“Kasha! Margaret!”
The moment they stepped through the front door of the Aranias residence, the rapid patter of small feet announced Eve’s arrival.
“I was so nervous last night I could barely sleep! Hehe.”
Her cheeks were flushed, and she had made it only halfway through braiding her own hair before abandoning the project entirely.
Behind her, a maid came hurrying down the stairs in a controlled panic.
“My lady! You can’t just run off in the middle of getting ready!”
“Hehe. But my sisters are here! I have two close sisters now!”
Beside herself with happiness, Eve seized hold of both Kasha’s and Margaret’s skirts with each fist and held on with the dedication of someone who had no intention of letting go.
They had only met a handful of times while preparing for the tea party, and yet here she was, pressing her affection on them like an overjoyed puppy. It was impossibly endearing.
Kasha reached over and ruffled Eve’s platinum hair with quiet tenderness.
“At least go finish your braid first.”
“Okay! Yes, Kasha!”
Eve answered at full volume and launched herself back toward the waiting maid.
Kasha lingered for a moment with the soft sensation still in her palm.
Hair the same color and quality as Leon’s.
Would his hair feel like this, too, if she touched it? Soft and fragrant like this?
And what expression would he make, she wondered.
Even just holding his hand sent him into that much of a state.
She was smiling before she realized it, and quickly arranged her face back into something neutral. Across the entrance hall, Margaret was already waving her over.
“Kasha! I told them to set up the tables in the garden — come take a look.”
“Coming.”
They had grown quite close over the past four days — close enough that by their second meeting they had agreed to drop the formalities entirely.
They walked side by side through the sitting room that opened onto the garden. It was Kasha’s third visit to the residence now, and they had grown comfortable enough with the layout that the passing servants greeted them as a matter of course.
Pausing at the arched stained-glass door that led to the garden, Margaret looked up at the glasswork with renewed appreciation.
“This style is from the early imperial period, isn’t it. You’d have trouble finding anything like it even in a museum.”
“Is that so.”
At Kasha’s noncommittal response, Margaret laughed.
“When you first asked me to help with a tea party at the Grand Duke’s residence, I honestly thought you were joking. And now look at us — treating this place like our own house. Who could have imagined?”
“Mm.”
“You know what, Kasha? The number of young ladies who have ever been invited inside these walls could be counted on one hand across all of society.”
“Really?”
“Really. If anyone found out, there’d be an absolute scandal. They’d be so jealous they might tip wine glasses on us again this time.”
…Margaret hasn’t had wine tipped on her yet, then.
Kasha was thinking this when Margaret slipped her arm through hers with complete naturalness.
“Good things keep happening when I’m with you.”
“Same for me.”
Somewhere along the way, responding to that kind of easy warmth had stopped being difficult.
Friendship, Kasha thought, seemed to illuminate things more openly than she had expected. Her smiles around Margaret came much more naturally than they used to.
A servant appeared just then, beginning to set down a table in the wrong place. Margaret moved forward quickly and waved him off.
“No, no — not there. Over here, where the full garden can be seen.”
She pointed toward the inner courtyard before the fountain, framed on all sides by the colonnade.
“Yes, miss.”
“Good. I chose this spot specifically for the fountain, so let’s lean into the cooler palette.”
Margaret turned to inspect the tablecloths the maids were bringing out, comparing them against one another with a practiced eye.
“We talked about the theme — refreshing and cool. Everything should feel like relief from the heat. Can someone ask the head gardener to fill some baskets with flowers in blue tones?”
“Yes, miss.”
Watching the maids bustle about at Margaret’s direction, Kasha slipped in quietly.
“I’ll go find the gardener. You clearly have all this well in hand.”
“Would you? Thank you, Kasha.”
Margaret herself had thought to ask for help, yet she was managing everything so flawlessly that Kasha had been left with almost nothing to contribute. She was glad to have something useful to do rather than standing there being decorative.
Right — gardener first.
She picked up a basket that happened to be lying nearby and started off into the garden.
The Aranias estate occupied a remarkably generous plot even by the standards of the capital. The garden was planted not only with precisely pruned ornamental trees but with a wealth of exotic and rare species from what appeared to be every corner of the known world.
Given the sheer size of the grounds, finding the gardener was likely to take some time.
Before long, Kasha had entirely forgotten she was looking for anyone. She was staring at plants.
“Oh — this is the wild herb that only grows in the southern continent.”
Even with Kasha’s considerable botanical knowledge, there were specimens here she had never encountered in any form outside of books.
“This one is bloodwort — it’s very hard to come by. Oh. And this is the herb that helps bring down fevers.”
She collected a few leaves of the bloodwort and several of the fever herbs almost without deciding to.
These dried into tea might actually help Leon…
Having thoroughly forgotten the original purpose of her outing, Kasha found herself deep in the northern corner of the garden, where the undergrowth grew tall and untended around a small, neglected-looking greenhouse.
Hot.
She looked for shade. A large deciduous tree had grown to a considerable height near the abandoned structure, and she ducked under it gratefully.
While she cooled down, she noticed a low-growing cluster of plants with tiny purple flowers and went very still.
“Self-heal.”
She stared at the small blossoms.
If you pull out one of the flower buds and put it in your mouth, it’s sweet.
A memory, sudden and uninvited. A face she thought she had entirely forgotten.
I haven’t thought of her in a long while.
Without quite deciding to, her hand reached out. She plucked one of the small purple clusters and placed it in her mouth. A sweetness spread across her tongue — familiar in a way that ached.
It was like returning to a time so distant it felt like a different lifetime entirely.
