. I mentally conjure up the botanical garden, which I’ve only been to a few times, as I start designing the layout in my head and where I’ll put my art when it’s complete.
All the while, Cosette watches me in silence, ready and waiting to start taking notes with her pen.
Within twenty minutes, Cosette has a list of the flowers I need, and I have a rough idea of what I’m going to do. She sits me down at the bistro table with some blank paper and a few pencils, then takes Blake on another walk around the atrium while I sketch all of the images that have filled my mind.
The darkness outside swells to the point it’s impossible to see beyond the spray of snow illuminated by the soft glow of the indoor lights.
But the gears grinding away in my mind start to slow as I finish the last group of sketches and lean back.
Cosette is sitting in a lounge chair nearby with Blake lying between her thighs as she plays with his hands. She eyes me, a soft smile brushing over her lips. “Finished?”
“For now.” I set my pencil down and roll my neck. Without this project to work on, my thoughts rush back to this morning, to the cottage, to Sydney’s questions about my past, and then to Sydney himself.
“Sydney healed my finger once, when we first met.” I look down at the finger in question, which I’d sliced open with sheers. “Why can’t he heal his headaches?”
Cosette lifts her brows and looks down at Blake, who’s awake and wriggling in her lap. “That’s a good question. I’ve been wondering about that myself.”
“Does this happen often?”
She tilts her head from side to side like she’s digging back in her memories for an answer. “Not often, no. It started this fall when he returned from Eastonia. He was so tired when he came home, he barely left his room. But then I found out what he was doing in there, and I think these migraines have something to do with the fact he doesn’t sleep, rarely eats, and has been nose deep in the kingdom’s archives looking for the poor missing girl from Eastonia for months with no respite.” She clicks her tongue, her eyes downcast on the baby.
I straighten up a bit, noticing the sharply edged concern lacing her words. “Why is it so important that he finds her? I thought he was some kind of civil engineer, not a… private investigator?”
She waves a hand in dismissal. “I have no idea. The royal family is very private, Sarah. This is some kind of mission that was given to him by his father and his uncle, the King of Eastonia.”
I nod. Sure, there were reports about the battles in Eastonia and the attack on their capital city, Moonrise, but no details trickled all the way to Crescent Falls.
Life went on as normal here.
But life didn’t return to normal for Sydney when he came home.
I slouch in my seat as the memory of him tearing into the sitting room early this morning comes flooding back to the forefront of my mind. I’d screamed at him before seeing the fear in his eyes.
That fear didn’t lessen until he’d had a chance to actually look at me–at us. Me and Blake, and saw that we were okay.
“What happened to Sydney in Eastonia?” I ask Cosette, but she shakes her head.
“Sydney is quiet and private, remember? I might know every other aspect of his day-to-day life, but this is one thing he keeps to himself. I have no idea why he needs to find this person so badly, but it takes up every waking second of his day.”
“Sasha,” I say, the name rolling off my tongue in a familiar lilt.
“Yes, Sasha. I doubt she’s a real person. You’d think after months of this, he would have found her by now. If she even exists, she’s probably some kind of criminal, I’m guessing, hiding out like those rebels from last summer.”
“Sure, that’s likely it.”
“Speaking of his royal highness,” Cosette says with some effort. “I should go check on him. Plus, this little prince is getting rather hungry.” Cosette swoops Blake into her arms and carries him over to me.
Sure enough, Blake starts rooting around, making little grunting noises when I can’t get my shirt unbuttoned fast enough.
“Any requests for dinner? I need to start on that, as well,” Cosette asks from the doorway.
I turn in my chair. “No, thank you, but… do you have a phone I can borrow for a minute?”
Cosette grips the doorframe, furrowing her brow. “Do you not have a cellphone?”
My cheeks go pink. “I–I sold it a few weeks ago.” I don’t tell her I needed food more than a phone, but she knows.
Her expression softens. “Yes, of course. My office is off the kitchen. You’re welcome to use the landline there anytime.”
“Thanks, Cosette.”
She nods and smiles before dipping out of sight.
I remain in the atrium for another twenty minutes while nursing Blake and watching the storm tear through Shadowcrest.
When Blake falls asleep again, I make my way to Cosette’s office, which is in a snug, cozy room off a hallway near the kitchen. This area of the manor is old and mostly unrenovated, with stone walls and ancient stone tiles.
But Cosette’s pale pink office is a warm, welcoming space. A fire roars in a hearth likely as old as the manor itself as I sit down behind her desk and grab the phone sitting neatly in one corner. I dial the only number I know by heart and wrap the spiral cord around my fingers as it rings and rings.
“Hello?”
“Hadley, I–”
“Gotcha! You’ve reached Hadley. Leave me a message, and I’ll call you right back, most likely! Bye!”
I growl into the phone as the line beeps, then murmur, “Hadley, you bitch. I told you to change your voicemail greeting months ago. You need to call me back on this number as soon as you can, okay? You’ll never believe what happened.” The line beeps again, cutting me off.
I hang up and close my eyes, my heart rate spiking. Blake nestles his face into my neck, sighing deeply as he sleeps.
Hadley probably thinks we’re dead. I didn’t even have a chance to leave a note telling her where we went, and I’ve been here for two days now.
I leave Cosette’s office a few moments later and go upstairs to put Blake down in his crib.
But when I leave the cozy sitting room and step back into the hallway, I turn to the far side of the wing I’m in instead of the grand staircase leading down to the foyer and the kitchen where the smell of dinner is wafting toward me, beckoning.
I don’t know where Sydney’s bedroom is, but it has to be on this level, right?
I know Dahlia and Cosette have rooms on the third floor.
The second floor is so formal. It makes sense he’d have a place here, somewhere.
I shouldn’t be worrying about him right now. He’s a grown ass man. An Alpha. Migraines don’t kill people, do they?
But it’s been hours since we got back to the manor, and I haven’t heard his voice or seen a glimpse of him since then.
I edge through the dark hallway, turning a sharp corner that opens up to a common area lined with bookshelves that touch the ceiling. It’s a library, obviously, small and narrow, but the hallway opens up again on the far end through an archway leading into pitch black nothingness.
A trio of doors greet me in the silent dark. I open one, finding an office. A computer screen sets the back wall aglow in dim blue light, but no one is inside.
I close the door and move to the second one, but the soft cry of a baby cuts through the silence.
My hand hovers over the doorknob anyway. I feel in my heart that this door leads to where Sydney is stuck in his own head, in pain, in the dark… alone.
Don’t get too close. You know it’s dangerous. Everything you touch is at risk.
I yank my hand back and turn away from the door, shoving my hands in my pockets, and go to fetch my son from his crib.