20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

I waited for Iris to dismiss me the moment we arrived back in her room, but she invited me in, suggesting that I sit while she washed up and found something to wear.

So… were we spending the day together? Was she in love with me yet?

I’d miscalculated last time, but I was going to make that mistake. The next time I proposed, the timing would be exactly right. I crossed the room to let Tilly out, pausing mid-step with my foot hovering over a cushion.

“Iris,” I called. “Isn’t this room horribly difficult for you to navigate?”

“Um,” she replied from the washroom, her voice pitched a little higher than usual. “It took some getting used to, that’s all.”

Everyone who had been in this room and not offered to fix it was a wretched person-or-Shade, myself included.

“What can I do to make it easier for you? Surely, these floor cushions are a liability.”

“They’re not great,” she admitted, voice muffled slightly—was she drying her face?

Was she naked in there?

No. Focus.

“Could you drag them over by the wall, maybe?” Iris added. “I don’t want to lose them completely, they’re very comfortable to sit on.”

“Of course.” I lifted the small coffee table off the ground, setting it up by a window, and dragging the floor cushions over to go around it. That way, she’d feel the warmth from outside when she sat here by the window.

The floor rugs were layered because this was the first floor and the ground was stone and cold to the touch. I pulled them around until they were in a single layer and less of a trip hazard. I didn’t feel great about it still—I wanted them secured to the ground somehow. Even better would be my floors, which were smooth wood.

Could I suggest Iris move into my rooms instead? Was it too soon?

She emerged in loose trousers and a matching sweater—in pink, of course.

“More comfortable?”

Iris nodded. “I prefer loose, flowy dresses—maybe I’m just used to them because that’s what Nana would always get for me. But these are comfortable too.”

Loose, flowy dresses , I noted. I could make one of those out of shadows, but that was an enormous act of trust. Even more so for Iris, who wouldn’t be able to see if the shadows disappeared.

“What did you think of Cora and Jade?” I asked.

“I liked them,” Iris said enthusiastically. “They sounded quite young.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I wonder if I’ll find them easier to relate to in some ways. When Meera or Tallulah talk about their jobs, or Tallulah talks about things that happened at college, I feel a little… behind, I suppose. Like I haven’t done all the things that I was meant to do.”

Iris said it like it was a mere observation instead of one of the most devastating sentences I’d ever heard. She was on a roll with those today. Not intentionally, of course. She was just relaying her experiences.

But the experiences had been terrible, and I needed to rectify them immediately.

“What would you like to do? I can make it happen. Do you want a job? You’re already practically work in the nursery—we can arrange compensation—”

“Oh no, please don’t. What would I even use money for? Unless I have to move somewhere else, I guess.”

“You have a home here for as long as you want it,” I said firmly. “You’ll never have to leave the palace. And, of course, you will never need to pay anything to live here—no one else does—but you should have your own income. And you’re giving so much time to the nursery, if you enjoy it and you’d like to keep doing it, it would very easy to turn it into a job. But only if you wanted to,” I stressed, not wanting to put any pressure on her.

“I quite like the idea,” Iris said after a short pause. “If only to have that experience of work that I never got to have in the human realm. And I can’t imagine anything else I’d rather do—spending time with the children is so rewarding. Thank you, Damen. That’s really thoughtful of you.”

It would have been more thoughtful if I’d thought of it sooner. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? That’s what I should have been doing instead of trying to find more productive uses for my time.

Then again, maybe I could do both. It would cut into the several hours I’d allocated for naps each day, but I could probably spare it.

“I’m afraid it’s probably harder to replicate some other human-realm experiences. We do have a higher education facility, but from what I know of the human realm, it’s very different from yours,” I said regretfully, meeting Iris halfway as she came down the few steps into the main room and lightly touching her arm so she knew I was close.

The Itrodaris was basically a silent mausoleum where Shades drifted between stacks of books, never speaking or looking one another in the eye. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who got any modicum of enjoyment out of conversation.