Eyes closed, she was still lingering in the taste when she became aware of someone nearby.
She opened her eyes slowly.
Across from her, a young man stood with arms folded, watching her with undisguised curiosity.
Silver hair that caught the light. Eyes of deep, still green. A pale, lean frame that gave the impression of fragility.
The beautiful boy from the portrait in Leon’s study stood before her — grown now into a tall young man.
“Anthony Aranias?”
The name came out of her before she thought to stop it. The man’s brow drew together slightly. With his delicate features, the expression suited him surprisingly well.
“You know my name. We haven’t met.”
His response was sharp. Kasha answered with a trace of embarrassment.
“Ah. I saw your portrait. In Leon’s study.”
Leon’s elder younger brother, Anthony Aranias, considered this and seemed to find it interesting.
“In Leon’s study, you said?”
“Yes.”
Kasha replied without visible discomfort, and Anthony offered a mild smile in return. The sharpness in his manner dissolved as if it had never been there.
“Ah. You must be the one, then. The lady who’s been visiting lately — I heard you were helping with Eve’s tea party.”
“Yes. I’m Kasha Rüschino.”
Kasha gave the small curtsy that etiquette required.
Something shifted in Anthony’s expression when he heard her name, but he composed it quickly before she had finished rising, and accepted the introduction smoothly.
“…I see. A pleasure to meet you. I imagine my sister has been putting you to considerable trouble.”
“Not at all.”
Even given Kasha’s unadorned reply, Anthony kept up his pleasant manner.
“You’ve found your way to quite a secluded part of the grounds. What brings you all the way out here?”
“I needed flowers for Eve’s tea party. I was looking around the garden.”
He seemed to understand. He glanced about briefly.
“That could be left to the gardener.”
“I was looking for the gardener, actually.”
“I see. Let me find him for you. What color of flowers are you after?”
“Blue tones. The variety doesn’t matter.”
“Understood.”
He gave a nod of comprehension. Kasha looked at his profile — the kind of face a careful brushstroke might have composed — and thought to herself.
He really looks nothing like Leon.
As if he had heard her, Anthony turned and gave her a slight smile.
“I’m quite different from Leon, aren’t I.”
“Oh—”
She caught herself, and he lifted one shoulder easily.
“It’s usually the first thing people say when they meet me.”
He said it lightly and extended an arm to guide her back the way they had come, his smile as graceful as something painted.
She looked at him for a moment.
A brother who was a Holy Knight with extraordinary ability, looks, and the admiration of everyone who knew him. And Anthony — frail since childhood, she had been told, dependent on the temple’s healers to this day, unable even to attend the academy.
Whatever his looks, the current circumstances of the Grand Ducal family would make it difficult for him to distinguish himself in society. He had almost certainly spent his life being measured against Leon.
To simply exist and be someone else’s disappointment. To be a walking reminder of what one was not. Kasha understood, in her bones, how that kind of thing eats a person alive. Her own life, until not long ago, had been exactly that.
She met Anthony’s eyes and said, slowly and clearly:
“You and Leon may not look alike, but you’re far kinder than he is.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He had been waiting for her to start walking, and her words brought him up short — silver eyebrows rising with genuine surprise.
“And you’re far more beautiful than he is. Much more.”
Her tone was too earnest to be taken as a compliment offered lightly. Anthony stared at her for a moment, then let out a breath that was almost a laugh — not the practiced, perfect smile from before, but something looser and more real.
“…You’re a very unusual person. Unusual enough to have caught Leon’s attention, I’d say.”
He said it with an evaluating look that lingered briefly on her eyes, then turned his gaze toward the manor.
“Shall we head back?”
“Yes.”
As she walked alongside him, the abandoned greenhouse caught her eye.
“That greenhouse — is it no longer in use?”
A subtle hesitation passed through him, though he recovered it quickly.
“No. It was our late mother’s — she used it to grow medicinal herbs.”
“Ah, I see.”
Kasha nodded without pressing further and kept walking.
Then —
Stumble.
“Ow—!”
Kasha went down. A stone edge had been hidden perfectly by the long grass, and there had been no warning at all.
“Are you all — you’re bleeding.”
Anthony, who had moved to help her, stopped.
She had caught herself with her palm, and directly beneath it there had been a shard of broken glass. Blood was already spreading quickly across her pale skin.
“Oh, no—”
He patted at his pockets with a look of frustration and bit his lip.
“I don’t have a handkerchief. We should get back to the house quickly. I’ll call the physician.”
“Just a moment.”
She had thought of something when he mentioned the handkerchief.
Kasha reached into the pocket of her dress.
A moment later, a perfectly white handkerchief came out in her hand.
Gold-edged, with the initials L. M. A. embroidered neatly at the corner.
Something shifted in Anthony’s expression — subtly, but unmistakably. Kasha missed it; she was occupied with trying and failing to wrap her own hand one-handed.
It was proving more difficult than it should have been.
Needs must.
She was about to use her teeth to help tie it when Anthony made a sound of impatience and took hold of her hand.
She startled and tried to pull away, but he turned out to have a surprisingly firm grip for someone who looked so slight.
He pried the handkerchief free from her fumbling and began wrapping it properly around her hand.
“You could simply ask for help, you know.”
“…….”
Mildly chagrined, Kasha watched him work without protest.
Anthony had long, precise fingers — hands without a single callus, soft all the way through. He was tying off the knot when —
“What exactly is going on here?”
A voice that struck cleanly enough to reach the ear from any distance. Kasha would have recognized it anywhere.
