Rowan woke to the sound of someone arguing with her wallpaper.
“—told you, you can’t have the girl’s hair. It’s rude.”
“I didn’t *say* I wanted her hair, I said I liked it. You always read into things.”
“You *always* like things you then try to eat.”
She blinked her eyes open.
The carved face in the corner—eyes open now, mouth moving—was indeed in a heated whisper-fight with Lavinia, who stood by the door, hands on hips. A faint smear of ink streaked the witch’s jaw. Her bun was more chaos than style.
“Are you two performing a play I didn’t get tickets to?” Rowan croaked.
Both turned toward her.
The wall-face harrumphed and squeezed its eyes shut, pretending to be inanimate.
“Good morning,” Lavinia said briskly. “We have a problem.”
Rowan pushed herself up on her elbows. Her body ached in new and interesting places. Dress from the Revel hung over the back of a chair; she’d changed into a nightshirt at some ungodly hour with Brenna’s help, brain still full of music and knives.
Caelan’s chair was empty.
Not surprising after the previous night’s almost‑something.
“What kind of problem,” she asked warily. “On the scale from ‘we’re out of honey cakes’ to ‘the world is ending.’”
“Somewhere in the middle,” Lavinia said. She crossed to the window and yanked the curtain aside.
Rowan slid off the bed and padded over.
The courtyard below had…changed.
The crooked tree still stood, branches bare now. The cobbles were still there. The little fountain trickled.
But along one wall, where there had been plain stone before, something new crawled.
Vines.
Not Autumn’s usual, tasteful crawling greenery.
These were wet. Glossy. Dark green tinged with an unhealthy yellow. They pulsed faintly, as if a heart beat in their stems. Where they touched the stone, the rock looked…softer. Darkened with moisture. Tadpoles of mold.
“What,” Rowan said, “the actual fuck.”
“Mire,” Lavinia said. “She was busy last night.”
Rowan’s skin crawled. “She—what—how—”
“While everyone was pretending not to watch you dance with wolves and thorns,” Lavinia said, “our dear swamp monarch was seeding her roots under the walls.”
“Seeding,” Rowan repeated. “That sounds…ominous.”
“It is,” Lavinia said. “She’s testing how far she can creep without the Palace spitting her out.”
Rowan squinted.
The vines seemed…thicker near one corner of the courtyard.
Right under one of the narrow, high windows.
“This is under—” she began.
“Yes,” Lavinia said. “The Council chamber. And a few other delightful rooms.”
“So she’s not just…decorating,” Rowan said. “She’s…probing.”
“Exactly,” Lavinia said.
Rowan pressed her palm to the window’s cold glass.
The bracelet on her wrist warmed faintly.
She thought of the Mire Queen’s offer. *Let me flow. Let me in. I’ll soften things.*
“She did this without me agreeing,” Rowan said. “Which means she doesn’t actually need my help to wiggle into your foundations.”
“She can wiggle,” Lavinia said. “She can’t *writhe.* Not fully. The Palace is old, and it hates change that isn’t its own idea. Right now, this is…irritation. If she pushes harder, it becomes infection.”
“And then rot,” Rowan said quietly.
Lavinia nodded. “And then pieces start falling off. Metaphorically. And literally.”
“What does the King say?” Rowan asked. “What’s Caelan planning?”
“He’s down there,” Lavinia said. “Trying to convince the old man that scraping off swamp vines is more important than arranging the seating chart for the next stupid feast.”
“Of course he is,” Rowan muttered.
A knock came at the door.
A sharp, staccato rhythm.
“Brenna,” Lavinia called.
The door cracked open.
Brenna slipped in, cheeks flushed from haste. “They want her,” she said, breathless. “Both of them. King and prince. In the courtyard.”
Rowan’s stomach dropped. “Already?”
“It’s…connected,” Brenna said. “To you. To your warding last night.”
Lavinia shot Rowan a look. “What did you two do in here?” she demanded.
“We told the walls I matter,” Rowan said. “Apparently they have opinions about moss.”
Lavinia snorted. “Of course they do,” she said. “Stubborn old stones.”
