Chapter 5

MARGE

I didn’t hear anything else. The voices dropped too low, and my feet had gone cold on the marble by the time I remembered I was standing in a hallway that wasn’t mine, listening to a conversation that wasn’t mine either.

I slipped back into my room and shut the door as quietly as I’d opened it.

Sleep didn’t come easy after that. I kept turning his words over. She cannot stay here. Not that girl. Not in this house.

I told myself it didn’t matter. I had nowhere else to go anyway.

Morning came with sunlight I wasn’t used to. No servants banging on doors, no Zach summoning me before I’d even opened my eyes. Just birds outside the window and a silence so foreign it almost scared me.

I dressed slowly, in something Ryan’s staff had left folded on the chair, soft green fabric, nothing like the drab things Zach used to hand down to me. I stared at myself in the mirror longer than I meant to.

I still saw Large Marge. But for the first time in years, the mirror didn’t feel like an enemy.

A knock came. Ryan, already dressed, hair damp like he’d just come from training. “Morning,” he said. “Sleep okay?”

“Fine,” I lied.

He studied me a beat too long, like he knew better, but he didn’t push. “Walk with me. Fresh air might help.”

I didn’t argue.

The gardens stretched wider than I expected, hedges trimmed into shapes I couldn’t name, a fountain at the center throwing soft mist into the morning light. It was the kind of place I used to imagine as a child, before Naya’s death made everyone forget I was allowed to have imagination.

“This is beautiful,” I said.

“It was my mother’s favorite spot.” Ryan’s voice softened. “She used to bring me here before council meetings. Said the flowers made the bad news easier to hear.”

“Where is she now?”

“Gone. A long time ago.” He didn’t offer more, and I didn’t ask. 

We walked quietly for a while, the kind I hadn’t had with anyone in years. No mocking. No waiting to be insulted. Just footsteps on gravel and the smell of something blooming nearby.

“Can I ask you something?” I said finally.

“Always.”

“Last night. Your father. He said something about me not staying here.”

Ryan’s jaw shifted, the easy calm slipping for half a second. “It wasn’t about you.”

“It sounded like it was. Prince Ryan I don’t want to be a bug in anyone’s home…”

“It wasn’t, Margaret.” He said my full name carefully, like he wanted me to hear the truth in it. “Trust me on this one. And you’re not a bug”

I wanted to believe him. I was tired of being the reason things fell apart around me.

We turned a corner near a low stone wall, and that was when I saw a unique lady.

She stood near the roses, tall, elegant, her hair the color of dark wine, streaked faintly with silver she hadn’t bothered to hide. She wore black, sharp and severe against the soft garden colors, and she watched us approach like she’d been expecting it.

“Ryan,” she said, voice smooth, unreadable. “Didn’t expect you to cross these paths this morning,”  

“Aunt Corvina,” Ryan said, and something in his tone changed. Careful. Guarded. “Hope you had a good night rest”

“I tried,” Her eyes slid to me, slow, assessing, the same way Garret’s had the night before. “And who is this?”

“Margaret,” Ryan said. “A guest.”

“A guest,” she repeated, like the word amused her. She stepped closer, closer than felt comfortable, and tilted her head, studying my face the way someone studies a painting they’re trying to place. “You have her eyes.”

“Whose eyes?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Corvina didn’t answer right away. Her gaze flicked to Ryan, something sharp passing between them, some old argument neither wanted to finish in front of me.

“Nothing,” she said finally. “A resemblance. Nothing more.”

“Aunt Corvina and my father don’t speak much,” Ryan said, too quickly, steering the moment away. “Family business. Boring, mostly.”

“Boring,” Corvina echoed, and I caught the bitterness under the word, like a blade wrapped in silk. “Is that what he’s calling it these days.”

The air between them thickened. I felt like I’d walked into the middle of a war that had been going on long before I arrived, one with rules I didn’t understand and a history I wasn’t part of.

“Margaret,” Ryan said, turning to me, gentle but firm. “Would you mind giving us a moment?”

“Of course.” I stepped back, grateful for the excuse, though something about the way Corvina kept watching me made it hard to walk away completely. I moved toward the fountain instead, close enough to see them, far enough to pretend I couldn’t hear.

I watched Ryan’s shoulders stiffen the moment he thought I was out of earshot. Watched Corvina’s mouth move fast, sharp, urgent, her hand gesturing toward the palace like she was accusing the walls themselves of something. Ryan shook his head. Once. Then Twice. Whatever she was asking, he wasn’t giving it to her.

She said something else, quieter, and Ryan went still.

Completely still, the way people go still right before they either break or explode.

Then he turned and walked toward me, leaving her standing alone by the roses, arms crossed, watching us both like she’d already lost something she hadn’t planned on losing.

“Everything alright?” I asked when he reached me.

“Fine,” he said, though his voice didn’t sound fine at all. “Come on. Let’s head back.”

“Prince Ryan.” I caught his arm before he could steer us away.

“You can call me Ryan. That’s much better,” 

“What’s the matter?”

He hesitated, long enough that I thought he might actually tell me something true.

“She’s my father’s sister,” he said finally. “They haven’t spoken in years. Not since—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening again.

“Since what?”

Ryan looked back once, toward the roses, toward the woman still watching us from across the garden like she knew something neither of us did yet.

“Since the night my mother disappeared. My father blames her for everything that happened years ago. That argument you heard last night. That was him expressing his anger having her in our home. It wasn’t about you,” 

I sighed, trying my best to hide the relief that washed over me. At least I wouldn’t be crawling back to Zach anytime soon. 

Two women and a young girl approached us before we could utter another word. They presented the young lady with a bow. 

“Is this her?” Ryan asked. 

They nodded. 

He sighed, then turned to me. 

“This is your new assistant. Whatever you need, she’ll attend to you. Her name is Fren,” 

“It’s lovely meeting you,my lady,” Fren smiled and courted. 

I swallowed, uncertain of what I was to say. An assistant? More like a personal servant? 

“It’s a pleasure. I’m Margaret,” I blurted. 

Ryan dismissed them with a flick of his wrist. “Hey,” he inched closer to me and wrapped his fingers around my arm. They were cold against my skin, forcing me to be still. “You have a choice here. If you don’t need one, we can discard her. Or better still, do it more appropriately this time. It’s just…my father thinks personal assistants are really necessary,” 

“No, no. I’m fine. It’s just…” I breathed the cold through my mouth. “This is new to me,”

“Ohh…”

“Yeah,” 

We walked back toward the palace in silence, but it wasn’t the same silence from before. This one had weight to it, like something unspoken was trying to work its way into the space between us.

“Thank you,” I said eventually.

“For what?”

“Telling me something true. Most people around me only ever hand out half of it.”

Ryan slowed his steps until we stopped completely, just outside the palace doors. “I don’t want to be like most people to you.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Not one I trusted myself to say out loud.

Fren found me later that afternoon, in the sitting room off my new bedroom, curled into a window seat with a book I wasn’t really reading. 

“Lady Margaret,” she said, golden hair catching the afternoon light, smiling easily and openly. “I’ve been assigned to you. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

“I don’t need much,” I said. “I’m not used to people offering.”

“Well, get used to it.” She sat across from me without asking, the kind of familiarity that should have felt strange from a stranger but didn’t. “Rough first day?”

I told her about Corvina before I meant to. Something about her face invited honesty, the same way Ryan’s did, except softer, easier, like talking to someone who’d known me longer than a single afternoon.

“Corvina,” Fren repeated, her expression flickering, just briefly, into something unreadable before settling back into warmth. “She’s… complicated. Come with me. I’ll show you something.”