The next week passed with no sign of Lian’s return. Thaniel asked about his brother every day at breakfast, but the answer was always a soft, understanding smile and the words, “You’ll be the first to know when we hear anything.” Soon enough, he only seemed to ask out of a sense of duty, not because he actually expected his brother to return in time for his birthday.

  Thaniel and Geraldine became fast friends, with the little girl showing her new playmate all the secrets of the manor, including a sort of hidden garden that had been blocked off by wild roses, leaving only a child-sized hole leading into an overgrown bramble. In spite of the constant threat of thorns, the two children spent hours there, using stolen teacups and purloined pastries to enact a hundred tiny tea parties, with a series of dolls the only guests besides the children and their pets.

  Miss Cupcakes and Pandy came to an uneasy peace after the Battle of the Library. The kitten no longer attempted to eviscerate Pandy at every opportunity, and Pandy stayed as far away from Geraldine as possible, even when the girl was serving her ‘tea’ and scones.

  The two pets bonded further over the doll clothes into which they were pressed, and Pandy at least vowed silently that no one would ever hear of their humiliation from her. Though she had to admit that the tiered-lace pink gown that had once bedecked a lovely porcelain doll was probably the prettiest thing she’d ever worn in either of her lives. The shoes, on the other hand, would remain forever locked within a mental oubliette.

  As soon as Lian was gone, Clara had reappeared, but Pandy barely even got to see her, because she seemed utterly uninterested in whatever her little sister and Thaniel were up to. In spite of the sweet words she spoke in Gacha Love about how much she missed her precious sibling, the teenage girl was clearly far more interested in chattering with the bevy of other young females who would descend upon the house at all hours. They then retreated to a garden or Clara’s bedroom, and made it blatantly clear that children were not welcome.

  Lady Alice, too, had her own social life, which seemed to revolve around the mamas of many of Clara’s friends. These women would escort their daughters to the Reedsley abode, and set themselves up in the conservatory, creating lovely embroidery and talking about what needed to be done to get their estates ready for harvest. There were also long discussions of illnesses, impending weddings, and winter parties, all of which also required planning for gift baskets, presents, or gowns, and none of which interested the children at all.

  “When I grow up, I’m not going to get married. Being a wife seems terribly boring,” Geraldine confided as she poured contraband juice into five tiny cups and a pair of saucers. The three dolls currently in favor didn’t get juice, though Geraldine pretended to pour for them as well. Usually the children had to make do with pretense alone, though sometimes they managed to smuggle in a pitcher of water or cold tea left over from breakfast.

  Pandy lapped at the puddle of liquid in her saucer – Geraldine having realised several days before that her short rabbit’s nose made it difficult to drink from a cup – and found it both refreshing and delicious. She wasn’t sure what kind of fruit it was made from, but she thought she could detect hints of carrot and cucumber in it, along with the sweetness of fruit, reinforcing her belief that the things Geraldine found ‘forgotten’ on the long tables in the kitchen were actually deliberately left there for her. There was no doubt in her mind that this beverage was a way of getting the children to ingest vegetables in some form.

  “Oh,” Thaniel said somewhat sadly. “I thought maybe we could get married. Then we could have tea parties every day, and the chef would have to make our favorite cookies.”

  Geraldine blinked, this idea obviously having not occurred to her, and then looked away, her cheeks turning a deep pink beneath her freckles. “Well, I suppose if it was you, it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “But we’d have to go on all kinds of adventures together. I don’t want to just sit around sewing and talking about whether the corn harvest looks good this year.”

  Thaniel sipped from his cup, then wrinkled his nose and set it down again. It seemed that at least one of the two wasn’t going to allow something healthy to be slipped into his diet. “I don’t know anything about corn,” he said guilelessly, “but I can sew on a button. Cassie showed me how, since she didn’t want to do it. So I can do the sewing if somebody has to.”

  By now, Geraldine had heard all about George, Marta, and Cassie, though Thaniel rarely spoke about his parents. The little girl knew just how poorly taken care of Thaniel had been, and every time Cassie’s name was mentioned, her eyes narrowed in a way that reminded Pandy uncomfortably of Miss Cupcakes. Geraldine apparently knew better than to say anything, though, because Thaniel was stubbornly loyal to anyone he cared about, and somehow the lazy maid had managed to qualify.

