Chapter 27 Marienne
Marienne
The morning light slants through the windows in soft golds and blues, brushing the edge of the windowsill like a hesitant guest.
Outside, Yla is singing to the flowers again. I hear her warbling attempt at court formality—“Good morrow, Lady Petals, your thorns are especially regal today”—and it tugs something fond and tired out of me.
Imara is reading to the younger girls in the library. Margot is pretending not to eavesdrop.
And me?
I’m fine. I’m fine.
I’m always fine.
I’m bright as breakfast jam and twice as sweet.
The Court may be watching like hungry wolves. But the tea is still warm, and I’ve found that if I stir it just so, the panic stays mostly dissolved.
I’ve been washing the same teacup since breakfast, chasing flecks of glaze like they might reveal the future.
I turn to set it down, and nearly drop it, because Ser Tamsin Greaves is standing in the doorway, hands behind her back like a statue with something to hide…
She clears her throat. Loud. Awkward.
“I need assistance,” she says, as if that were a completely normal thing for her to declare mid-morning, in the kitchen, without a trace of explanation.
I blink. “With?”
Tamsin’s eyes flick to the floor, then to the shelves, then, briefly, to me. “I… require something formal. For the ball. I thought you might know what the Court would consider ‘respectable.’”
It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying. And then another to believe what she’s saying.
She wants to dress for the ball. She wants my opinion.
She wants me.
There’s a beat of stillness inside me, so loud I almost drop the cup again.
“You want me to help?” I ask, too gently.
Tamsin shrugs one shoulder. “You’re the one who knows what lace is threatening and what lace is just… lace.”
That pulls a laugh out of me. Not a polite one. Not court-sweet or practiced. A real laugh. Musical and bright and mine… and it feels like the first real one in days.
“That may be the best compliment you’ve ever given me,” I declare.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she mutters, but I catch the corner of her mouth twitching like it wants to smile and is just too disciplined to try.
I raise a brow. “Does this mean I can dress you in lace for the ball?”
Her answer is immediate. “Absolutely not.”
“But you just said—”
“The concept’s the same with fabric. I don’t wear lace.”
“Well, now that’s the real tragedy.”
She huffs under her breath, and I grin like I’ve won something important.
I wipe my hands and say, “Let me get my walking shoes.”
***
Margot is not amused.
She stands in the hall, arms crossed, expression sharp enough to fillet a trout.
“I don’t see the reason both of you need to leave,” she says flatly.
“It’s just to the village,” I reply with a bright smile. “Besides, the children are in excellent hands.”
“They’re in my hands,” she points out, deadpan.
I press a kiss to her cheek and grasp her hands. “I’ll bring you back some shortbread from that stand you pretend not to like.”
Margot doesn’t smile. She does glare at Tamsin with undisguised suspicion. I half-expect her to hiss.
Tamsin, to her credit, remains stoically unimpressed.
Eventually, Margot steps aside.
“Fine. One hour,” she says, as if we’re children.
“Two,” I counter.
“Shortbread and walnut clusters.”
“Done.”
***
The air outside tastes like early spring. Cold sun, softer earth, that shy green smell of things thinking about blooming.
The path to the village is dappled with sunlight, and I’ve worn my walking dress. It’s a dark pink with reinforced stitching at the hem and little embroidered bees hiding in the pleats.
Tamsin walks beside me in silence. Not the hard kind. The kind that feels… shared.
A crow caws overhead. Yla would’ve greeted it like royalty. I glance sideways at Tamsin.
“Do you actually hate lace?” I ask.
Tamsin doesn’t look at me. “Yes.”
“You’ve never tried on the right lace.”
“There is no right lace.”
“There is,” I insist. “I promise you.”
“Perhaps on you,” she says.
I glance over. Her eyes are on the path ahead, but the words hang there—deliberate. Unmistakable.
Heat flickers under my skin.
She sighs, then adds, “You’re going to enjoy this, aren’t you?”
I let my grin stretch slow and only slightly mischievous. “Immensely.”
And—gods help me—she doesn’t frown. She doesn’t even pretend to. She just gives me a look. Quiet. Level. Slightly amused.
I take a breath.
And for the first time in days, something small and bright unfurls behind my ribs.
Not armor. Not performance.
Just me…
And the fact that she asked… that she wants me here. That we’re walking together, side by side, into something new.
***
The path dips toward the village square, and I let myself breathe it in—cobblestone and bread crust, wool-dust and lavender.
We pass the basket weaver’s stall, the apothecary, a young girl selling seed cakes from a crooked table. The baker’s wife nods at me, then does a slow double take when she sees who I’m walking with.
And then says, just across the square, just loud enough to carry…
“Oh, the Bloom baroness and her knight.”
