Page 59 of Homegrown Magic

They scoff on instinct. “Phi, I’m not in—”

“Well, she certainly is,” Araphi cuts in with a wink. Then she bows and backs away just as the musicians end the waltz, leaving Yael alone and stunned.

Can that be true?

No. What would Araphi know of Margot’s feelings? They’ve gone to one dress fitting together, and suddenly their cousin is Margot’s confidante? She hardly speaks her feelings to Yael, and they’re close, aren’t they? Childhood friends. Present friends. Lovers.

But…in love?

Something vast blooms inside of Yael, as though their ribs are garden gates that can no longer contain their own heart. Because of course Yael is in love with Margot Greenwillow. Margot is the tender of every good thing inside of them. They want nothing more than to leave this city and take Margot home, and maybe—just maybe—Margot wants nothing more than Yael.

What an unlikely, unbelievable, magical thing.

Pressing a hand to Yael’s cheek, Margot gently turns their head to face her, having escaped their father’s clutches all on her own. She leans in close, closer than any of the dancing couples had, her cheek brushing Yael’s. “Suddenly it’s very warm in here,” she murmurs. “I know we’ve only just begun to dance, but should we get some air?”

Yael shivers as her lips graze their ear. “We should, at once.”

They flee the dance floor before the next song can begin.

There’s a balcony off the ballroom where they might find a decent summer breeze, but it’s currently bustling with guests and clouded by cigar smoke. So Yael leads Margot back through the halls of the manor, up to a seldom-used parlor on the fourth floor that used to be their nursery and has since been converted. There’s a small, private balcony where they remember their governess would sit in the sunlight to mend clothing while they played. Menorath would toss away anything with the slightest evidence of repair, anyhow, but their governess liked to keep her hands busy.

Yael leans out over the railing, and the sprawling estate unfolds before them. The sunset, just beginning now, casts its pink glow upon the ornamental pond, the stable roofs, the sharply trimmed hedges. The manicured gardens where nothing to be eaten is grown, nor any flora particularly beneficial to beasts or pollinators. Acres and acres of land, and so much of it comprises shorn grass and packed-down trails for easy strolling or riding; not that their parents spend much time traversing the grounds.

When they peer over the side, they’re looking down on the ballroom balcony below, situated so that any guest looking up would clearly see them and hear them. Notes of flirtatious conversation and hard bargaining drift upward on the light breeze. But for the moment, no one looks up.

“Are you all right, Yael?” Margot asks, resting her elbows on the railing beside them.

I love you, they could say. They could tell her right now and put an end to their wondering. I love you, I love you, I—

“I’m just…on edge,” Yael says instead: the least part of their feelings, and the easiest to confess. “It’s being here, in my parents’ world…They don’t mean any of it, you know? All their talk of feeling glad to have me back? They lied to everyone for months rather than admit that their plans for me drove me away, and they never even cared to look for me until now, all for the sake of keeping up appearances. And I let them lie. Hells, I helped them lie.”

Margot sighs deeply. “So did I, Yael.”

“You only went along with their story because I convinced you it’d be easier.” And what did easier even mean? Easier for whom? What’s been easy about chipping off a piece of their own heart every time they let Rastanaya, or Oreborn, or even Denby believe the falsehood that the Claunecks were a family before they were a company?

“No, that isn’t—”

“Believe me, Margot, you’ve nothing to do with my parents’ schemes. After what my family did to yours, you’re the least culpable person here tonight.”

She reaches back behind her head to undo the ties of her mask, pulling it free even as it tangles in her spiraling crown braids, tugging strands of hair loose around her temples. Margot tosses the mask to the parquet floor of the balcony. “I’m not as good a person as you think I am, Yael. And you’re a better person than you think you are.”

Yael sniffs around a tight throat and burning eyes.

“Listen.” Margot rests a hand on their shoulder and turns them around so that she can peer through their own mask, still snugly tied in place. “Forget for just a moment what your family, or I, or anyone else wants, and please, just tell me what you want.”

A dozen glib responses sit on the tip of Yael’s tongue.

But no.

Yael has to be serious, because it’s possible that no question has ever mattered as much as this one. “I want…I want the chance to figure out who I could be in this world without the burden of who my family’s decided I’m supposed to be. I want a life of my choosing.”

Margot’s gaze burns into theirs, her eyes like candles in the twilight. “There’s really no part of you that misses this life?”

Yael turns the question over in their mind for a long moment before confessing, “I don’t know. This is where I was born and how I was raised. But I know that the better part of me would be happier in a cottage in the woods with you for as long as you’ll have me there.”

That much they do know is true.

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