  “We’ll hire your Marta,” Geraldine said. “She can cook for us, since Cook will still be working for Mama and Papa. Maybe she knows how to sew, too.”

  Thaniel nodded enthusiastically. “She does. I once ripped holes in the seat of all three of my pairs of pants, and Cassie only sewed up one. You could see the stitches, too. They were this big.” He held his fingers half an inch apart, looking more impressed than dismayed. “Marta fixed the other two, and you couldn’t even tell they’d been torn.”

  Pandy remembered that. It was shortly after her arrival, when Thaniel decided he wanted to go sledding, even though it was summer. He used a ‘sled’ made of a fallen branch to slide down the steep hill that dropped off into the shallow creek that circled the estate. Within an hour, they were both soaked, covered in mud, and sporting missing fur and holey pants. It was the most fun she thought she’d ever had, in either of her lives.

  Geraldine’s expression softened, and she topped up Thaniel’s barely-touched cup. She didn’t seem to notice the boy’s look of dismay as she set the pitcher down and patted his hand. “We can go on lots of adventures, then, and Marta will cook and fix our clothes.” She glanced around, then leaned forward and whispered. “I hear some women even wear pants now. I think they must be ever so much easier to have adventures in.” She plucked at a snag in her own frilly skirt.

  “I like pants,” Thaniel agreed, taking a bite of a crumbly confection that reminded Pandy of a pecan praline. “But skirts are pretty. And they swish when you turn around really fast.”

  Geraldine’s brown eyes narrowed as she looked at Thaniel’s tumbled blonde curls and angelic face. Pandy could practically hear the girl’s thoughts, and while she didn’t think Thaniel would actually mind wearing dresses, she did know he wouldn’t want anyone to see the scars on his shoulder and chest, which would be inevitable if Geraldine followed through on the thought behind the glint in her eye.

  Reaching out, Pandy tipped her shallow saucer, spilling juice over the table which had been improvised from a broad, flat tree stump and a stained towel. Geraldine and Miss Cupcakes pulled away with matching hisses, and Geraldine shook out her own skirts, trying to get the liquid off before it could soak in. Miss Cupcakes, meanwhile, glared at Pandy with cold yellow eyes, while slowly licking juice from between bared claws.

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  “You should go get changed before that stains,” Thaniel said. This was not something that would have occurred to him a week before, but by now he’d received several firm but gentle chastisements as a result of his tendency to cover himself in dirt, berry juice, and blood from the scratches inevitably created by the hundreds of thorns through which he crawled multiple times a day.

  Pandy practiced her Minor Heal on those scratches every night, bringing her ever closer to another level in her skill, but in the meantime his skin was covered in angry red streaks. Somehow, Geraldine managed to avoid the same fate, other than the snags the thorns created in her lacy garments. Perhaps the girl had a ‘Thorn Thwarter’ skill that she’d been grinding out levels in for years?

  Usually, Geraldine would be the first to agree to this suggestion. In spite of her wistful words about pants, the girl was already well on her way to being a fashionista. Or at least a clothes horse. She wore one dress to breakfast, another to play in, then a third for lunch, or tea, or whatever it was called. Sometimes there was a fourth to play in after that meal, and she always wore a particularly fluffy, lacy dress covered in bows and ribbons for dinner.

  Meanwhile, Clara already wore the simple dresses the other girls made fun of when she went to school. These were demure, with relatively high necklines and mid-length sleeves with delicate draperies of lace that fell around her slender wrists. For the most part, they lacked any but the simplest ribbons and adornments, allowing the style of the dress and the fabric to emphasize her own fragile beauty. She did change for dinner, but all of her dresses were similar, making her stand out like a lily in a sea of overblown dahlias among her highly-decorated friends.

  Today, however, Geraldine froze as soon as Thaniel suggested returning to the house, her eyes flickering to the trampled path beneath the roses. Pandy knew exactly why, of course, since she often overheard Lord and Lady Reedsley discussing the children and their activities during her nightly perambulations. Now that Pandy didn’t have to worry about Miss Cupcakes, she felt safe making her way down to the library to grind her skills after Thaniel was secure in his bed, but the Reedsley parents also seemed to like the library, which left Pandy sitting beneath a table outside until they vacated the room.

