20. 20

Berron was gone.

In the month that passed since the Arcade fell, my mother stayed in town and ran the restaurant until I could be trusted not to fry my tears on the griddle, or wield my chef's knife so hard I nearly split a cutting board.

The Princess traded her gold robes for white, and led her people in strange rituals I didn't understand but participated in all the same.

Berron couldn't help me hide the unseasonable greenery anymore; it fell to me, and the Princess, to walk the streets and make the magic sleep as it should. In the gray and the snow of New York, she was a sad but beautiful vision, almost ghostlike.

Jester wore his little jacket and tiny snow boots. The sight of him in his winter gear was the only thing that kept my heart from turning to ice.

The Princess didn't say much.

Neither did I.

When our task was done, she ushered me back to the hidden portal in Gramercy Park. Jester's leash tangled briefly in the leaves. The ice-coated branches stung when they hit my cheeks—or they would have, if my cheeks weren't already numb.

Numb, as I had learned, is a haven. A refuge.

And a hell.

When the worst happened, when it was so new I leaned on Poppy for comfort, she saw it all. I had to pull away because I couldn't stand to put her through the howling abyss in my head.

She understood. She was too kind not to, and that made my self-imposed withdrawal hurt even more.

They were too good to me. All of them. My mother, benevolently bossing everyone around. Poppy, walking the dogs when my body was too heavy to drag out of bed. Daniel, rolling up his sleeves and pitching in at West Side Sandwiches. James, making sure to shove a plate of food at me; and Jessica, needling me until I gave in and ate. Victorine, sitting beside me in silence, because sometimes that's all you can do.

And Jester, of course, whose doggy life went on as usual but for the strange times he would look out the window as if expecting someone familiar to arrive; or when he flung himself heavily across my lap and looked at me with dark, wise eyes.

I stepped into the Forest of Emeralds. Ice crunched in the grass underfoot. The weather reflected the season, or the Princess of Arrows's mood, or both. Dead leaves dropped like confetti at a funeral. Another reminder that this was Berron's true home; that he was a prince; that I'd lost him—and it was all my fault.

"It was not your fault," the Princess of Arrows said, reading my face as easily as Poppy read minds.

I was too polite to argue. But if I let her try to soothe me, I would hate myself. She lost her brother, after all. I lost… a friend? Because I was too much of a coward to let it be anything more?

I hated myself anyway.

We walked on in silence, a strange bird calling out overhead, unseen. Jester romped and sniffed, tugging me to move faster along the path.

After we passed through the apple orchard and reached the Fortress of Apples, the Princess stopped. "May I offer you a hot drink?"

The stone doors on the lowest level of the Fortress wrapped around out of sight. One of them was Berron's, where he'd offered us tea and had a rousing argument with Daniel. I squeezed my eyes shut, then blinked furiously. "I'm good. Thanks."

"Do you wish me to accompany you?"

She always asked.

"No," I said. I always declined. "Thank you, though."

"As you wish." She laid her hand on my arm, her white bell sleeve shimmering with silver threads. "I miss him, too."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, wondering when it would become less hard.

She let me go.

I turned toward the path that led to the Vale of Amethysts, where they had all gone that day I was too busy to stay and journey with them.

The forest opened up to a rock formation with a narrow opening in the middle, just big enough for a person to slip through. Plenty of space for a mini poodle.

How many times had I replayed what I had missed that day? Berron, my mother, Poppy, and the Princess squeezing through the gap, their laughter echoing. Jester dashing ahead. Emerging breathless on the other side, to see…

This:

A trail paved with tiny crystals shading from purple to white to clear. Scoop up a handful and they sparkle in the sun. The amethyst cliffs and boulders look slick, are slick, but what looks like wetness is in fact a gemstone's reflection, so dark it could be black, until the light hits it and it glows purple from the inside.

Little wildflowers all around, white and purple as if planted on purpose to match. Green vines, twin to the ones in Gramercy Park, climbing over and around everything.

The whole place smelled like minerals and candied pansies; like a flower-strewn cake on a slate platter.

Jester surged forward so hard I stumbled and kicked up a hail of amethysts.

"Hang on, bud!"

He didn't listen. On a downward slope I was helpless to do anything but slip and slide until we reached the lowest point of the valley.

At the bottom, you can look up and see nothing but amethyst walls and sky.

On the right side of the path, a tree split itself over a rock formation. Two great gnarls of roots twisted downward and gripped the amethysts. The trunk rose like a wishbone handle to support sweeping branches covered in brown leaves that rattled in the wind.

Berron took them here. To crunch along the gemstone path. To smell the sugary flowers. To nestle in the roots of the split-root tree and gaze up at the passing clouds, while he handed around odd Gentry snacks and flasks of sapphire-berry juice and floral tea.

I clambered up the rocks and lowered myself into my usual nook in the roots, shifting into a comfortable-enough position.

Jester sniffed the base of the tree with far too much interest.

"Don't even think about it," I said.

He sat down and huffed—a doggy half-sneeze of frustration—before climbing into my lap. His nose twitched at the cold breeze.

I placed one hand on Jester's back, one hand on a tree root, and sighed. He came here to think. To rest. And now, so did I.

"Hey, Berron," I said.

I'd been coming here for a month and I hardly knew why. Of all the places I'd been with Berron—the restaurant, the parks, the Fortress, the orchard, the bar where he drank too much—the place I came back to was the place I'd never been with him. Maybe it was self-torture for everything I hadn't said or done that I should have.