She grabbed Rowan’s wrist, fingers tracing briefly over the bracelet. Her expression went intent. “Interesting,” she murmured. “They’ve…braided it.”
“Braided…what?” Rowan asked.
“Your little mortal tether,” Lavinia said. “His blood mark. The room’s echo.” Her eyes gleamed. “We might be able to use this.”
“Define ‘use,’” Rowan said.
“As a scalpel,” Lavinia said. “Or a match.”
Brenna shifted. “We shouldn’t keep them waiting,” she said. “The King gets…prickly.”
“Let him prickle,” Lavinia said. “I’m not sending her down there without—” She broke off, eyeing Rowan. “You’re wearing that,” she decided, nodding at a plain tunic and leggings Brenna had set out on the chair.
“No dress?” Rowan asked hopefully.
“No dress,” Lavinia said. “You don’t fight rot in silk. You fight it in something you can burn.”
“Encouraging,” Rowan muttered.
She dressed quickly.
The tunic was a deep, dark gray, almost black. The leggings were snug, boots sturdy. She strapped the knife to her thigh again. The bracelet slid under her sleeve, cool against her skin.
When she stepped into the corridor, Caelan was waiting.
He looked like he’d been up for hours.
Shadows smudged the skin under his eyes. His hair was pulled back in a low tie, a few strands fallen loose. He wore dark trousers and a fitted tunic, simple, the kind of clothes she’d seen him train in.
His expression, when he saw her, softened.
Then tightened when he noticed Lavinia at her shoulder.
“Good,” he said. “Both of you.” His gaze flicked to Brenna. “Stay. Here. Unless the walls start to scream.”
Brenna paled. “Scream?”
“Metaphor,” Lavinia lied.
Rowan wasn’t entirely sure it was.
***
The courtyard air was damp.
It hadn’t rained.
The moisture was…wrong.
The vines were worse up close.
They clung to the stone like leeches, pulsing faintly with their own sickly light. Tiny white flowers bloomed here and there along their length, opening and closing in a slow rhythm like breathing. When the petals parted, a faint, unpleasant scent wafted out—sweet, cloying, with an undernote of rot.
The King stood near the worst of it, cloak thrown back over his shoulders, one hand resting on the hilt of an ornamental sword he rarely drew. His face was pale, his lips pressed in a thin line.
Maerlyn hovered like a particularly elegant vulture, arms folded, eyes narrowed.
Aisling sat on the edge of the fountain, legs swinging, watching the vines with predatory curiosity.
Lucien leaned against a pillar, as usual, looking like he’d be laughing if this were happening in someone else’s Court.
Thorn of the North stood with arms crossed, antlers scraping the low branches of a nearby tree.
Rian was nowhere visible.
Mire was not present either, but her presence was all over the crawling green.
As Rowan and Lavinia approached, heads turned.
“There she is,” the King said. “Our favorite mold attractor.”
“I feel so appreciated,” Rowan said.
His mouth curved, quick. “Mire is…flirting,” he said, gesturing to the vines.
“This is her idea of flirting?” Rowan asked. “Remind me never to sleep over at her place.”
A few snorts.
“Can you do anything about it?” Maerlyn asked bluntly. “Your room…woke up last night when they thickened. The Palace…is listening to you.”
Rowan glanced at Caelan.
He nodded minutely.
“You’re not…bound,” he murmured. “This is your choice. But if you *want* to try to…cut her roots…you might be able to. With Lavinia’s help.”
“And if I fail,” Rowan asked. “What happens?”
Lavinia’s jaw tightened. “The rot goes deeper,” she said. “We’ll have to…cut more out later. Of the building. Of the Court.”
“So no pressure,” Rowan muttered.
She stepped closer to the wall.
The vines nearest her…stirred.
Turned.
Tiny flowers bloomed wider, scent intensifying.
They *felt* her.
Her magic thrummed under her skin in answer.
“What do I do?” she asked Lavinia, not taking her eyes off the crawling green.
“Same as with the bowl,” Lavinia said quietly. “Call your fire. Your light. But instead of throwing it like a stone, *shape* it. Think…threads. Knives. Scalpel, not torch.”
