“It’s coming from beyond the willow,” Delphinium whispered.
Azalea stepped to the glistening silver leaves. She slipped her hand between the branches and parted them.
The girls gasped.
The path did not end. It rose into a dainty arched bridge, leading to the center of a silver-lilac pond. The water cast dancing white reflections all about the bridge.
And, at the end of the bridge, silver vines curling over white latticework and reaching to the top of its domed roof, stood a pavilion. Filled with dancers!
Ladies, dressed in bright silks and chiffons billowing with each step. They spun and twirled, their colorfully dressed partners taking their hands and sweeping them into the dance.
Azalea pulled away from the willow branches, and they fell back into place. Suddenly she was frightened. This was too much magic, magic Mother surely hadn’t known about.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Azalea. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“What?” cried the girls.
“I beg your pardon,” said Bramble. “We shouldn’t be here? What about them? Cutting about in our palace? Why weren’t we jolly well invited?”
“Who are they?” Clover stammered.
“I don’t know,” said Azalea. “But it doesn’t feel right.” She suddenly wished they hadn’t come.
“I want to get a closer look!” said Delphinium, and she pushed past Azalea, through the willow leaves before Azalea could even start to grab her back.
“Me, too!” cried Hollyhock.
Azalea grasped her arm, but Hollyhock writhed free and ran after Delphinium. In a rush, all the girls ran past Azalea, disappearing through the willow leaves. Panicked, Azalea dove through the silver after them, over the arched bridge.
To her relief, however, the girls didn’t leap up the pure white stairs to the dance floor, but instead scampered into the bushes about the outside, making them rustle with a faint clinking sound. Azalea only had a moment of shock before Bramble burst from the silver leaves, grabbed Azalea about the waist, and yanked her in. In a whirl of silver Azalea found herself on her back in a patch of silver-spun rose bushes. A branch dug into her spine. The girls grinned down at her.
“Just like old times,” said Bramble, grinning and pulling Azalea partly up. “We’ll call this one the Great Leftover D’Eathe Magic Scandal.”
“How about the Great We’re Going To Get Caught Scandal?” Azalea whispered crossly.
“Oh, do stop whining,” said Delphinium as they nudged her to the edge of the pavilion among the foliage, abloom with silver roses and pearls. “Have you ever seen such dancing in all your life?”
Kneeling up and peeking through the lattice, Azalea’s temper dissolved. She inhaled the scene like a sugar dessert. The ladies wore dresses she only dreamed of, brocade and gold trim, with towering white plumed wigs. The gentlemen wore frilled cravats about their necks and brightly colored waistcoats. Nothing like the conservative, boring black suits of Eathesburian gentlemen.
“Are they real?” Eve whispered. “It feels almost…hollow.”
The girls ducked as a couple swished near the ledge. The lady’s massive skirts should have caused a breeze, but Azalea felt nothing.
“Magic,” she whispered.
“Magic or not,” Delphinium whispered, “we really should have been invited to this. It’s our palace, after all.”
Azalea felt a tug on her nightgown sleeve and found Ivy pointing with insistence to the dessert table at the far side of the pavilion. It had been set with iced buns, treacle tarts, candied plums, chocolate-dipped strawberries, linen napkins with lace at the edges. A dark-gloved hand plucked one of the napkins from the pile, and Azalea’s heart stopped.
A gentleman stood there, by the table. He was dressed all in black. Not boring black, but dashing black. One so smooth that stars would have gotten lost in it. He wore a costume of a long waistcoat and a sweeping cloak that brushed the edge of the marble.
It complemented his face, a specter of high cheekbones with hints of long dimples. His midnight hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and his eyes—even across the distance—blazed pure black. Azalea had never seen anyone so…beautiful.
While Azalea stared, the gentleman took the lacy napkin in his long fingers and ripped it in half. With ease, as though it was made of paper. He doubled up the pieces, halved them again, then again, until they were just tiny bits. Then he raised his hands to his lips, and blew.
The pieces fluttered, transforming into sparkling bits of snow, swirling over the dancers. The girls sighed in awe.
“Who is he?” whispered Flora and Goldenrod at the same time.
“No idea,” Azalea whispered. “But he’s real.”
The gentleman’s eyes swept over the scene and, in a fleeting moment, stopped on the lattice the girls peeked through. On Azalea.
Azalea’s heart jumped in her throat, and she ducked into the bushes, pressing up against the side of the pavilion. She waited for her heartbeat to slow down enough that she could distinguish the beats from one another, then dared another peek through the lattice.
This time, her eyes met black boots. She bit back a gasp and craned her neck.
The gentleman was leaning on the railing, looking into the distance. He hadn’t seen them! Azalea covered Lily’s tiny mouth as they all stared up at him, frozen.
The gentleman released a sigh. A long, sad sigh, as though torn from the depths of his soul. Then, abruptly, he walked away. The girls exhaled.