Page 32 of Flowerheart

“No. It’s ridiculous that he’d think that of you.”

I wasn’t certain. Perhaps that’s why my magic was so uneasy, so volatile.

He touched my arm. A chill swept through me, making my heart quicken and my head lift to meet his gaze. I’dforgotten how near we were. If I stood on my toes, my cheek would have brushed against his.

“It’s nothermagic that’s in you. It’s your own. And you’ll heal your father soon, I know it.”

It’s nothermagic.I pressed my palm to my chest. My magic might not listen to me often, but it was mine. Mine to fear, but also mine to control. “Could making a rainstorm heal him?” I grumbled. My voice was small and confined as I tried to fit beneath the umbrella and not press up against his chest all at once.

“It’s a start,” Xavier said. He was no longer blushing—perhaps this closeness didn’t trouble him as much as it did me. Yet he couldn’t meet my gaze. “Tell your magic to do something else—whatever you want of it.”

“It won’t listen to me.”

“It’s worth a try.”

Perhaps he was right. And if I were to put my magic to the test, this was the best place to do it.

I shut my eyes and tightened my fists. I pictured the rolling hills, the blue skies. Something tugged in my ribs, like a horse resisting its reins. I held out a hand, trying to wipe away the storm clouds—but it was as if I were trying to pass my hand through stone. The effort made my muscles quake.

“It’s all right if it’s something simple,” Xavier said. “The hope is just for your magic to bend to you.”

“What if it won’t?” I whispered.

“Then we’ll try again some other day.” His voice was sure, comforting.

I breathed out in a steady stream. I thought of this new way of managing my magic—that I could cry without fear or shame. That my emotions were nothing to fear.Very well, magic,I thought.You’re with me. You’re around me. That’s all right. But you’ll do what I tell you to.

Under the shelter of the umbrella, I bent low to the ground, brushing the blades of grass with my gloved fingertips. As before, I dug my hands into the earth and breathed in the familiar scent, dark and dusty and warm, the smell of spring mornings and summer evenings. Papa’s dirt-speckled hands. The gardens he had crafted for people in Williamston. Our own garden: a rainbow of flowers. The blossoms my magic had grown in Xavier’s house. An illustration inWaverly’s, torn at the corner from too much reading.

My anger and my magic crackled in the air around me and lifted the hairs on the back of my neck, but I let the energy flow, sending it into the ground instead.

I pictured a flower: one small white bloom.Carpet of Snow to alleviate anger, saidWaverly’s. I’d never seen it in person; it grew mostly on the coast of a faraway ocean. All I wanted was one little piece of proof that my magic would obey me long enough to heal my father.

My lungs filled with cool air, and goosebumps tickled my arms in cold waves. I pried open my eyes. Dotting the grassall the way to the far-off trees were little white flowers, in the shape of round, messy X’s, with a little dot of green in the middle. I caressed the soft petals and removed a bloom from the grass, twirling its stem between my fingertips.

Xavier was grinning as brightly as I’d seen him do since we’d reunited. “Well done, Miss Lucas,” he exclaimed. “I’d bet this was the precise flower you wanted to conjure! And it isn’t even local flora!”

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my work glove, my chest heaving. “Yes, well. I only wanted one.”

I wasn’t certain that all the ranting and raving and theatrics was worth the beauty at our feet, but there was a new swell of pride making a home in my heart. I let it live there for a while. My magic had listened to me. For a moment, I’d been its mistress. For a moment, the worst it could do was grow too many flowers.

“I’m sorry I pushed you like that, when you said you wished to go home,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck and gazed out over the cliff at the lake below. The rain had made mist rise above the water’s surface. “And you were right. I ought not to be so secretive. There are things I dearly wish that I could tell you.”

I watched his profile, all sharp angles and severity, like a marble bust. “Why won’t you?”

The statue’s marble skin flushed pink. He rolled his bottom lip under his teeth. “I’m afraid you won’t see me the same way after.”

My stomach sank.

“You needn’t bare your whole soul to me,” I said. “I shouldn’t pry like I do. Papa said they made up that saying about curiosity killing the cat in my honor.”

Xavier smiled. “Mother said something similar about me. I liked to spy on her meetings with other magicians, even when I didn’t understand what was happening. I just liked the thrill of it.” His eyes searched the horizon, and his fond look faded away. “I love my family more than anything in the world. But I don’t think I’ve earned the privilege of their company these days.”

“Earned it? They’re your family.”

“Yes. And it’s better that people don’t associate them with me right now.”

I said nothing. I yearned to hound him with more questions, but I knew that what little he did divulge was precious and would not come again for a long while.

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