“Scalpel,” Rowan repeated.
She pressed her palm to the cool stone just above where the vines clung.
The bracelet warmed.
The band on her left wrist pulsed.
She closed her eyes.
Breathed.
The hum was there, as it always was now.
Usually it felt like static.
Right now it felt…coiled. Waiting.
She pictured the candle.
The flame.
The glass.
She pictured the vines.
The way they sank little tendrils into tiny cracks, widening them. The dark wetness they left.
She thought of moldy bread Gran had thrown out with a curse. Of the smell in the back of the fridge when Harper forgot leftovers for a month.
“Not in *my* walls,” she whispered.
The magic surged.
She almost lost it.
It wanted to flare.
To burn.
To jump.
She gritted her teeth.
“Scalpel,” Lavinia murmured. “Not bonfire.”
Rowan imagined the energy narrowing.
Not a flood. A stream.
A line.
She opened her eyes.
Golden light bloomed under her palm.
Not searing.
Soft.
It bled into the stone, following hairline cracks, illuminating them from within.
The vines hissed.
The sound was…gross.
Tiny flowers shriveled.
The pulsing slowed.
“More,” Lavinia said. “Follow it. Don’t chase. Let it *show* you where it’s rooted.”
She did.
The light traced under the vines, highlighting where they had wormed between stones, under the mortar. Where they’d found old fissures left by previous magic, previous bargains.
Rowan saw—not with her eyes, exactly, but with some other sense—the way the rot’s tendrils had curled around old oaths carved into the foundations. She saw a binding etched long ago—*AUTUMN SHALL HOLD THESE WALLS AGAINST WINTER’S TEETH*—now fuzzed at the edges by damp.
She pushed her light along those lines.
The vines recoiled.
They tried to cling.
Her magic slid between them and the stone like a thin blade.
“Cut,” Lavinia whispered. “Separate. Send her *back.*”
Rowan pictured root-cutters.
The ones Gran had used in the garden, slicing the hairlike threads of stubborn weeds from the good roots of the apple trees.
She imagined doing that here.
Her hand shook.
The light wavered.
Sweat trickled down her spine.
“Enough,” Maerlyn snapped suddenly.
Lavinia’s hand clamped over Rowan’s wrist. “Stop,” she ordered.
Rowan gasped and tore her hand away from the wall.
The light winked out.
The courtyard swam for a second.
She caught herself on the stone.
Her knees threatened to buckle.
Caelan was at her side instantly.
“Easy,” he said. “Breathe.”
She did.
The vines nearest where she’d touched…were gone.
The stone there looked…cleaner.
Drier.
But further along the wall, toward the Council chamber and beyond, they still pulsed.
Alive.
Angry.
“Not bad,” Lavinia said. “For a first cut.”
“Why did you stop her,” the King asked Maerlyn, eyes narrowed.
“Because,” Maerlyn said coolly, “she was about to overreach. Did you not see the way the light was starting to creep along the binding itself? If she cut that, we’d have *bigger* problems than swamp stains.”
Rowan’s stomach lurched. “I almost…?”
“Yes,” Maerlyn said. “Don’t take it personally. Most of us have almost snapped at least one foundational oath. We just had the good sense to do it in less crowded rooms.”
“You’re saying I could…undo your protections,” Rowan said.
“If you’re not careful,” Lavinia said. “Which is why we are going to be very, very *careful* from now on.”
Caelan’s jaw was tight. “You did enough,” he said to Rowan. “Mire knows now that she can’t slither in unnoticed.”
“Mire knows,” Lavinia said, “that the girl can burn her fingers. Which she will find…intriguing.”
“Everything is intriguing to her,” Maerlyn said. “She’s bored.”
Rowan sagged back against the wall.
Her magic throbbed unpleasantly.
“I feel like I just…ripped out a tooth with my bare hands,” she muttered.
“More like you dug out a splinter,” Lavinia said. “The tooth is deeper.”
“Encouraging,” Rowan said faintly.
Caelan’s hand found her elbow, steady. “Come,” he said. “You need to sit.”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
She looked down.
