Chapter 18 Margot
18
Margot
An apricot slice of early-morning light shines through the crack in a pair of thick, velvet drapes, beckoning to Margot. The evening before, she and Yael were given the Glowing Coin’s finest room, because, “nothing but the best for Yael Clauneck and their guest!” It’s an extravagant suite with violet-and-silver-patterned wallpaper, a burbling ornamental waterfall in the bathing chamber, and crystal chandeliers throughout. Not as fancy perhaps as the way Margot’s mother had decorated, but after all these years in Bloomfield, it looks like a queen’s bedroom to Margot. Not that she’s ever been in a queen’s bedroom. Yael probably has. She’ll have to ask them…or maybe she won’t. It’s not like she needs to know.
She shifts under the silk covers, her knee brushing against Yael’s bare thigh. The touch starts a fire low in her belly, and she plants the lightest of kisses on their shoulder.
Yael murmurs, then burrows deeper into the piles of pillows. Margot could keep kissing them, but she lets them sleep. She’s been awake since before dawn—greenhouse habits don’t disappear simply because she’s traveling—and she’s been replaying their journey from Bloomfield to Ashaway over and over in her head, lingering on the steamy parts, while hoping sleep might find her again. But it’s a lost cause. Fully naked, she slips out from under the coverlet, careful not to disturb Yael.
Margot’s bare feet whisper across the marble floor as she searches for her hastily discarded traveling dress, which is piled somewhere near the bed…maybe? Or in the bathing chamber, where she and Yael took the longest, most delicious bath of Margot’s life. But it’s not there, nor slung across the back of a chair, nor under the inlaid table where the remains of their dinners still sit under silver cloches.
After several minutes and more than one stubbed toe, she finally finds her dress and underthings discarded along with Yael’s travel clothes in a lump beside their trunks, which a porter placed near a sitting area stuffed with velvet sofas and cut-glass decanters. She picks up Yael’s jacket, running a hand over the lapel as their words from yesterday’s carriage ride rise in Margot’s mind.
The fact that my mother might hate you is one of the many reasons I love you…
I love you.
Margot drops Yael’s coat and pulls clean undergarments from her own trunk roughly, as if the force of the movement could shove away Yael’s words along with their love—if it even is love. Which Margot doesn’t want to consider.
Because you might love them back?
Ridiculous.
Margot slips into her undergarments, desperately ignoring the voice in her head.
…one of the many reasons I love you…
If only Yael knew what their mother actually thought of Margot. How had Menorath spoken of Margot in her secret note? A capable witch can accomplish much in the capital, especially with patronage such as ours. My husband and I place our faith in you…
Is that who Margot is? A capable witch in need of a patron? Or is she Yael’s favorite form of rebellion? Or just someone doing their best with what they’ve been given? Which version of herself does she even want to be?
The questions spin through her head as she digs into the trunk again, sifting through layers of cardigans, stockings, petticoats, and her three best dresses, until she finds a hyacinth-blue day dress she’d bought from Arnav. It’s not fancy, but it’s certainly nicer than her faded strawberry-print frock or her garden boots. As she twists her hair into a simple braid—something much more suited for Bloomfield—Margot takes in the sleeping lump of Yael burrowed deep in the covers, practically hidden, just as they had been that first morning in the cottage’s loft.
How has it been four months already? If you’d told Margot back in February that she’d be in Ashaway, sharing a room—and a bed—with Yael Clauneck by the start of summer, she would’ve laughed out loud. But here she is, in Ashaway, listening to the soft way Yael breathes in their sleep.
Of course, four months with Yael also means there’s only a season left until her deadline.
Life is surprising, and often nothing happens like you’ve planned. Margot knows this. But that doesn’t mean she should give up, right? After all, she’s in Ashaway with dreams beyond accompanying Yael to the masquerade ball. She knows what she has to do—convince the Claunecks she’s living up to her potential as a brilliant remedy maker so they’ll extend her grace period awhile longer—and now it’s time to make it happen.
But…
What if you can’t do that?
She drops into the closest chair, swearing under her breath. Her fingers are still tangled in her hair, the braid half completed. It had all been so simple in Bloomfield, when it was just her and Yael in the greenhouses, but now everything is a mess. Her ability to make a godsdamn impossible potion is still her only hope for the future of her business and Bloomfield. But also, she has very real feelings for Yael. And along with those feelings, there’s guilt over the way she talked Yael into coming to Ashaway under false pretenses. And then there’s Menorath’s threat of the Claunecks gathering up assets they’d overlooked, which means Margot may be out of time sooner than expected.