"It's Christmastime in the city," I continued. "Lights. Holiday foods at the food carts. Everybody suddenly getting into hot cocoa and apple cider even though it's been cold for months." I chuckled to myself. "And now that the barrier is down, the Christmas shopping is out of hand. I've never seen so many vampires excited to go to some mall in New Jersey."

I rummaged in my coat pocket. "I did a little shopping myself. Got you something." I pulled out a crinkly vacuum-sealed package of coffee beans from a hipster shop in Brooklyn, then tore open the seal. The scent of coffee overwhelmed the smell of the flowers. I scooped up a handful of roasted beans and scattered them over the roots.

Jester lunged, but when he took an experimental coffee bean lick, he made a face and flopped back on my lap.

"You never got to have that Coney Island vegetarian hot dog," I said, sprinkling more coffee beans, "but I figured it might be kind of messy. Didn't want to mustard your tree." I brushed a few coffee skins off my hands. We had talked, once, about going to Florida, before I knew who and what he truly was. Someday I would bring beach sand back, and add it to the little amethysts at the base of the tree.

"I'm just…" I paused, trying to think of what to say. "I don't know."

There was no one to judge what I said. No one but a poodle, who thought everything I said was genius.

"I miss walking the city with you. It's not the same."

I took a breath, watched it curl out in steam.

Jester looked at me.

"When I came here, all of us wanted so much. At first, I didn't know what was genuine, versus what was just another way for someone to get what they wanted. What I wanted," I added, knowing I'd done the same.

"I didn't trust anyone, except for Poppy and this stupid dog. And maybe I was right about that. At first." I patted Jester, absently. "I thought… I thought there would be more time—" I stopped as my voice seized up.

Jester leaped up and began licking my cheeks.

"Get off, dog," I said, but I was hugging him and he couldn't have left if he wanted to.

I curled up, holding Jester and nestling tightly into the trunk of the tree. "I'm sorry, Berron. I should have told you—"

Even Jester couldn't catch all the teardrops before they hit the tree roots.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, wishing I could have one more chance. One time to start over. One rewind. Go back to that first day in the shop and do it all differently.

Jester wriggled. I didn't want to squish the poor guy, so I let him go. He scratched at the tree roots.

"I said, don't even think about it."

He ignored me and launched into a full, double-pawed, rapid-fire dig.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and sat up fully. "Dude. One minute ago, you're kissing my face. Now you're ignoring me to dig up a tree? Not cool." I placed my hand above where he'd been digging.

The wood was warm.

"What the…"

Jester whined and pawed at the spot again.

I stood up, found a spot where I could balance between the split roots, and pressed both hands against the tree.

Something like gold sap was racing under my fingers.

"What is this?" I said.

It felt like springtime. It felt like life. It felt like laughter. It felt golden and…

Royal.

Goosebumps rose on my arms. I leaned harder on the tree and propped my forehead against the bark. My Gentry magic was on fire, and I poured it into the wood like thick pancake batter into a hot frying pan.

Lattices of golden power danced over the trunk. Cascaded over the roots. I lifted my head and looked up—the papery dead leaves were now alive with gold, and dancing in a wind that seemed to be made of magic itself.

Jester barked.

I gripped the tree and pushed harder, my own hands glowing gold and sparkling, too. I looked down, beneath my feet, where the roots plunged below the amethysts.

And then, I saw—

Berron, the Prince of the Gentry.

Asleep, under the roots.

"Berron!" I stared in shock. Hallucination or not, hope surged like a pot boiling over. "Wake up!" I found a coffee bean underfoot and crushed it. "Wake up and smell the coffee!"

The Berron hallucination rolled over.

"Berron! You stupid idiot!" I kicked the tree for good measure. "Wake. Up! I love you, dammit!"

A gold explosion blinded me. I fell, landing heavily on my ass with a root in the wrong place. I still had the leash and Jester was barking madly. I blinked against what had become the sun—and not the winter sun, mind you, cold and white, but a blazing spring sun out to settle scores with the snow.

And when it faded, the Prince's Tree shone with new leaves, and he stood before me.

Smiling. Pointy-eared. Kind of full of himself. And still with the West Side Sandwiches hat on his head.

My mouth fell open. "Where'd you get that?" I said.

"A little birdie gave it to me."

Jester was on two legs jumping up and down like a little man as he tried to get to Berron. I made it easy by stumbling forward, never mind the roots, and hurling myself into Berron's arms.

Jester jumped and snorfed and pawed at the two of us as we held each other.

"I thought you were gone," I said, breathing the scent of his shoulder.

"I thought I was too," he said.

I grabbed him by the hat brim and gave him a little shake. "Don't you ever scare me like that again."

"Why? Will you break up with me?"

"Who said I was dating you?"

He arched an eyebrow.

"All right, fine," I said. "If you have to put a label on it."

He laughed, removed the hat, and swooped in for what would have been very embarrassing kisses down the side of my neck. But since only the dog was watching, they were actually pretty nice. "I love you, too," he said, when he had made it all the way to my collarbone.

"Mm," I said, struck slightly dumb by shock, magic, and more feelings than I had bargained for. "Are we making out now?"

"Yes," he said, straightening up and booping my nose with one long, elegant finger. "So. Where to first? Coney Island? Brooklyn?"

My mind whirled. The whole world, wide open.

Freedom—at last—for all of us.

"It's going to take a little planning," I said, "but we're going on a field trip."