Really, Allerick should have enjoyed it there a lot more than he did.

“That’s okay,” Iris reassured me, patting my arm. It wasn’t a gesture anyone else had really done for me, and it had come to be very comforting for me. “I don’t want to relive a life that I could have had. I just want to enjoy the life I have now.”

“I intend to make sure of that.”

“You already do, Damen. I don’t know what I would’ve done here without you, do you know that?”

“You’d probably be fine,” I replied, a little disheartened by that fact. Iris was brave and kind and resourceful, and she didn’t need me at all. As demonstrated by the fact that we’d spent some time apart and she’d promptly made herself a beloved fixture at the nursery without any help from me.

“No, I don’t think that’s true at all. You were so unfailingly kind to me, right from the moment I got here. It really gave me faith that I’d made the right decision.”

“You did.” From what I knew of her life in the human realm, Iris had definitely made the right decision. “Shall we go learn about dishwashing and other miscellaneous palace administration before dinner in the dining hall? It can be a day of the most mundane exploring you can imagine.”

“Promise?” Iris laughed.

“I promise. But let me tell you about the changes I’ve made to your room first. How strongly do you feel about those drapes around your bed? They seem like an obstacle you could do without.”

Iris’s scent sweetened into something so perfect, I wished I could bottle it and keep it forever.

Better yet, I’d keep the source.

We successfully toured much of the palace before my brother rudely summoned me to report back on how the meeting had gone. Iris assured me that she wanted to visit Meera after their awkward conversation yesterday, and we parted ways for—at most—an hour before dinner.

It really seemed like a wholly unreasonable amount of time to be apart, though, perhaps the worst part was that I doubted Iris had really noticed my absence.

In any other romantic endeavor, it would have been an absolute deal breaker that I liked them more than they liked me. My ego wouldn’t be able to take the blow.

I found I didn’t mind following Iris around like a lovesick fool, though. She never made me feel bad about it.

“Damen,” Ruvyn called, slipping through the crowd to catch up with me in the entry hall as I filed in for dinner with the rest of the court. “You’re not going to dine at the high table tonight?”

No, my future wife isn’t sitting up there yet.

“Not tonight. We have a special guest from the human realm joining us. Usually, she’d sit up at the top table, but I suspect Harlow would find that to be a miserable experience. Why don’t you come and sit with me and the ex-Hunters?” I asked. “I wasn’t expecting to see you back at the palace so soon.”

“We did say the next time we saw each other would be when you visited me,” Ruvyn remarked dryly. “But we both know that will never happen.”

A feeling I wasn’t accustomed to settled into my gut. It might have been guilt.

“I’ll visit,” I promised, wondering if Iris would like to join me. If it was anywhere else, I assume she’d want to just for the experience, but I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about the silence at The Itrodaris. Sound meant even more to her than it meant to others.

“It’s okay,” he replied easily. “There’s no rush. In all honesty, I came back here purely for my own curiosity. I want to spend more time with the ex-Hunters. My recent findings about them have been… intriguing, to say the least.”

“Have they? Perhaps you should present them at court. We’ve got the bones of a plan in place now for relations between the shadow realm and the human realm going forward. It might be a good time to understand a little better what that relationship was in the past.”

“Present my findings?” Ruvyn asked, surprised. “No one has ever asked me to do that before. Not at court, at least. Usually we all just present our findings to each other at The Itrodaris.”

“Is it something you’re interested in?”

“Well, yes. Of course—it would be an honor.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange then,” I replied absently, mulling over some options.

“You will?” Ruvyn asked.

I glanced at him. “The doubt in your voice is incredibly bad for my ego.”

“It’s just not really your thing, you know. Arranging stuff. Especially unprompted.”

I opened my mouth to object but closed it again, realizing I couldn’t.

“It’s nice,” Ruvyn commented. “You’re really coming into your own, Damen.”

