Chapter 10

ten

On the first of May, I came home from campus to find my bedroom filled with greenery. Flowers licked delicately between the leaves, yellow and white and pink, and the room was filled with their scent—faint vanilla, soft fruit. That lovely, green something that came with fresh leaves.

Breathing it in felt like breathing in something important that I’d forgotten.

There was a handwritten note on my bed.

Isolde,

I regret that I cannot be in Manhattan today. Happy birthday, and I’m looking forward to our scene at Lyonesse very much.

Yours faithfully,

Mark

p.s. I thought I’d hedge our bets with the honeysuckle.

I looked around the room, green and fresh and lovely, and didn’t bother to fight the smile pulling at my mouth. Honeysuckle portended a good marriage, he’d told me at our dinner, and now he’d filled an entire room with it.

He wants us to have a good marriage.

That could mean anything, and I absolutely should not decide what it meant while surrounded with fresh flowers that he’d somehow magicked into my room.

Next to the note, there was a gold box, long and flat, tied with a wide black ribbon. I untied it and opened the box, my lips parting as I beheld the knife nestled in gold velvet inside. A fixed blade, maybe five inches long, and slender. The steel was dark and rippled, and the handle looked like it was made of bone. It was inlaid with gold and rubies, both of which twisted their way up from the guard to the narrow butt of the handle. The same pattern was etched onto both sides of the blade, ornate and lush and unmistakable.

Honeysuckle. Branches, flowers, fruit.

I held it in my hand, switching my grip back and forth, testing its weight. It was light and skinny, and even in a sheath, would fit easily inside a boot or up a sleeve. Everything about its shape and dimensions was utilitarian and meant for use…but it was so decorated, so lovely a thing, that the idea of using it was absurd. Like using a Ming vase to collect rainwater under a leak in the ceiling.

But…

But I loved it. It felt perfect in my hand, the size, the weight. Even the bone felt right, slightly warmer than the gold and rubies against my palm.

There was a note inside the box too, inked in a neat, precise hand.

Remember, reverse grip is for when you mean it.

- m

Some people hadmen woo them with jewelry, with roses and orchids and champagne. I had a man who sent me knives and parasitic flowers.

I was smiling the rest of the day.