The words are wrapped in something too warm to be entirely mocking.
Still, my ears burn.
Worse? Ser Tamsin says nothing. Not a word. Not a grunt. Not a glare. She doesn’t even flinch.
She just keeps walking beside me.
Like she is mine.
I’m grateful once we reach the tailor’s.
My pulse is rioting.
The shop, Thread & Thorn, is a narrow storefront tucked between a scribe and a shuttered apothecary, its windows hazy with age and lace-curtained from within. The sign is hand-painted in curling gold leaf, faded at the corners, but still elegant.
Dried roses hang near the door, scenting the breeze with something brittle and sweet.
Tamsin reaches it first and holds it open for me without a word.
Inside, it smells of cedarwood and pressed starch, with a faint hint of lavender oil steeped in the seams of the floorboards.
Ribbons cascade from pegs along the back wall, and bolts of fabric stand like noble towers along the length of the room—velvets and silks and starched linens in every shade of ambition.
Mistress Darra greets me like an old friend.
She’s dressed in layers of deep plum and charcoal, her bodice cinched smartly over a blouse. Silver rings glitter across her fingers—each one different—and a measuring tape drapes around her neck like a necklace she forgot to take off.
“Baroness,” she says, drawing the word out like a toast, already sweeping me into a quick, perfumed hug. “About time you came by! I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how fine fabric feels.”
“Never,” I say, smiling. “Though I did miss your eye more than your needles.”
She laughs, swatting my shoulder affectionately. “Flatterer.”
Only then does her gaze shift and land on the armored shadow at my side.
“Oh!” she says, eyebrows lifting. “You brought me a knight.”
She rubs her hands together, grinning like a cat who’s just spotted cream. “Tell me she’s here for a wedding and I’ll close up shop right now.”
Tamsin stiffens. I laugh like it’s all a joke.
“Not a wedding,” I say. “A ball.”
“Well,” Darra huffs, “that’s at least one step in the right direction.”
I gesture toward Tamsin. “Darra, this is Ser Tamsin. She needs something court-appropriate. Formal, but not fussy. Nothing that restricts movement—gods help us if she can’t reach a blade—and absolutely no lace. She’s made that very clear.”
Darra raises a single brow, eyeing Tamsin like she’s a puzzle box with no visible hinges.
“I do love a challenge,” she says brightly. “Come with me.”
She sweeps toward the back wall, where swatches hang in neat, color-coded rows like the petals of an overgrown garden.
“So,” Darra says, glancing over her shoulder, “what colors do you prefer, Ser Tamsin?”
Predictably, Tamsin is drawn to the most unyielding shades of black, brown, and gray I’ve ever seen.
“Not everything needs to be black or brown, you know,” I say, stepping forward to hold up a deep blue silk.
She grunts. “Not everything needs to be pink.”
“This isn’t pink. It’s cerulean.”
“It’s teal,” Darra interjects, already pulling a few coordinating swatches from the wall. “Cerulean leans cooler. This has more green in the base.”
I smile, unbothered. “Teal, then.”
Tamsin lifts an eyebrow. “It’s close to pink.”
“Oh my. You’re color-blind,” I accuse.
“I’m color-honest.”
I roll my eyes and reach for a bolt of deep forest green—rich, soft, quietly elegant. The moment my fingers brush the fabric, I see it: her in this color.
Crisp lines. Strong shoulders. That storm-dark hair against moss-dark silk.
It’s perfect.
“Come here.”
Tamsin hesitates. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to hold this up to your face and prove you’d look stunning in it.”
She doesn’t move.
I grab her wrist. She follows.
We step past the bolts and ribbons, deeper into the shop, until Darra gestures us toward the back with a distracted wave and a muttered, “Use the mirror, left side.”
Behind the velvet curtain, the space is barely wide enough for one body, let alone two.
But we’re here now, and the green still feels like a promise in my hands. Fabric hangs from the ceiling, soft and thick. The mirror is mounted on the wall before us, tall and silver-edged, catching too much light in the close space.
I turn and brush her chest without meaning to. Her armor is cold beneath my hand, but her gaze is anything but.
It’s warm. Steady. Like a fire banked low, waiting to rise if I stoke it wrong—or right.
She doesn’t move. Not right away.
Her eyes are on me—watchful, unsure.
I lift the bolt of forest green to her shoulders. The light filters through the curtain in fractured gold, and something in my chest tightens.
“It would suit you,” I say, quieter now, lifting the fabric just enough to frame her face. “It brings out the hazel in your eyes.”
Tamsin meets my gaze in the mirror—steady, unblinking. The reflection of us feels sharper than real life. Closer.