“Will you teach me to cook?”
Her black eyes sparkled like obsidian chips. “It’d be my pleasure. Come down any day ye like.”
When I thanked her, Rían threw his serviette onto his empty plate. “I don’t know why you’d want to learn from Eava. Her cooking is revolting.”
“Clearly.”
Snorting, Rían brought his dishes and mine to a sink overflowing with bubbles.
“Pay him no mind. That’s the lad’s way of saying he loves something,” Eava laughed.
“No, it’s not.” He dropped the dishes into the bubbles and grabbed a rag.
A powerful prince who despised dirt, was allergic to dust, and washed dishes.
Did anything about Rían make sense?
I slipped off the stool to collect the dish towel Eava had left down. Rían didn’t bother acknowledging me when I took the clean dish from the drying rack and ran the towel over it. “How do you know when he hates it?”
Rían handed me the next dish. “Simple. I hate everything.”
“He’s a tricky one, our Rían. With him, ye need to listen with yer eyes and yer heart.” She tapped her left breast, dusting flour over her dress.
Listen with my eyes and heart?
Did all witches speak in riddles?
When I looked back, I found Rían returning the dishes to the press. “Time to go, human.”
I didn’t want to go with him. I wanted to stay with Eava and ask the thousands of questions on the tip of my tongue.
“If that one pushes ye, give him a good push back,” Eava chuckled, nudging me toward the door. “And remember,” she said, giving my cheek a pat, “yer only a hostage if ye let him treat ye like one.”
* * *
I followed Rían back through the hallway to a large dining room. Dark exposed beams held up the double-height ceiling. The click of Rían’s boots echoed as we passed a table big enough for twenty to a set of double doors.
Compared to the drafty castle, the air outside felt warm and close, like the inside of a greenhouse.Had it been this way yesterday as well? If it had, I’d been too preoccupied to notice.
And I could hear the sea. It sounded close. What I wouldn’t give to feel its salty spray against my cheeks.
Beyond a sandstone patio spread a maze of high laurels that made our own hedges back in Graystones look like twigs.
I nodded toward the opening. “The gardens?”
Rían rolled his eyes. “No. The dungeon.”
If I was to spend the next year with him, I really needed to get my own dagger. Perhaps I’d ask Eava for one.
With each step I took, I pretended to grind his smarmy smile beneath my heels. Bees buzzed through the air, darting this way and that. If I had been dead for six months, it should be autumn. Yet when I rounded the corner, flowers bloomed in raised beds along the hedges. In stone-lined gardens around marble fountains. Between cracks in the high stone walls. Some I recognized, most I didn’t; a vibrant kaleidoscope of color. The mix of floral scents felt like a balm to my shredded soul.
“Do you like them?” Rían asked from a few paces behind, without a hint of sarcasm.
I didn’t want to like anything about this place, but how could I not like this? “They are more beautiful than I imagined.”
“Humans. So easy to impress.” He’d said it with a smile. “This way.”
I may as well get my bearings. Later, I would come back to explore the gardens properly—without an audience.