Page 81 of A Fragile Enchantment

It had happened. Niamh had always imagined love as something sparkling, something all-encompassing and glorious as daybreak, as sudden as a knife to the heart. But love was somehow more magical and more banal than she’d dreamed it. It crept up on her, out of sight, until it was completely undeniable—until it wasalready out of her mouth and solid as a stone to strike her down with.

Jack looked horrified. “What am I going to do with you?”

Niamh had come too far to back down now. Despite the trembling of her hands, she tilted her chin up and met his eyes. “You cannot make his decisions for him forever.”

He smiled ruefully. “Can’t I? My will is the strongest force in this universe. You have not yet seen the depth of it, the things I am capable of when pushed, the lengths to which I will go to protect what is mine. I will not let him get hurt again—not by such an obvious, horrible mistake.”

She saw him plainly then, as immovable and unbreakable as stone. Even now, he was trying to protect Kit. Since he was a boy, he’d made himself into a wall: one that stood between Kit and their father, between Kit and all of the burdens of ruling, between Kit andhimself,between his father’s sins and the public. In the hard set of his shoulders and the stern line of his jaw, she could see all of the calculations he had made and all of the things he had denied himself in the name of duty. Here was a man convinced of his competence and secure in his conviction that his careful control was the only thing keeping the world spinning properly on its axis.

It hurt to both understand him so perfectly and to loathe him so bitterly. How could she blame him? She, too, had carried the weight of generations on her shoulders. She, too, had withstood the pressure not to squander what she was handed. Tears welled in her eyes. “There has to be another way. Please, give him a chance to help you fix this. If you force him to go through with this wedding, he will only resent you more than he already does.”

“Enough,” he said, soft as a plea. “I do not have time to find another tailor. You will finish what you were asked to do. You will say nothing to anyone about any of this. You will go nowhere without my permission. Do we understand each other?”

What was there to understand? No matter what she did, no matter what she said or how hard she railed against him, he would send her away. But if she refused now? She would be escorted from the palace, with no chance to say goodbye to her friends, no chance to have any of her designs featured in the wedding, and no chance to tell Kit how she felt. She would be exactly what he said she was: a nothing girl, sent back to her nowhere town in shame.

“Yes,” she choked out.

“Good.” He leaned against his desk and set to work unfastening his cuff links. “The moment you have put the last stitch in that gown, you will be back on the boat to Machland. We will all move on with our lives, and soon this will be a distant memory.”

A distant memory. Just as she was always destined to be.

“Will you let me talk to him? Please.”

A horrible silence descended over them. His stony expression cracked, and she could see his better judgment warring against his affection for his brother. Niamh steeled herself for his denial, but at last, he sighed.

“Let no one say I am heartless. Go. But if you have loved him for anything but his status, do the right thing and walk away.” He dragged a hand down his jaw. His weary, haunted eyes fell shut. “This charade must continue, whether any of us wants it to or not.”

23

As she made her way through the darkened corridors of the palace, Niamh could still hear the faint strains of the musicale below: the applause of the guests, the stomp of the dancers in their beautiful dresses, the mournful strum of a guitar. It carried through the halls like the halting, faint tune of a music box. The shadows sparkled and swam in the watery light. She felt as though she were wandering through a dream—or perhaps a nightmare.

At last, she emerged into the atrium. Kit waited for her there, pacing restlessly. As soon as he heard her approach, his gaze snapped to hers. She’d never seen him look so relieved. “Did he see you?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded.

He closed the gap between them and pulled her in to him. All of the tension flowed out of her body, and it took all her strengthnot to weep with relief. Slowly, she wound her arms around his waist and nestled her head on his chest. His lips moved against her ear when he asked, “Are you all right?”

She let out a strained laugh and drew back enough to look up at him.No.“I think so, yes.”

What could she truly tell him?Your brother cornered me with the intention of breaking off our engagement, one that does not and never will exist.It had certainly felt nice in the moment, to see the prince regent fuming mad at the very idea of it. But Kit would do his duty, regardless of his feelings for either her or Rosa. All of her wildest imaginings, all of her silly daydreams were just that: wild and silly. There was no world in which a Machlish tailor got to marry an Avlish prince. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye just yet.

“He is not pleased with me, but he will let me finish the job,” she said. “However, I feel as though I understand him better now. I have never seen him as truly afraid as he was for you.”

His face fell. “I could kill him right now, but it made me sick to see him like that. I don’t want to put him through that again. There’s no guarantee I won’t.”

Niamh smoothed her hands against his lapels. “All you can do is take it day by day. At least, that’s what I try to tell myself when things seem overwhelming, or when I cannot remember why I am doing half the things I do, or I grow afraid that I will be gone sooner than I like.”

“Day by day,” he repeated, as though trying out the idea.

Perhaps,she thought,even moment by moment.She would make every last one of them with him count. “Do you want to go somewhere else?” she murmured against his chest.

Without a word, Kit twined their fingers together and led her through the halls. In the uppermost level of the palace, he showed her to a solarium, tucked away like a gown in the back of a closet: lovely and forgotten. The rose window overhead let in awheel of moonlight, spoked with shadow. The room was scattered with threadbare settees and chaise longues with faded cushions. A harp sat in the corner, still polished to a glossy sheen, uncovered as though at any moment, someone would come sit at the stool and play.

“This was my mother’s solarium,” he said.

No wonder it made her feel so wistful. It was forlorn, but she could tell someone came to dust the furniture and air out the room. Back home, her mother had kept her father’s things. His militia jacket folded the same as when it was delivered to her upon his death; his favorite rocking chair; his pipe. But she cherished them and kept them close. She’d been happy to take them from the shelf anytime Niamh asked. Jack, it seemed, kept even his discarded memories orderly, preserved and impersonal like a museum exhibit. Somehow, it was even sadder than if they were left to molder.

“It’s lovely,” she told Kit.