A Thorn Between Us

“Answer me, Tavian—do you like butter?” Isley held one of her buttercup blossoms under her brother’s chin, watching as the yellow light of the bloom danced beneath his jaw.

“Too easy,” Tavian said. “Everyone likes butter. Ask me something harder—something you won’t already know the answer to.”

She smiled at her freckle-faced little brother. It was not easy to come up with a question she did not already know the answer to for the member of her family she was closest to. Correction—she was also close to her wasp familiar, Flicket, but he did not know how to lie. Right now he buzzed in the mulch beneath the gardenias.

Her cuckoo wasp familiar was a creature of impossible beauty. The length of the last joint of Isley’s thumb, his delicate body shimmered with a living brilliance that no gemstone could rival. His carapace rippled with iridescent greens and sapphire blues, each movement sending flashes of violet, turquoise, and gold across his armored flanks, like sunlight sparkling off river water. His wings were fine and translucent, laced with veins of glimmering bronze. His eyes were bright, multifaceted black opals, reflecting the world back at itself in fractured color. Even his antennae curled with subtle grace, tapering to dusky gold tips that flicked the air with curiosity.

She straightened, shading her eyes from the heightening sun. “You’re only seven, Tave. How many secrets could you possibly have?”

Tavian arched a brow, an expression he had surely learned from Maelon. The two of them looked too much alike for Tavian’s comfort. “Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

She brought the buttercup to his chin again. “Answer me, Tavian—have you ever wished you were someone else?”

His green eyes locked on hers, unblinking. “No.”

The buttercup’s petals opened a little wider. A tiny bead of golden light pulsed with affirmation, casting soft shadows along Tavian’s neck.

She lowered her voice. “Answer me, Tavian—would you leave this house if you could?”

He lowered his to match hers. “Not without you.”

The buttercup’s glow dimmed, then returned stronger. A second layer of petals sprouted inside the first. She caught the faintest essence of its fragrance, not usually detectable except up very close: sun-warmed clover and a touch of grass. Her brows lifted at the two-layered buttercup oozing its innocent perfume. Tavian noticed her expression.

“What did it do?”

She lifted the bloom for him to see.

“Wow, Iz. So pretty. Ask me another.”

She returned the buttercup to his chin, though far enough away that he could see it if he looked down.

“Are you proud of our family?”

To his credit, Tavian did not even flinch. “No.”

The bead of light at the center of the bloom dimmed, then revived. The slender green stem, which had held a slight curve, straightened until it was pencil-stiff. A third layer of petals joined the first two—tiny, delicate, and cream-colored.

“If you keep telling the truth, I’ll never learn what happens when you lie.” She held the buttercup near his jaw again. “Answer me, Tavian—do you think Mother is right about me?”

Tavian hesitated. “Yes,” he said, with obvious effort.

The light inside the bloom snapped off. The buttercup shrank in upon itself and turned black. A thin wisp of smoke curled from its remains. She straightened, holding it out for him to see. His eyes widened.

The crunch of wheels over gravel drifted across the gardens and they turned as one toward the sound. By the time they arrived in the drive, a wagon had stopped before the manor and several servants were hurrying to it. Two delivery men climbed down from the bench seat while a third remained atop the cart steadying an enormous wooden crate bound with iron straps.

Their mother, Lady Severine Anselm, collected rare items with a relentless appetite. Most were found at estate sales or purchased from antique dealers. All arrived with stories about supposed magical quality: hair ornaments that enhanced the glossiness of the wearer’s locks, moonlace gloves said to steady a tremor. She had a pair of slippers said to silence footsteps indoors, and a cloak made of blue silk that was supposed to make long journeys feel shorter. The only time the Anselm children got to see these collectibles was when Severine wore them. Isley didn’t know if any of the claims were true, but Mother believed in them.

The men began lowering the crate carefully with ropes, muttering to one another.

“Easy with that corner.”

The crate was nearly as tall as their butler, Hollis. As the crate shifted, something inside gave a faint series of delicate clinks.

“Maybe it’s furniture,” guessed Tavian.

“If it is, then it’s definitely broken,” said Isley.

One of the delivery men adjusted a leather satchel hanging at his side. Several folded papers slipped loose, and a sealed letter fluttered down onto the gravel near Isley’s slippers. She bent to pick it up, and the seal caught her eye. Dark green wax stamped with the side profile of a nobleman. He had a hooked nose and an enormous mustache. A hand appeared over her shoulder, and Hollis took the letter from her.

“Careless,” he muttered.

Whether he meant the messenger or Isley, she could not tell. The delivery man looked relieved when Hollis passed the letter back to him.

Tavian had wandered closer, dangerously close, to the crate.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“A gift for Lady Anselm,” one of the footmen answered.

“That big?” Tavian asked.

Hollis straightened his cuffs. “Carry on, young Master Tavian. If your mother wants to show it to you, she will.”

Isley and Tavian watched the servants wrestle the crate through the front door. Hollis disappeared inside after them.

“Do you think it’s magical?” asked Tavian as they returned to the garden.

“She claims they all are.”

“Maybe she keeps buying magical things because she believes one of them will make her happy.”

“Maybe.”

“If I ever get rich, I’m going to buy magical pastry.”

“Oh? What would that pastry do?”

“Taste like two pastries.”

Laughing and ruffling his hair, she pulled him into a hug. This boy made her heart bleed every single day. But today he had no patience for physical affection. He pushed away and looked up at her, his perfect brow lined with a small pinch of curiosity.

“How do you do your magic, Isley?”

“Conjuring the blooms takes concentration,” she said, “but I don’t have anything to do with how they reflect the truth. That part is out of my control.”

Tavian considered this as they walked toward Isley’s still house. Flicket hummed from the garden, his emerald armor glistening in the sun, and alighted on Tavian’s shoulder. Her baby brother had just turned seven but looked younger, with limbs too thin for his tunics and wrists that seemed perpetually on the brink of breaking. His hair was a shade darker than Isley’s—more mahogany than her golden brown—with hints of copper where the sun caught it. Right now it fell in gentle waves around his pointed ears, though Lady Severine often ordered it shorn for neatness. To the Anselm family, he was a blemish; to Isley, he was the one thing left worth protecting; proof that gentleness could survive cruelty.

“Buttercups that judge,” her little brother mused.

She frowned at the description. “I don’t think my magic is judgmental, Tave. I think it measures the alignment between someone’s words and their heart.”

“Maybe you can figure out how it responds to more complicated questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like: If you could go anywhere without Mother’s permission, where would you go? Or: What do you think about when you can’t sleep? You could ask Mother what arrived in the crate.”

“You mean I should see if it can read answers that are more complicated than yes or no?”

“Exactly. Then you might be really useful.”

She laughed, because he was earnest and sun-warmed and hers. He did not mean to wound her, but his well-meaning words carried an unintended barb. When he said she might be useful, what he meant was powerful… but what she heard was that she was not enough. It was not his fault. He only echoed the words spoken by their family many times.

Flicket buzzed his wings, and she half expected him to spin out one of his petal-sweet paper slips with the word Enough written on it. He didn’t though, because she already knew what he believed. He was her familiar. He would never believe anything else. He did not know what ambition felt like, or the anxiety that sometimes stole her appetite before a family dinner.

What she wanted more than anything was to get herself, Tavian, and Flicket away from this house—to somewhere safe where she could support them with her abilities. The best place for that was with the elite flora fae of Solana, a retinue of performers known as the Calyx. But to join them, she had to be spectacular.

And, at sixteen, still learning about her buttercups, spectacular was something she had not yet learned how to be.