CHAPTER FOUR
I sat back on my haunches and wiped my brow with the back of my sleeve. Beneath me, the palace floor was a soapy mirror, and in it I could see frizzy strands falling around my face, dirt smudged across my chin. I blew a strand aside and leaned down once more to scrub the marble’s scuffed surface.
In the distance, excited chatter began to echo down the corridors. Guards and maids alike murmured as they hastened down the halls, a few muffled giggles slipping through the gathering crowd. I rose to my feet and picked up my bucket to follow.
Near the palace’s back doors, Ella caught my eye, similarly disheveled after scrubbing the foyer. We exchanged smiles.
“What’s all this?” I asked her.
We were swept along with the other servants into the palace gardens. A stray foot stepped on my own. I winced as my toes began throbbing.
Ella’s eyes twinkled as she dodged a child weaving through the throng. “I overheard a few of the kitchen staff whispering as they passed. There’s going to be a demonstration.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
“It’s Prince Thomas. Theodore has asked him to perform for some of the nobles.”
“Aren’t we going to get in trouble for spying like this?”
She scoffed. “If Teddy and Prince Thomas didn’t want an audience, they wouldn’t be doing it in such a public place. Besides, we’ll duck behind some bushes.”
I laughed. With so much of the palace staff tripping over themselves to see the magic on display, any hope of hiding was na?ve.
By the time the crowd settled, the sun bored down on our heads and shoulders. Rising on my tiptoes, I caught sight of Prince Thomas standing before a pond, the very pond I loved most on the palace lawn. A thrill shot through me.
What would advanced magic look like? What could so much raw power accomplish, funneled through practiced hands?
Prince Theodore cleared his throat, which caused Ella to squeak softly and grab my elbow.
“Thank you for coming,” the crown prince announced to the gathered nobility. “My father has been pestering Thom for weeks to demonstrate his latest achievements for the court. He has finally obliged.”
“Any chance to preen and posture,” I murmured. Ella’s nails pressed sharply into my upper arm.
“Thom, you may begin when you’re ready.”
Rather than the grandiose speech I expected, Thom remained silent. Although it was hard to make out his exact movements—us servants were spying at a respectable distance from the courtiers—I could tell his arms were outstretched before him, his head bowed in earnest.
“He’s quite the dramatic, no?” I whispered, and Ella shushed me again.
After a few seconds of silence, the water’s surface began quivering.
Shifting, small waves tossed over the sides of the pond.
Reeds shook from the magic’s force. A column of water rose from the middle, its sides falling in a loud thunder.
The pillar blasted ten feet in the air and we craned our heads to the top.
Our eyes squinted into the spring sun as it gravitated in a spectacle unlike anything I’d seen before.
My mouth fell open. The air was filled with gasps and hushed shrieks from the servants around me.
Thunder cracked, shattering our reverie. The pillar began to fall, sending a foot of water flooding the area around the pond. Servants and nobles alike screamed in fear at the violent force with which it crashed back to earth.
Ella let go of my arm to flee, but my feet refused to move. The cascading water splashed against my calves, and I relished how the wave flooded my slippers and cooled my body. I turned to Ella, delight written across my face.
Her own was transformed by fear.
“Ella?” I said, unsure.
“That was terrifying,” she said.
A surge of energy raced through me. “It was glorious! To think that one person can have so much power…”
I stopped rambling when I noticed her trembling. “Oh, Ella.” I offered her a hand.
“I’m fine,” she said, clenching her dress with both fists.
“Perhaps we should return to our duties before the housekeeper begins writing up distracted staff.”
Ella acquiesced, and we trudged along with the rest of the servants, uneager to return to more hours of scrubbing floors and wiping baseboards.
I didn’t speak another word about the demonstration to Ella, instead lost in thoughts I’d long suppressed.
I knelt and picked up my sponge once more, my knees like stinging needles against the cold floor.
I scrubbed until my arms ached, but my mind was no longer focused on my duties for the day, or even my upcoming visit home.
As my sponge plunged into the bucket of soapy water, which sloshed over the rim, I kept thinking of that pillar of water, so much larger and grander than any magic I ever thought possible.
And inside, I tried my best to silence the questions that raged within my chest: could that one day be me? And if so, what if that was the future I wanted?
“Did you see the demonstration?” I asked David as we strolled through town, hand in hand.
He shrugged. “It was alright.”
A twinge of disappointment pricked at me. “I suppose. But have you ever seen its equal?”
His hand tightened on mine as he swerved down an alley behind a dilapidated cobbler’s shop. We were surrounded by shadows and the sound of our breaths. My pulse quickened.
“You’re a much more enchanting sight.” He wrapped his hand around my waist.
I swallowed, pulling back. “David…”
He tugged me closer, and I put my hand against his chest firmly.
“David,” I repeated.
He paused, his eyes softening. “Are you alright?”
I took a shuddering breath. “My mind is whirling right now. I had no idea magic could be so—”
“Showy?” He grinned.
“So powerful,” I finished.
A shadow fell over his expression. “Lyra…”
I levelled my chin. “What?”
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“Because I’m only a textile mage? One who will never find a master?”
“No.” He shuffled closer, wrapping his arm around the small of my back again.
This time, I let him pull me close until only inches lay between us.
“What you do is important,” he whispered.
“It’s impressive in its own way.” He reached up to touch my kerchief.
“You made this one?” he asked, recognizing my work.
I nodded.
He let his hand trail down it gently, over the strands of my hair which tickled my neck and made me shiver.
“You’re an incredibly talented mage.” His voice was raspy and soft, reminding me of countless late night walks and embraces.
“But I don’t want to see you reach for the sun only to come crashing back down. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
My shoulders sank.
His thumb rubbed my lower ribcage as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. My chin tilted up. Pity filled his eyes.
“I don’t like saying these things to you,” he admitted.
“I don’t like hearing them.” The anger within me had dimmed from a hungry flame into smoldering cinders. My heart slowed.
He leaned closer, pressing his lips to mine. I let myself get lost in the feeling of his embrace, of his tenderness, soothing the wound I’d exposed out of foolishness.
When we finally parted, he was flushed.
“Now that… that was magic,” he said.
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the smile that crossed my face. “Your humor needs work.”
He planted another kiss on my cheek, long and slightly damp, and I shrieked, pushing against him. He let out a mischievous chuckle. I darted back into the main road, away from his overenthusiastic affection.
He followed, taking my hand once more. We let them swing between us as we made our way back to the palace, back to our shifts and the life expected of people like us.
“You know, we’ve been together two years already.” His gaze darted to mine before returning to the road ahead.
“Indeed.”
“It’s been a while. We might consider…” his sentence trailed off, his voice faltering.
I closed my eyes, breathing deeply. All I could think about was Prince Thomas performing feats I’d never believed possible. Feats forever out of my reach.
“Perhaps,” I said, my eyes fluttering back open, taking in the dry, dusty air and the din of commoners surrounding us. They bought their bread, haggled, married, had babies, and died—again and again in a never-ending cycle I’d be expected to take part in.
David’s fingers tightened around mine as he pulled me on, into the throng of passersby, and back to a life of servitude.