Clover didn’t finish, because she began to weep anew. Everyone began crying again, sobbing and wet hiccupping. Azalea felt lost, as though she had leaped into the air, a jeté, and kept falling and falling, her stomach turning and waiting to hit the ground that wasn’t there. She pulled the handkerchief from her sleeve, and the silver flashed.
Promise me…
The tingling prickled to her fingers.
Azalea took a deep breath and moved her feet into fourth position, then traced her toe behind her and dipped into a kneel. Dancing always steadied her. She wiped Jessamine’s and Kale’s tiny faces, which were streaked and wet. She cleaned their noses, too.
“Do you know,” she said, moving to Ivy, “what we haven’t done?”
Ivy shook her blond curls.
“We haven’t introduced ourselves to Lily.” Azalea pushed a smile. “It’s her first day here, and all we’ve done is cry at her. It won’t do.”
Bramble grimaced. “Oh, really, Az—”
“Come along,” said Azalea. She stood and held out her hands. “Join hands, trace the left foot back into a curtsy position number two.”
No one moved.
Azalea didn’t give up. The girls looked a mix of surprised, shocked, and disgusted as she dipped into a fifth-position curtsy, lowering to her right knee and pointing her left foot in front of her, so it peeked out from her muddy hem. When she straightened, their expressions had softened.
“Your dip was unsteady,” said Bramble. “When you switched the balance to your other foot.”
“Introduction to royalty curtsy,” said Azalea, holding out her hand to Bramble. “No one balances as well as you.”
Bramble pursed her lips into a thin red line, but she took Azalea’s hand and stood. In a sweep of long red hair, she lowered into a deep curtsy in a lithe, supple movement. She extended her arm out to the bassinet.
“Too late to back out now, young chit,” said Bramble. “Welcome to the royal family.”
Azalea took Ivy’s five-year-old hand and bowed to her. Ivy twirled underneath Azalea’s arm, and curtsied to Lily. Jessamine took Azalea’s other hand, and curtsied with her, and then all the girls, eyes red, joined hands. The dance flowed through them, and they moved as one in a reel. Blood flowed to Azalea’s cheeks, warming them in a wash. Ankles together, step back, brush forward, touch, bow, in graceful, practiced movements. Their skirts brushed together.
They raised their heads and broke apart, looking shyly at one another, as though not quite sure what had gotten into them.
It was…magic. But not the sort like the tea set. Last winter, when Azalea had fully realized parliament’s role in her future marriage, Mother had brushed Azalea’s hair, dried her face, and brought her to the ballroom. There she taught Azalea a midair mazurka.
“Do you feel that?” Mother said, when Azalea had mastered the dizzy, brilliant step. “That warm, flickery bit inside of you? That’s magic. The deepest sort. So deep it doesn’t have a name. But it is magic, just the same.”
And now, though their eyes were red and puffy, Azalea’s sisters weren’t crying anymore. It was the warm, flickery bit that did it. They even managed weak smiles.
“Come now, Flora,” said Azalea, taking Flora’s dainty hand. “A secondhand curt—”
A fuss from downstairs interrupted her. The entrance hall door slammed; a commotion of servants, the bark of the King’s voice. The girls’ eyes lit.
“The King,” said Flora.
“He’s back!”
“Steady on.” Azalea pulled the younger girls back and smoothed their skirts and hair. Then, with shaking hands, she wrapped Lily in a blanket and herded the girls down the hall. The King. Finally! He would know what to do. He was the most steady gentleman Azalea knew. And he hadn’t seen Lily yet—surely he hadn’t.
The corridor on the second floor opened to a mezzanine, which overlooked the entrance hall. The King stood at the bottom, speaking in low tones to Mr. Pudding, who kneaded his cap.
Like all of them, the King wore his clothes from yesterday. His uniform was muddy and wet, and several of his medals had been torn off. A streak of blood smeared across his face into his closely trimmed beard. Even so, he stood stiff and formal, regal and proper as always.
“…in the library. I have business to tend to. I will not be disturbed, Mr. Pudding.”
“Aye, sir, but th’ princesses, they’ve been eager to see you, sir—”
“I cannot abide them,” the King snapped, in a loud-enough whisper that it echoed in the hall. “I cannot! Keep them away from me, Mr. Pudding!”
Azalea looked quickly from the King below to the bedraggled, wide-eyed girls next to her. Clover held her hands over her mouth.
Azalea blinked away the shock, pursed her lips together, tucked Lily’s blanket about her tiny neck, and descended the stairs to the entrance hall in a glide.
“Er—no—miss, I wouldn’t do that,” said Mr. Pudding as she strode past him to the library door.
Azalea knocked but didn’t wait for an answer. She slid the door open. The King stood over his desk, sorting through the top drawer. He pulled out a key.
“Sir!” said Azalea. “We’ve been waiting for you!”
The King walked toward the door. Azalea ran forward to meet him.
“Look,” she said. She pulled the blanket away from Lily’s face and showed him the tiny, bonneted bundle.