Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Peter lingered behind, watching Callie from across the courtyard.

He couldn't shake it. The King never looked twice at anyone. He had been here numerous times in the past and he had never paused to ask a single question about anyone standing in it. 

Yet tonight his eyes had caught on Callie like she was the only person there worth noticing and he didn't like it one bit.

Peter walked over to where she stood, arms crossed loosely, trying to look more curious than concerned or worse furious about it. "What was that about?"

"What was what about?" Callie asked, not looking at him.

"The Lycan King. Asking about you." Peter studied her face for some reaction, something that would give him an idea of what just happened. "Have you met him before?"

"No."

"Then why would he ask?"

Callie shrugged, small and indifferent, not really bothered about the fact that someone important had noticed her. "Maybe he was bored. Maybe he asks about everyone standing near the door. I wouldn't know. I don't know him."

It was a reasonable answer. It told him absolutely nothing, and somehow that bothered Peter more than if she'd lied outright. Two years ago, Callie would have been thrilled by the attention, would have spent the next hour speculating about it with anyone who'd listen. This version of her simply answered the question and walked away, like the subject bored her more than it worried her.

"Callie—"

But she was already moving, slipping past him toward the side of the house, and Peter let her go.

Callie walked the familiar path around the east wing without letting herself think too hard about where her feet were taking her. She told herself she was only stretching her legs, trying to put some distance between her and the preparation happening out front. But her feet knew the way better than her mind wanted to admit, and she soon found her way to the place she loved the most growing up as a  child.

The greenh-ouse.

Her mother had built it with her own hands, back before the sickness had made her weaker than usual.

Callie used to spend whole afternoons there, elbow-deep in soil, learning the names of every herb that could soothe a fever or slow a bleed.

 It was the one place in this entire estate that had never belonged to anyone else but hers. Just theirs.

She pushed open the door, already bracing herself for the smell of turned earth and crushed mint that always greeted her there.

Instead, she smelled polish and rosin.

Callie stopped in the doorway, her mind refusing for one long moment to process what her eyes were seeing. The rows of clay pots were gone. In their place stood a gleaming black piano, an easel draped with half-finished canvases, soft cream drapes where there used to be sun-cracked wooden shutters. The air smelled like lemon-oil and paint instead of soil and green growing things.

Every trace of her mother's greenhouse had been erased.

She stood there for a long moment, feeling like she was in a scene right now, or having an outer body experience

She didn't cry. She didn't think she had it in her anymore. She simply stood in the doorway of a room that used to mean something to her and felt a crushing wave of despair flood her.

"Callie?"

Peter's voice came from behind her. She hadn't heard him following.

He stepped up beside her and looked into the room, and she watched confusion cross his face before understanding slowly dawned.

 "This was—" He stopped. "This was the greenhouse. Mother's greenhouse."

"It was," Callie said quietly.

"I didn't—" Peter's brow furrowed, trying to remember when this change has occured. "When did this happen?"

"I don't know. I wasn't here."

The words landed harder than she meant them to. Peter's jaw tightened, the weight of two years of her being gone heavy in the air again. 

"Peter?" Rowena's voice, light and questioning, came in from the garden path She appeared in the doorway a moment later, taking in the scene, her eyes going wide as they landed on Callie's face. "Oh no. Callie, is this— did you not know I'd moved my piano in here?"

Callie said nothing.

Rowena's hand flew to her mouth. "I didn't know," she said, her voice already trembling. "I swear I didn't know this place meant anything to you. No one told me it used to be yours. I would never have— oh, Callie, I'm so sorry."

Tears welled up fast, spilling over before Callie had even opened her mouth to respond. Rowena pressed a hand to her chest like the guilt was a physical weight crushing the air from her lungs. "If you want it back, I'll move out today. Right now. I'll pack everything up myself, I don't care, I just didn't know—"

"Rowena." Peter was at her side immediately, one hand settling on her shoulder, his voice gentling into the same soft register he always used for her. "It's not your fault. You didn't know."

"But I should have asked," Rowena said, wiping at her eyes. "I should have thought to ask whose room it was before I just—"

"Stop blaming yourself Nobody expected you to know. This wasn't your mistake."

Callie watched the exchange play out exactly as she'd known it would. Rowena would cry and Peter would rush to play the dashing knight.

He finally turned back to Callie. "We'll figure out compensation," he said. "Whatever you want. New furniture for your room, or we can convert one of the guest wings into something similar, whatever you need to make this right."

"I don't want compensation," Callie said.

Peter blinked. "Callie, I know this is hard, but you don't have to pretend you're not upset—"

"I'm not upset." Her voice stayed even, flat, entirely without heat. "I don't want the room back. I don't want anything replaced."

"Then what do you want?"

"I came back because Mother is sick," she said simply. "I want to spend time with her. That's all. Once King is gone and her health is settled, I'll leave again."

"Leave?" Peter's brow creased. "Leave to where? Callie, this is your home."

"It stopped being my home a long time ago. I'm not fighting you for anything, Peter. Not the room, not your approval. I just want to see her before I leave."

Peter stared at her, searching for the anger he was certain must be hiding underneath her calm, certain this was just her acting out the way she already had and she didn't mean what she was saying and she wasn't leaving

"You don't mean that," he said. "You're just angry. This is you being angry with me."

Callie held his gaze for a moment longer, and then, without another word, she turned and walked back out into the garden, not sparing him another word.