Why, yes. Yes, I was.

Iris was already seated with Meera, and I gestured for Ruvyn to follow me over to their table. Harlow was sitting on Meera’s other side, and Ruvyn and I took the bench opposite next to Tallulah and Evrin while Meera whispered in Iris’s ear.

“Hi, Damen,” Iris said immediately, smiling in my direction.

“Hi, Iris,” I replied softly, pressing my leg against hers under the table. She immediately moved her other leg in close, intertwining them. “My friend, Ruvyn, is here. He’s visiting from The Itrodaris—that education institute I was telling you about. Ruvyn, this is Iris, Meera, Tallulah, and Harlow. You’ve probably encountered Evrin in the in-between, no? Harlow here is our human-realm guest.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said gruffly. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable he was when talking to others. Ruvyn was great company, but he took a while to warm up.

“Where’s Verner?” I asked Meera, glancing around the room.

“He’s gone to Lindow to try and convince Theon and Verity to join us for dinner. Judging by how long he’s been gone, I’m guessing Theon is hesitant to come along.”

I frowned. “That was an entirely unreasonable mission to send Verner on. I should have gone—I’m excellent at cajoling Theon into pretending he doesn’t actively despise everyone.”

“How did your meeting with your brother go?” Iris asked, beaming at me from across the table. Was she as happy to be reunited as I was? I wished I was sitting closer. Beneath her, would be ideal.

“Oh, fine. He was happy to hear about the progress we’d made this afternoon and how the plans are coming along. Harlow, it would probably be useful to meet him after dinner.”

“Coming into your own,” Ruvyn repeated under his breath, sounding impressed.

“It’s kind of intimidating, you know,” Harlow remarked. “Meeting royalty.”

“I’m royalty. You don’t seem very intimidated by me.”

“Is your brother like you?” Harlow asked.

I snorted. “No, not at all.”

Harlow looked around the room. “Everyone here is, like, fancy, right?” Her gaze fixed on Ruvyn. “Are you a Shade duke or something?”

“I’m not a duke.” He frowned. “I’m a scholar. My brother is the duke.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “I was joking. Are you guys still running the feudalism OS here?”

“I don’t know what that means,” I admitted.

“Neither do I,” Meera said, her lips twitching slightly as she looked at Harlow.

Ruvyn cleared his throat. “The shadow realm more closely mirrors the human realm at one point in your history, but we didn’t have the wars and revolutions the human realm had, which tend to overhaul society at a more rapid rate. Change here happens slowly, though it’s faster now than it ever has been.”

I stared at Ruvyn, wondering if I’d ever heard him speak so much.

“But there must have been some level of change in the realm when the Hunt ed left,” Harlow pointed out, leaning forward and looking intently at Ruvyn. I expected him to shy away from such direct conversation, but he was staring right back.

“It appears that much of that information—the whats and whys of their leaving—was scrubbed from the historical record. We can only speculate why.”

“And what do you speculate, scholar?” Harlow asked, blinking up at him.

Were they…

Were they flirting?

Was I witnessing a strange, intellectual, and very public form of foreplay?

Iris had her lips pressed tightly together as though she was trying not to smile, her head tilted to one side to listen. Meera was glancing between Harlow and Ruvyn with every word spoken.

“I theorize that our Shade ancestors expunged the records out of shame. Because they looked back on that sordid part of that history and regretted their actions. Though, in trying to hide what they’d done, they only made life more difficult for their descendants to achieve any kind of reconciliation.”

“And what about their descendants?” Harlow pressed. “What about Shades now? Have they learned from their ancestors’ mistakes?”

“I am confident that Shades now would treat the descendants of those Hunted very well,” Ruvyn replied smoothly. The faint scent of desire drifted across the table, making Ruvyn straighten while I did my best not to inhale any of it. Only Iris’s desire smelled appealing to me.