Margot buries her head in her hands, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed with Yael and stay there. It’s all such a tangle. More knotted than the ivy that covers the cottage she loves so much.
The cottage she can’t lose just because Yael Clauneck strolled into her life and kissed her like she mattered to them.
Margot takes a shaky breath and stands, finishing and tying off her braid. She can’t give up on her family or her village. Crossing to the window, she pulls back one of the heavy curtains to peer through the leaded-glass panes into the city. She undoes the latch and lets it swing open just a crack. A warm breeze that smells of fresh bread and river water fills her nose. She inhales deeply, feeling like she’s twelve again and standing on the balcony outside her room in the city. Is this what it feels like to come home? She’d thought it would be, but Ashaway is just loud, busy, and enormous.
From their high vantage point, she peers across the burnished rooftops of the Copper Court, the golden ones of the palace, and red-clay-tiled ones that cover the many buildings spreading through the city between the courts. The house she grew up in is somewhere east of the Glowing Coin, on a street with other packed-together mansions. Margot turns away and looks instead to the west. Coult Park is only a few blocks from here, and the Willowthorn River winds like a silver ribbon through the city in the distance. Swallows and tiny pixies dart through the air, chasing one another around the eaves of a building across the street from Margot’s window. It’s lovely, but the trees only remind her of Bloomfield.
She pushes down the thought, watching as a pair of wagons trundle over the cobblestone street. The cries of vendors fill the air as they pass one another, competing with birdsong and the bells from a longboat floating along the Willowthorn.
“Morning,” Yael says behind Margot, their voice laced with sleep.
Margot turns, smiling to see the many directions in which Yael’s hair is standing. “Morning. Sorry if I woke you.”
Yael yawns as they sit up. “Not you so much as that racket. I’d forgotten how noisy Ashaway is in the morning. I’m not sure I enjoy it.”
“Yael Clauneck, I do believe you might be a country soul after all these months.”
Yael gives an exaggerated shudder. “Nonsense. I’d forgotten just how loud it gets near the Copper Court. Why don’t you come back to bed?” They pat the space beside them.
Margot walks over to them. “Normally, I’d like nothing better, but I’m already awake and restless. I’m going to find us some tea.” She kisses them on their forehead.
Yael tilts their face upward, closing their eyes.
She cups their cheek, tenderness filling her as her lips find Yael’s. “I’ll be back soon,” she murmurs after they kiss for a long moment. “You sleep.”
“That I can do.” Yael tugs lightly on Margot’s braid and steals one last kiss. “And shut the window before you go?”
They’re already sliding under the covers as Margot closes the window and slips out of the room.
Outside the Glowing Coin, the streets are even louder than the noise that filtered through the window would have Margot believe. A stable hand leading a horse nearly flattens her as she moves through the courtyard and down the nearest lane. She has no idea where she’s going. Yes, she grew up in Ashaway, but she’s never been down this particular street, and the city has changed so much in the years she’s been hiding in Bloomfield.
No, not hiding. Creating a new life for herself. A life she was exiled to, but still, one that she has managed to make her own. A life she desperately hopes to keep.
If she knows Yael, and she thinks she does fairly well by now, they’ll sleep for hours yet without the pressing concern of their chores in the greenhouses. Which means Margot is free to wander the city. If she gets too lost, she can ask for directions back to the Golden Court and the Glowing Coin. It’s not like Yael put them up somewhere subtle. Even as she thinks it, Margot turns to look back at the inn.
Really, to call it an inn is ridiculous. It has no more likeness to the Abyssal Chicken than a strawberry plant does to a cherry tree. Beyond the basics—all inns being buildings where people rent rooms for the night—there’s no resemblance. The Glowing Coin is a four-story confection with marble porticoes and columns. Its leaded-glass windows on the first floor are shaped into whimsical designs: swans and tulips and the like. A motif of shining coins tiles its facade, and the guests standing around its lobby this morning had all given Margot sideways glances, as if she didn’t belong there in her dusty boots and simple blue dress.
She wishes that she had spent some of the money from Rastanaya on fancier clothing before they’d left, but where in Bloomfield would she have purchased such items? She still needs to find something to wear to the Claunecks’ ball because, although the dress Rastanaya gifted her for the fashion show would’ve been perfect, she and Yael had promptly ruined it—albeit for a worthy cause.
Gods. The Claunecks’ ball.
