Page 31 of Flowerheart

I knew the case well; Madam Albright had shared the reports with me, especially when it seemed clear that they were connected to my mother.

“I’ve never even spoken to her,” I said. I balled up my hands to stop them from trembling. “Why would that keep you from answering my letters?”

“Because I’m a Morwyn!” His voice echoed across the valley. He winced, as if startled by his own voice. “Father... Father forbade me from writing. He said friendship with you would reflect poorly on the family name.”

Rage dripped down my back like hot wax. His father, who’d welcomed Papa and me as guests and let me borrow his books. He was just another person who saw me as no better than my mother. Even when I was a child. Even when heknewme. And he’d tainted Xavier’s view of me, too. He’d fractured the relationship we’d once had.

My magic groaned in my ribs like an old, rusty door hinge. My mother hadn’t only ruined my family. She’d poisoned the longest, truest friendship I’d known my whole life. And she hadn’t evenbeenhere to do it. I pressed my hand against my pounding heart.

“I’m sorry, Miss Lucas, I—are you all right?”

Even in his soft tones, the title cut me, emphasizing the distance between us. I grimaced.

Wind roared through the trees on the horizon, bending their branches. I could feel my control slipping. Heat blossoming in my chest. A voice hissing in my ear. Here it was again, the proof that my magic and my emotions would always be stronger than my will; that I was meant only to cause destruction.

“Please take me home,” I said, my voice quivering.

Xavier shook his head. His eyes were filled with something altogether worse than anger: pity. “We need to continue the lesson.” He gestured at the swaying trees around him. “Is it your mother that upsets you so?”

He was such a fool. To try to pin all my grief, all my rage, ontoher, when I bore so much more hurt than that. It was him; it waseverything.My failures, my father, the years I’d lost with Xavier, and for these wounds to be opened for my owneducation?

My magic reached a boiling point, spouting from me in a scratchy, desperate scream: “Leave me alone!”

Lightning flashed white on the horizon. Thunder rumbled like rapid drumbeats, and rain fell in buckets. I gasped at the sudden shock of the cold water. Xavier stooped to riffle though the picnic basket; meanwhile, I pressed my already-damp sleeve to my eyes as I began to tremble with tears. Even the warm sunshine—the comforting source of all magic—was now hidden away by dark clouds.

I was hopeless. A simple nausea potion was too much for my magic, and now an exercise that involved nothing morethan shouting and breaking things had ended in disaster, too.

“I can’t do this,” I whimpered, my voice drowned in the roar of the rain.

Xavier returned with an umbrella, opening it with apopand holding it over my head. I instinctively drew closer to avoid the rain, but as I looked up at him, I realized there was only an inch between us. My breath made the hair resting on his collar flutter.

“You’ve done wonderfully, Miss Lucas,” he said. He held a hand out into the rain, letting the drops sparkle against his glove. “Look at this! Your raw magic.”

Resentment boiled in me. We were so close, and my heart was racing so fast, I was certain he could hear my pulse over the drumming rain. “Yourmagic, you mean. Is that what this was? A chance for you to see what sort of tricks you’ll be able to perform one day?”

His proud smile smoothed into a frown. “No, of course not. And you’ll recall that you offered your magic to me—”

“My circumstances were dire!” I cried. Something snapped inside of me, making more tears fall. Thunder shook the ground. My circumstances werestilldire.

I did not regret the trade I’d made with him. But more and more, I wondered what sort of man Xavier was.

As I stood there in the storm I’d caused, I felt more certain than ever that casting a blessing on my father would prove impossible.

“I’m sorry.”

I deigned to look at him. I hoped he could feel the fire in my stare.

But Xavier’s eyes were soft and sad. “I wanted so dearly to write—”

“If you cared so much about your family’s reputation,” I said, “why have you taken me on now? Is it only for my magic?”

He shook his head, his wet hair flicking back and forth. “No, no, I—I missed you. I truly did. The past few years, they’ve been so quiet.” Xavier trailed off, digging in his pocket. A blush bloomed in his cheeks. “I’m afraid I’ve already given you my handkerchief.”

I laughed. I could scarcely believe myself, that I still had some kernel of levity left in me. I covered my mouth with the cracked leather of my gardening gloves and watched the rain stick to the blades of grass.

“I wish I’d been braver,” he said. “I wish I’d replied to your letters, no matter what Father had said.”

With all the emotion and magic that had left me, I felt hollowed out. “You were just a child. It’s all right.”

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