“Damen,” Iris whispered, leaning across the table. “Tilly is getting restless. Would you mind walking me out—”

“Of course not.” I jumped to my feet, immediately striding around the table to her. Somehow, this history lesson had turned into a conversation that felt inappropriate for me to be part of, and I usually reveled in inappropriateness. Maybe it was just that I knew Ruvyn was lonely, and if there was even a slim chance of him and Harlow connecting, I didn’t want to get in the way of that.

“Thanks, guys,” Meera muttered, shooting me an unimpressed look as I ushered Tilly out from under the table.

I gave her what I hoped was an apologetic smile. “I’ll tell Verner to hurry up if we run into him.”

Iris tucked her hand into the crook of my arm so easily it felt like it was meant to be there, holding on to Tilly with the other as we made our way out of the dining hall.

I’d sort of assumed that Iris also just wanted an excuse to escape the awkwardness, but Tilly was actually restless. The moment we were on the palace steps, Iris let her go and she shot into the garden, peering at us through a gap in the bushes as she did her business.

“Poor girl,” Iris said guiltily. “We were inside a lot this afternoon. I didn’t give her a break.”

“I should have thought about it too. She seems fine now, though,” I assured Iris. “Did you want to head back in? We can walk Tilly in the garden if you prefer. I can send for some dinner from the kitchens later.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to join the others for dinner?”

“There will be plenty more dinners in the dining hall. One every night, in fact. I’ve barely missed any since childhood.”

“Well, I’m sure Tilly and I would both appreciate a walk around the gardens, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“You’re never any trouble, Iris,” I assured her, inspiration striking me. “There’s a covered walkway on the edge of the palace gardens with flowers that only bloom at night. The smell can be quite heady,” I warned, though it was nothing compared to the scent of Iris’s happiness.

“That sounds amazing, I’d love to go there. Thank you, Damen.”

She was so effusive in her gratitude. It made me want to do better, to be better. To be more openly and enthusiastically grateful for all of the beauty and comfort in my life that I’d taken for granted.

“That was an interesting conversation at the table,” I commented once we were in the privacy of the gardens. There were some members of the Guard on patrol, but they discreetly gave us space.

“Oh, yes. Harlow likes Ruvyn very much, I think.”

“Yeah?” I glanced down at her, stupidly surprised at her astute observation. I should have known by now that Iris was always paying attention. “I think Ruvyn likes her too.”

“That’s sweet,” Iris sighed, smiling to herself. I wished I could crawl inside her head and find out what she was thinking. “Have you ever been married before?”

That’s what she was thinking about? I nearly choked on my own tongue. “No, never. I’m guessing you haven’t?”

She laughed. “No, definitely not. I suppose I’m wondering how it all works here—how common it is. Giles wasn’t my biological father, you know. Well, no, you don’t know. I’ve never really talked about it.”

I tightened my arm, pulling her in a little closer. “Did your father die?” I asked, thinking of the way Orabelle had taken me in after my mother died in childbirth.

“No, no. Well, not as far as I know. My blindness is due to a genetic condition—from what Nana told me, after my sight had already gotten really bad, my dad admitted that his brother had experienced the same thing. Moriah divorced him, feeling deceived, I guess. I don’t know whether he wanted to take me with him or not, but Nana said Moriah wasn’t willing to risk him telling people that she was my mother, so she kept me instead and sent him away. She’s a Councilor, so she could do that kind of thing.” Iris paused, tilting her head back thoughtfully. “‘Nash’ isn’t really my last name, but I was never told any other, so I just started calling myself that in my head. The twins are much younger than me, born after Moriah eventually remarried.”

What a horrible childhood Iris had been given. Made to feel like a dirty secret right from the very beginning, hidden away and ignored, and eventually replaced with children that her mother had wanted more.

“That’s awful. I’m so sorry you went through that. Was Giles kind to you?” I asked, hoping that it was at least slightly less terrible than her mother.