Her fingers trembled.
“Fine‑ish,” she amended.
He guided her toward the fountain.
Aisling hopped up to make room, watching her with bright eyes.
“Well?” Aisling asked. “How does it feel, mirror, being the Court’s favorite plumber?”
“Exhausting,” Rowan said. “And slimy.”
Aisling laughed.
The King studied the partially cleared wall.
“We’ll scrape the rest,” he said. “The old‑fashioned way. With knives. And insults.”
“Leave some,” Maerlyn said thoughtfully. “As a…reminder.”
“Of what?” the King asked.
“That we are not the only ones who can get under our skin,” Maerlyn said. Her gaze slid to Rowan. “And that sometimes our salvation comes with a scalpel instead of a sword.”
Rowan’s cheeks heated.
“I’m not your salvation,” she muttered.
“Of course you are,” the King said blandly. “Why else would we have stolen you.”
She glared.
He smirked.
Lavinia rolled her eyes. “Brenna will take you back,” she told Rowan. “No more cutting things today. You overuse that spark and you’ll burn out.”
Rowan wanted to protest.
She didn’t.
Her limbs felt like lead.
Brenna appeared at her elbow as if summoned by her name, hand hovering near Rowan’s arm.
“Let’s go,” Brenna said softly.
Rowan let herself be led away.
As they walked back through the corridors, whispers followed.
“Did you see—”
“—under the vines—”
“—glowed—”
“—cut Mire’s roots—”
“She’s dangerous,” someone murmured, not quite softly enough.
“Good,” someone else replied. “Maybe she’ll burn the mold before it reaches my rooms.”
Rowan’s mouth twisted.
Dangerous.
It still sat in her chest like a foreign thing.
Back in her room, she collapsed onto the bed.
Brenna fussed with blankets.
Lavinia brewed something that probably tasted like boiled bark.
Caelan hovered in the doorway, as if unsure whether he was welcome.
“You can come in,” Rowan said tiredly. “You bled in here. We’re past the threshold.”
He smiled faintly.
Stepped inside.
When Lavinia left with a parting warning—“If you feel cold that isn’t from actual weather, yell”—and Brenna retreated to the small adjoining room to give them space, Rowan and Caelan were left alone.
He sat in the chair.
Again.
A pattern, now.
“You all right?” he asked.
She stared at the ceiling.
“I nearly cut your roots,” she said. “So, you know. Tuesday.”
He winced. “Maerlyn stopped you,” he said. “That’s…something.”
“Annoying,” she said. “But something.”
Silence.
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” he said quietly. “Fixing our rot. Cutting our vines. Burning our ghosts.”
“Don’t I?” she asked. “Your father just asked me to…pick his heir. Winter wants me as a bridge. Mire wants to use me as a drain. I’m up to my neck in your plumbing whether I like it or not.”
He huffed a laugh. “Fair,” he said.
She rolled her head to look at him.
“You asked me last night if I trust you,” she said.
He blinked. “I did.”
“I still don’t,” she said. “Not…fully.”
He swallowed. “I know,” he said.
“But,” she added, “when I had my hand on that wall and felt the rot under your old oaths, the first thing I thought was, ‘Don’t let him get swallowed.’”
His breath hitched.
“Rowan,” he said.
“I don’t know what that *means* yet,” she said quickly. “So don’t get excited.”
He smiled, small and real. “Too late,” he murmured.
She threw a pillow at him.
He caught it easily.
“Rest,” he said, tossing it back gently.
“For how long,” she asked.
“An hour,” he said. “Maybe two. Then lesson with Lucien. He wants to teach you how to lie to my father’s face without flinching.”
“I thought I already did that,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Now we refine it.”
She sighed.
Closed her eyes.
The room hummed softly around her.
Her magic hummed under her skin.
The vines outside pulsed faintly, further down the wall, where her light hadn’t reached.
She slept.
And in her dreams, for once, there were no prophecies.
No wolves.
No vines.
Just a crooked tree.
A flannel shirt.
Hands—one calloused, one ink‑stained, one warm and familiar—reaching for hers.
She took them.
Held on.
And refused to let go.
---