I squeeze Needle’s hand, and she immediately sets off at a brisk but reasonable pace, leading me down the platform steps, weaving between the tables scattered throughout the hall.
Conversations stop as I pass by, and I swear I can feel the nobles’ eyes raking up and down my long body, clawing at my dress, hoping to catch a glimpse of the scaled skin they’ve heard rumors about, eager for me to do something wild and uncivilized.
I hold my head higher and press the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I won’t cry. I won’t get angry. I won’t give them any reason to bring up the older stories, the ones about how I abused the women sent to care for me after my mother’s death, or the way I howled like a Monstrous from the balcony of my tower in the middle of the night, giving the city children nightmares.
I can’t remember that time—I was only four years old, by the moons!—but Needle warned me that the stories live on. My people are waiting for a reason to believe I’m still that feral creature, that girl as tainted on the inside as on the outside.
As soon as we’re out of sight of the banquet hall, Needle begins to sign.
“I’m ready to leave.”
“I am queen. I can do what I wish,” I snap, pulling my arm away, only for her to reclaim it a second later. “Leave me!” I demand. “I can find my way from here.”
“I am perfectly capable of getting back to my rooms without guards,” I say, voice rising as I pull away a second time. “Why do I need guards, anyway? Who would dare harm the
Needle sighs her sad sigh but doesn’t try to retake my arm, and soon I hear her footsteps hurrying away toward the tower. She knows better than to argue with me. Arguing is pointless. I am stubborn and selfish, and once I’ve made up my mind, I will not be swayed.
For a moment, I feel bad for taking my anger out on my only friend, but soon I’m too distracted by the pain in my toes to think of anything else.
My slippers are too tight. I told Needle they were too tight, but she insisted they were the same size I’ve worn for a year, and shoved them onto my feet. Now they pinch so badly, I’m hobbling by the time I near the royal garden. I stop, bend down, and rip them from my feet with a growl that turns to a moan of relief as soon as my toes are allowed to spread on the cool stones.
“Good choice,” comes a voice from high above, making me draw a surprised breath. “Who needs shoes in a soft world like this one?”
“Gem?” I ask, though I know it’s him by the pronunciation of the word “shoes.” His accent is changing, but still, no one else under the dome sounds like him. “Where are you?”
“In my new room,” he answers. “New
“They gave you the apartment overlooking the gardens?” I ask, tilting my face in the direction of his voice.
I gave the order for Gem to be transferred to the soldiers’ barracks a few days past. I requested that the apartment with the view of the royal garden be converted to a cell—Gem mentioned that he’d like to see the roses again—but there was some grumbling from Junjie about whether such a prime space could be spared.
I told him to find a way to spare it and left it at that, but I wasn’t sure he’d take my order seriously. Junjie seems to treat my commands as suggestions he’ll take into consideration. If he remembers. If he approves. If it’s convenient.
“They did,” Gem says. “Thank you.”
“You like it, then?” I ask, craving approval in this night filled with condemnation.
“I do. Very much.”
“I know there are still bars on the windows, but …”
“It doesn’t matter. The view is nice. And I like the books,” he says, before adding in an almost shy tone, “I’ve been trying to read them. My mother taught me your letters and the sounds they make. It’s not as difficult as I thought it would be.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon,” I say, feeling a little envious. “I wish I could read. Being read to is wonderful, but I always thought the stories would go faster if I could see the words myself.”
“I’m not very fast.”
“You will be. You’re clever.” He is. More clever than I could have imagined before we started working in the garden together. The past two weeks have only confirmed how foolish I was to underestimate Gem. He has a vast knowledge of plants, speaks our language with the fluency of a noble, and has more stories memorized than I’ve had read to me in my life.
“Soon you’ll have even more stories to add to your collection,” I say, trying to smile. “You’ll have to tell me your favorites.”
“Of course,” he says, before adding in a softer voice, “What’s wrong?
You don’t sound like yourself.”
I lean against the retaining wall, and reach out, running my fingers over the wilting petals of the last of the autumn clematis. “I’ve done foolish things tonight.”
“What kind of foolish things?”
“I was mean to Needle,” I say, tears stinging my eyes for the millionth time since my father died. “I shouldn’t have been. She’s always so patient with me.”
“She’ll forgive you,” he says, the lack of judgment in his tone making me feel even worse.
“I know,” I mumble, wishing I hadn’t said anything. No matter how well we’ve been getting along, or how much more human Gem is than I could have dreamed a Monstrous would be, it was stupid to start confessing things to him. He’s not my friend; he’s my prisoner.
“What else?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, lingering when I know I should tell him good night and be on my way. But I’m not in any hurry to return to the tower or Needle, who I know will be waiting by the door with her sad sigh, ready to gently remind me of everything I did wrong tonight.
I know I have to apologize and endure the reminders, but I’m not ready. Not yet.
“I don’t believe you.” Gem’s voice holds a challenge I refuse to take.
“Tell me a story,” I say instead, forcing a smile. Storytelling is what built the bridge between Gem and me in the first place. I began it as a way to break the strained silence during our first day in the garden, but Gem soon took the lead. He is a gifted storyteller and obviously appreciates a receptive audience. He has never refused me a story. “A happy story, please.”
“What kind of happy story?”
“One of your people’s legends. One with wind in it.”
He falls quiet, but I don’t repeat myself. I know he’s putting his thoughts together and that it will be worth the wait. Gem’s stories are always wonderful, mysterious and magical and eerily familiar, stories my heart swears I’ve heard before even if my mind can’t remember them.
“Once, long ago, in the early days of my tribe, there was a girl who loved a star,” he begins, summoning a delicious shiver from deep in my bones. I pull myself up to sit on the edge of the wall and draw my legs to my chest beneath my dress, grateful Needle gave me a full skirt rather than one of the narrow ones that make me teeter when I walk.
“It was a summer star,” Gem continues once I’m comfortable. “And it appeared in the sky just as the summer grass turned brown. It burned a fierce orange and red, and spent its nights boasting of all the worlds it had known and the creatures who had loved it.
“All the girls in the tribe enjoyed gazing at the star, but one girl, Melita, was captivated at first glance,” he says, the lulling rhythm of his words easing the last of the tension from my shoulders. “Every evening, she would creep from her family’s hut and lie down in the grass beneath the star. They would talk late into the night, telling