“He wasn’t cruel. He never came up to the attic, and seemed mostly content to just ignore my existence. I only heard from him when the twins would sneak up and he’d have to come and fetch them.”

“Were they kind to you?”

Iris hesitated. “I didn’t know any different then. At the time I would have probably said yes—that they were as kind as they could be, and that it wasn’t their fault that I was such a burden on my family. Now, I’d say no,” she added hastily before I could express my outrage at that response. “I suppose I still struggle to hold them entirely at fault for it. One thing I’ve learned from visiting with the little Shades in the nursery is that being afraid of anyone or anything that’s different from yourself is a skill that can be both learned and unlearned. The twins were conditioned to hate me, and they did it very well. I feel sorry for them that their hearts are filled with so much anger.”

“I feel like I want to murder them,” I volunteered.

Iris’s mouth turned down in a faintly disapproving way, but nothing in her scent indicated alarm. “I’d prefer you didn’t do that.”

“Then I won’t,” I sighed. “Your wish is my command.”

Iris breathed deeply before spluttering slightly. “Are we at the night flowers? Wow, that is strong .”

“It is,” I laughed. “If you came here during the day, you wouldn’t smell anything at all.”

“That’s so interesting,” Iris murmured, breathing more shallowly this time as we stepped under the arched walkway where flowery vines bloomed overhead. “Will you describe it to me?”

“During the day, there are giant leaves overhead with large, heavy flower buds drooping down. Now, they have opened—the flowers are probably as big as your head. In the past they were gray, but since the ex-Hunters started moving here, color has returned to the realm. The one above us right now is red.”

I swallowed tightly, feeling briefly overwhelmed. I couldn’t have even imagined the shadow realm looking like this—so bright and abundant. It hadn’t even been a possibility that we’d known to dream about.

“Is it strange for you to see all the color here now?” Iris asked perceptively.

“In a good way,” I said hastily. “Sometimes, it feels quite surreal. The garden now looks very different from the garden of my childhood.”

“What was it like growing up here?” Iris asked, inhaling deeply with each step, her head turning this way then that as she followed her nose.

“Good, I suppose?” I’d honestly never given the question much thought. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever asked me before—it was very much assumed that growing up in the palace would be a comfortable experience.

“Did you attend the nursery?”

I laughed. “I wasn’t supposed to. My father was a hard man—a much more difficult king than Allerick is. He didn’t want us to mingle too much at court, he’d prefer we only associated with the right kinds of families. Soren and Allerick are close in age, so that worked out well for them. I mostly trailed around after them, begging for their attention. They seemed to alternate between being annoyed with me and extremely overprotective of me.” Not much had changed on that front. “Occasionally, when I was feeling mischievous, I’d sneak into the nursery to play with the other children. I think Orabelle knew—she’d always whisk me away before my father realized where I’d gotten to.”

“She’s very sweet,” Iris said. Orabelle ? I doubted that she’d ever been described as sweet in her life. “Was she a sort of mother figure for you? I had Nana for that, I suppose. It wasn’t quite the same. She wasn’t very… nurturing.”

It hurt my heart to think of a young Iris feeling so alone in the world, locked away where no one could see her.

“Orabelle isn’t very… warm,” I settled on, struggling to find the right word. “But she’s fiercely caring. My father had many children by many different females, and none of them had an easy time of it. Some were cruel in their attempts to elevate their own children above the others. I don’t blame them for it, that’s the environment my father created. But I’m glad Orabelle wasn’t like that. She took me under her shadows, and encouraged Allerick to spend time with me even though I was young and annoying.”

Tilly sneezed loudly, looking up at me with the most forlorn expression I’d ever seen on her face.

“The smell might be a little potent for Tilly,” I laughed, bending down to scratch her ears.

“Oh! Her nose is much more sensitive than mine. Shall we head back?” Iris asked, giving my arm a squeeze.

No. Let’s stay out here forever. I can find a part of the garden that doesn’t smell as strong for Tilly .

“Of course.”