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I don’t really know where I’m going when I walk out into the hallway. Not my bedroom, that’s for sure. There’s so little of me in it. Things, but few memories. Trophies, but not trinkets. A bed without its occupant, who prefers to sleep a room away, with the weight of Lex and Pace bracketing me in, shielding me.

But they’re right.

This isn’t their problem.

The Palace is loudest and busiest in the evenings. I suppose that’s why I descend the stairs, seeking out an exit idly, mind still working around the problem. The door I walk through could be the main entrance or the pantry for all the mind I pay to it.

I pause when I see Verity.

The solarium is musty, the scent of earth strong in my nostrils. She’s bent over a giant stone urn, digging roots from the heart of it, dirty all the way up to her elbows. Her red hair is tied back, but a loose lock of it swings across her cheek when she wrenches a thick root free, flinging it into a pile near the gate. There’s a smudge of soil across her forehead, and she’s wearing dirty clothes. Jeans and a flannel.

She must not hear me come in, because she doesn’t turn or startle. I’m not sure how. It’s deathly quiet out here. No birdsong. No wind rustling leaves. It isn’t until I spot the little wireless buds in her ears that I realize why she hasn’t noticed me.

Pace’s gift from a couple weeks ago.

I take in the space from my place on the steps. The old, dead vines covering the glass are mostly gone. The stone floor has been picked clean of wilted weeds and old leaves. Across the back wall is a bench I’ve never seen in here before, a row of little pots all lined up.

Even in the fading light of dusk, it looks oddly brighter. Bigger.

I lean down and pluck the speaker out of her ear, smirking when she jumps in surprise, her jaw dropping in a gasp. “Jesus, Wicker!”

“Princess.” I sit down, frowning at the thick gloves on her hands. “You know we pay people to do this.”

“I like having something to do with my hands,” she says, shooting me a look like she’s daring me to say something dirty. I let it pass. “And occupy my mind.”

I watch her work, turning over the soil diligently, while I roll the smooth plastic speaker in my fingers.

Abruptly, she says, “Thank you for the shears, by the way. They made trimming the rhododendron so much easier.”

“The what?”

“The shears.” She points to a large pair of garden scissors in her tool kit. Ah, the gift. Danner for the win.

“Right.” I look down at my hands, clean and well-manicured, but callused from the cello. “I heard your others were rusty.”

She picks up a small container from a flat of seedlings and carefully extracts it before planting it in a fresh hole. Curious, I push the speaker in my ear and the rush of music hits me. It’s some chick wailing about her love life. I pull it away, grimacing. “This the garbage that you listen to?”

She reaches out, snatching the earbud back. “Sometimes.”

“It’s candy-coated nonsense, created for mass consumption.”

“It’s not non–” She stops and rolls her eyes. “You know what? I’m not justifying my taste in music to someone like you.”

“Someonelikeme?” My eyebrows knit together. “And what exactly am I like?” Honestly, I want to know, because right now I feel lower than the manure piled in the corner.

She answers succinctly. “A snob.”

“I’m classically trained, not a snob.” I lean back on my hands, ignoring the way the dirt grits against them. “I can’t help that I have impeccable taste in everything, from clothes to music to women.”

Rocking back on her heels she says, “What are you doing out here, Wicker, besides insulting me? We have hours before midnight.”

What am I doing out here? Looking for a distraction? A plan? An out?

Finally, I confess, “I don’t know.” She looks up from her project and faces me, taking me in for the first time since I walked in. Her scrutiny annoys me. “What?”

“You look tired.”

“Thanks for pointing it out, Red.”