At the center of the orchard I pause and rest my hand against the trunk of an apple tree. He puts his hand just above mine. His eyes are distant, fixed on the curve of the path as it disappears into the garden.
“Elan and I used to play in here all the time.”
“Really?” I’m still not sure why he’s brought me here. But of everything I expected, it wasn’t this confession. Elan. The sound of his name seems to stay in the air, a note, resonant with memory. “What was he like?”
Rowan laughs. “A perfect terror. Any trouble you could imagine, he’d find it. He’d either convince me to join in, or blame me if we got caught.” He points toward the branches, where the leaves are colored by the diffuse, lilac light. “He used to climb up there and throw apples at me.”
“You probably deserved it,” I tease, and his mouth curves into an almost smile. “So why did you lock it all up?”
“After he died, I—I didn’t want to remember anymore. I closed up all the rooms in the house. I locked the garden. It was the worst, here. Because it was where he’d been the happiest.”
“You wanted to forget him?”
“Yes.” His eyes are dark and sad and far away. “I wanted to forget everything.”
“I know so little of my own family. I can’t imagine ever wanting to give up what I do remember. No matter how much it might hurt.” But then I think of the story I just told to Clover and Arien. How much I’ve still kept to myself, pushed down and buried and left unsaid. Maybe I do understand—just a little—why Rowan has closed up so much of his house, his life, and himself. “And did you? Did you manage to forget?”
“No.” He tips his head back and looks into the leaves above. He sighs. “It hurts to remember; it hurts to forget. And now everything here is dead, anyway.”
I look around the garden. We’ve come to the end of the path. The scattered gravel curls around a space of weeds that must have once been a lawn, bordered by more of the leafless brambles.
“No, it’s not. You locked it up. You left it. But it isn’t dead.”
I go over and kneel down close to the tangled curl of vines. I take hold of the bramble, careful of the thorns, and scrape my nails over the stem. The topmost layer of the plant peels back to reveal pale green, hidden beneath.
Rowan comes to stand beside me. “What are you doing?”
“It’s alive. See?”
He leans down to touch his fingers to the new, green place on the vine. “How did you know to do that?”
“My father showed me.”
I see my father, in the garden behind our cottage. A clear space of earth. A handful of stems, cut from another plant. One by one he placed them into the ground. He cupped his hands around them. Light flickered between his palms as he cast his magic. When he moved back, the stem had leaves and tiny flowers. It was alive.
I take out the pen and shakily trace over the sigil on my wrist. I’ve seen Arien and Clover do the same, retrace the same spell over a spent mark to rework it. Beneath the outline, my skin feels hot, like I have a fever.
I reach out to the vine again. Close my eyes and think of power. My power. It’s so small. I can barely grasp it. It’s like a tiny golden thread that slips through my fingers.
I wrap my hands tight around the bramble. Thorns pierce my skin, and I clench my teeth together against the hurt. I think of how it felt, before, with Clover and Arien, how our magic intertwined as we cast the spell. I think of how my power sparked up when Rowan touched the heartline of my palm.
And then the memory of my father in the garden comes back, so vivid that I can feel him here, right beside me. His hands over mine, his voice gentle as he shows me how to work the magic. I think of light and heat and sun and seeds. Of things that were not quite dead, now come alive. The sigil burns. I reach again for the thread. It’s about to slip. But I grasp hold, and I don’t let go.
I open my eyes and see what I’ve done. Most of the bramble is the same, leafless and dried. But between my cupped palms, there’s a small cluster of purple-dark berries. A handful of green, heart-shaped leaves.
Rowan kneels down and touches the plant. He smiles at me. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile like this, so unguarded. His mouth is tilted, lopsided and boyish. His front teeth are charmingly crooked.
“You were right,” he says, awed. “It isn’t dead.”
It’s the first magic I’ve worked from my own hands, alone. I stare down at the berries, the leaves. I feel wrung out, like I’ve used up all my strength for this single piece of magic. Can I truly protect Arien in the ritual, can I truly help, when this is all the power I have? And what if continuing to use it puts me back in the Lord Under’s debt?