Chapter 30 #3
Honeycomb candy, golden and delicate, dozens of pieces carefully shaped and fitted together into the form of a beehive.
And as it rose, the little chocolate bees woke up and spiraled out from within the pedestal, circling the whole display in lazy, delighted loops, until they finally came to rest on very precise positions Lucie had chosen among the marzipan flowers.
Do not fall off, do not fall off, she silently repeated, hoping the final piece of magic would hold.
It held.
The structure slowed and came to a stop.
Lucie breathed … and waited … and wondered if perhaps she should say something to signal that the demonstration was complete.
And then the garden erupted into applause. It rose up from every table, and beneath it Lucie heard exclamations, laughter, heard someone saying “Quite marvelous!” in a voice of pure, unguarded wonder, and her whole body went light.
She was floating. She was quite certain her feet were still on the ground, but the rest of her had gone weightless, lifted by the applause and the warmth and the golden light of her own making, and by the fact that she had done it.
She had done it. Nothing had gone wrong, and the High Lady was smiling—the High Lady was smiling—and her mother’s face—
Lucie found her mother, and Mrs Fields had both hands pressed to her mouth. Above them her eyes were bright, and she was not trying to hide it. She was simply looking at her daughter with her heart in her face.
Lucie dropped into a small curtsy—trying and utterly failing to contain the smile that was stretching far beyond what was considered dignified—and then she turned.
She walked calmly across the grass and across the courtyard, back through the kitchen door, out of sight of the garden, and the moment she was through—
She squealed.
And flung herself at Kazrian.
Up onto her toes, both arms thrown around his neck, the whole of her hurled against him in a tight embrace. “I did it!” she said into his shoulder. “I did it, I did it, I actually did it!”
For one long, frozen moment he did not move at all. And in that moment, some small and belated portion of Lucie’s mind caught up with the rest of her and registered, with dawning horror, precisely what she had done. What in all the stars—she had thrown herself at him, bodily, arms and all—
But before she could pull back, before mortification could complete its work, his arms came up around her.
Enfolding her, drawing her closer, his hands spreading warm across her back, and it was so unspeakably right, the way she fit against him, the way her cheek found the place beneath his jaw as though it had been shaped to rest there, that she could not for the life of her bring herself to pull away.
“Of course you did,” he murmured. “I never doubted it for a moment.”
She closed her eyes. She did not know how long they stood there—seconds, perhaps, or a small eternity—but her breath slowed against him, and she was aware of nothing except the warmth of him and the steady rise and fall of his chest, and she thought, with a clarity that had no business being so calm: If the world would be so kind as to disappear entirely, I should like to stay exactly here.
“Lucie, that was absolutely—oh!”
They rapidly disentangled from one another and stepped apart. Rosavyn stood just inside the doorway, one hand still on the frame, having clearly swept in on a wave of triumph and run straight into the sight of the two of them. Her mouth hung open on the abandoned end of her sentence.
And Lucie’s mind emptied of everything except a single, dawning horror. How could she have been so foolish? Embracing him—allowing him to wrap his arms around her—and now someone had seen them—
“Well,” Rosavyn said loudly. “I was going to say that the demonstration was a triumph. I find I still mean it. I shall simply mean it from over here.” She took an exaggerated step backward, over the threshold, and pointed vaguely behind herself.
“Whilst attending to a great many extremely urgent matters that require my immediate attention in the garden.”
“Rosavyn—” Lucie began, her thoughts scrambling wildly through every possible explanation, every plausible account of what Rosavyn had just witnessed that might render it something other than exactly what it was.
“There are guests,” Rosavyn announced, already retreating, “who are simply desperate to know the difference between the elderflower meringue and the lavender, and since I went to the great effort of memorizing it all this morning, I am the perfect person to answer their questions.”
Then she spun around and was gone.
No no no no—
“Lucie, I am so sorry. But—”
“What if she—”
“No, it is fine,” Kazrian said. “Do not be concerned about her seeing. She was—well … already aware.”
Lucie’s gaze swung back to Kazrian. “Aware of what?”
“Aware of …” His eyes moved over her face, and the look in them was so open, so utterly unguarded. His mouth curved into a quiet, helpless sort of smile. “How I feel about you. How I have always felt about you.”
“She …” Lucie blinked. “What?”
“Lucie?” Rosavyn’s voice again, from just beyond the doorway, and then Rosavyn herself, stepping back through it and very obviously not looking at either Lucie or Kazrian.
“Yes, apologies, it is me again. Grandmother would like you outside among the guests. They have already begun perusing the confections on display and she wishes you to be there to receive their questions and their compliments, of which I gather there are a considerable number already.”
“Right, yes,” Lucie said, and it sounded more like a breath than actual words.
“She also said the pixies will see to arranging the individual items from the showpiece onto plates to be served shortly.” Rosavyn paused, still looking at a point somewhere on the ceiling rather than at either of them.
“Kazrian, you are needed as well. The framework and everything still attached to it must be moved back inside.”
“Ah, yes, of course.” He moved past Lucie, casting a look of apology back over his shoulder as he went. Then he was through the door and gone.
Lucie fell into step beside Rosavyn, and the two of them crossed the courtyard together.
“I am afraid to ask how long you have known,” Lucie muttered in a low tone before they were within earshot of any of the guests.
Rosavyn beamed at her. “Almost as long as I have known you, Lucie Fields.”
“Oh, good stars,” Lucie groaned, then arranged her features into the warmest, most composed smile she could manage and turned toward a fae lady who was beckoning her over, one gloved hand poised above a tray of elderflower champagne jellies with an expression of keen fascination.
It all continued, after that, in a happy blur.
Before long the pixies came fluttering out from the kitchen in a neat procession, bearing plates arranged with meticulous care.
Pieces of golden honeycomb candy, the little chocolate bees settled among curls of spun sugar, and the marzipan flowers artfully placed, all of it still faintly aglow with honey light.
The guests were delighted. Lucie could see it on every face.
They tasted, and their expressions changed—the honey light doing its quiet work, some private warmth surfacing behind their eyes—and they turned to one another to exclaim over it, and they rose from their seats to drift among the tiered stands, examining the confections on display, asking questions, pointing, marveling.
At one point, glancing across the garden, she caught sight of Lady Rivenna and the High Lady with their heads bent close together in conversation.
And as she watched, both of them turned, in the same moment, to look at her.
The High Lady’s gaze was appraising and unmistakably interested; Lady Rivenna’s was warm with something that looked very much like pride.
The High Lady nodded at something Lady Rivenna said, and Lucie looked away at once, her face going hot, mortified to have been caught watching them watch her.
But her heart was singing. It was all going so perfectly.
Every last piece of it. The demonstration, the guests, the honey light, Rosavyn, her family somewhere among the tables, the High Lady nodding as though …
as though Lucie were someone worth nodding about.
It was everything. It was more than everything.
It was the whole of the life she had built stretching out golden before her, and—
Her gaze, drifting across the assembled guests, snagged on something at the far edge of the gathering. Snagged, stopped, and would not move on.
A man stood at the boundary where the dappled light of the garden gave way to the shadow of the flowering trees. Dark coat. Easy posture. One hand resting loose at his side and the other lifted in the small, animated gesture of a person telling a story he was certain would be well received.
He was speaking with Lord Featherlock. Smiling, nodding, entirely at his ease, as though he had every right in the world to be exactly where he was standing.
Henry.