Swearing under her breath, Margot turns away from the Glowing Coin. She leans against a nearby ivy-covered brick building, running a finger over the leaves. Her heart races at the thought of seeing all those people, talking to them, wearing a fine dress, being expected to dance with Yael with everyone watching.
“Maybe it won’t be that different from Rastanaya’s fashion show?” Margot whispers bracingly to herself.
But of course it will be. Because the show was a chance to play pretend for an evening. It was one night of magic, and Margot was still a gardener who lived in a cottage at the end of it. Here, as the noise of the city rises around her like a living creature that could swallow her up, she knows that in order to get what she wants, what she needs, she must become someone else. Someone who belongs in Ashaway.
As her thoughts race, she twines the ivy through her fingers. It responds to her touch, and a riot of tiny purple flowers breaks out along the vine, looking entirely out of place against the otherwise stoic facade of the building. The purple is the exact shade of Margot’s hair. Before anyone can see, she untangles her fingers and rushes away. She knows exactly where she needs to go. Back to where it began and who she was supposed to be before everything fell apart for the Greenwillows.
As the sun settles higher in the sky, Margot walks along a mess of familiar and not-so-familiar streets, asking directions a few times until she’s standing outside a tall, sprawling mansion that takes up half a city block. Greenfield House, her childhood home where she lived for eighteen years, not counting summers, until she rushed back to Bloomfield to mourn Granny Fern.
She’s filled with a strange, disconnected feeling—half regret and half repugnance—as she wraps her hand around one of the gilded metal flourishes on the gate. Her parents had always referred to Greenfield, with its four levels and facade of green marble, as a cottage, but that was just an affectation. A bit of rich people’s whimsy, like a queen playing at being a shepherdess. Margot’s childhood home in Ashaway is no cottage. It’s a place built to impress behind its golden gates. Margot resists the urge to demand entrance. She isn’t even sure who lives there now. Maybe the Claunecks sold it to a family friend in better graces than the Greenwillows or an investor in their company. It doesn’t really matter who owns it now; it’s more about who doesn’t own it, which is Margot’s family.
But would you even want it back? If that is an option, would you want to live here again?
Yes? No? She isn’t sure.
She knows Yael’s family home—a dragon of a mansion thatreeks of old money—is set away from the center of town because they have land. Lots of it. And stables, and all the things Margot’s parents tried to emulate in their own country estate.
A carriage rolls past, and Margot shrinks up against the gates of her former home, making herself small. Desperate not to be recognized.
It was a mistake to come back to Greenfield. She doesn’t need to focus on the past. She needs to focus on the future. And there won’t be any future for her and Yael, or for Bloomfield, unless she makes good with the Claunecks.
Turning away from her childhood home, Margot heads back into the city. On the way, she stops at a pastry shop and leaves with two bags full of iced buns, fruit tarts, and golden-papered chocolate treats. When she makes it back to the Glowing Coin, she stops by the front desk to order tea for their room.
“Ah, Miss Greenwillow,” the person behind the counter says cheerfully. “I was just about to send this up to you.” They gesture to a small envelope on the counter with Margot’s name written across the front.
Margot hadn’t given her name last night when they checked in, and now she eyes the clerk and the envelope suspiciously. “How do you know that’s for me?” she asks.
“The letter was left for you by Lady Clauneck herself.” The clerk beams. “She said you’d be staying with the young sir’ram, and that you had the loveliest purple hair. That has to be you, yes?”
Margot’s stomach sinks at the mention of Yael’s mother. She touches the tip of her braid self-consciously. “Thank you?” she says weakly, taking the letter.
“Of course!” says the clerk. “I’ll send up some tea now. Will that be all?”
Margot nods, fighting the urge to rip up the letter. Instead, she takes it to a tucked-away alcove in the lobby and opens it.
The script is elegant and the message simple:
Menorath Clauneck invites you to an exclusive fitting at Rastanaya’s dress shop, in preparation for the upcoming Midsummer Masquerade. All costs will be covered by the Clauneck family. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. sharp. Come alone. We’ve much to catch up on.
Margot crumples the letter in her fist.
“You have to meet her,” she whispers to herself. “Charm her, and perhaps she’ll believe you’re greater than you really are. Just buy yourself more time to save…everything.”
It’s possible, isn’t it?
She tucks the balled-up note into her pocket beside the original letter from the Claunecks, forever on her person, and heads back to her room, ready to lose her worries in Yael’s arms, a pile of pastries, and many cups of tea.