  “Um, no,” Geraldine said, nervously holding her skirt away from her legs while Pandy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Pandy was a rabbit, and there had been a rabbit-sized amount of juice in her saucer. Hardly any of it had even made it off the table, so only a few small dots darkened the peach-colored skirts of today’s ‘play’ dress.

  Gingerly, Geraldine sat back down, smoothing her skirts over her legs. In this she was more fortunate than Thaniel, because the material of her skirts took the worst of the fallen thorns, while Thaniel often had red bumps on his behind where he’d been prickled through his shorts. Pandy only knew this because he complained about it every time he took a bath and the hot water stung the injuries. Pandy healed him every night, of course, but she was afraid to do so while he was awake, in case he realized something had happened.

  Thaniel blinked at his friend. “Don’t you want to change, ‘dine?”

  Geraldine looked at him, startled. “Dean?”

  Thaniel’s cheeks turned a little pink. “Like I’m Thaniel, and Killian is Lian. I thought, maybe you’d like a nickname, too. Unless you don’t like it?”

  Now it was Geraldine’s turn to flush. “Oh, um, yes, I’d like- I mean, I’ve never had a nickname before. Mother calls me- No, you wouldn’t- But maybe not ‘dine? I… I kind of like… Geri?”

  Thaniel’s eyes lit up, and he grinned. “Can I call you Geri, then? Because we’re friends?”

  Geraldine nodded mutely, then dabbed again at the spot again, a worried frown wiping away the smile she’d worn only a moment before. “I should change, of course, but I can do it later. I doubt this will stain, anyway.” That was a blatant falsehood. In Pandy’s experience, juice always stained. Especially when you were completely broke and had no money to buy new clothes, which left you to sew on a very awkwardly placed patch or bow to cover the spot, which that day’s co-workers never failed to point out, sometimes calling it ‘boho’, as if it was an intentional style-choice on Pandy’s part.

  Then, to Geraldine’s great and very obvious relief, the children’s names rang out over the garden. “Geraldine? Nathaniel? It’s time to come in!”

  It was Lady Alice, and even though she was pretending to look for them, she kept passing right by their little hiding place, and once Pandy could actually see her peer in at them, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a smile beneath the overhang of her wide-brimmed and befeathered hat. Both children froze like fawns hiding in a thicket, until Geraldine gave a small cough, and Lady Alice promptly moved away, her calls growing fainter and also much less urgent as she moved.

  Geraldine stood up so quickly that the overarching brambles caught at her fluffy brown curls. “We should go. Quickly, before she comes back.”

  Thaniel was already moving, though, as were Pandy and Miss Cupcakes. The three dolls remained seated, staring glassily into the distance as the children gathered up the cups, pitchers, and dainty plates. The four mobile party guests extricated themselves from the roses with practiced ease – Pandy and Thaniel leaving behind only small amounts of skin and blood – and then they made for the house. Pandy hopped along behind Thaniel, while Miss Cupcakes trailed Geraldine, though she kept a wary eye on the rabbit as she did so.

  When they reached the kitchen door, Thaniel started toward it, but Geraldine laughed nervously and held the door closed. It was unusual enough that it was closed at all, since Cook liked fresh air during the day as long as the weather was nice, but Geraldine was definitely acting oddly now.

  “Oh, ha ha!” Geraldine said with blatant insincerity. “Cook said he was making souffles today, and you know how they are. They’ll fall flat with the slightest breeze or sound. Ha ha ha! I’ll just take in these dishes and then we can, um, go in through the front door.”

  Thaniel was looking very nervous himself by now, but he remained obediently still while Geraldine slipped inside. Miss Cupcakes yowled angrily when the door closed in her fuzzy face, leaving her outside with Thaniel and Pandy. She gave Pandy a nasty look, as if this sudden separation from her mistress was entirely the rabbit’s fault, but Geraldine was back before the kitten could do anything about it.

  Somehow, in the minute the girl was gone, she found a frilly apron which perfectly matched her equally frilly orange dress. Her hair had been smoothed down, and a few sprigs of baby’s breath had been tucked in among the curls. The smudge of jam that had decorated the side of her jaw was gone as well. It was clear that someone had been waiting for her inside, and now she held out a jacket for Thaniel, silently urging him to put it on.

  “I’m not cold,” Thaniel said, and Pandy recognized the signs of imminent stubbornness creeping in around the set of his mouth and the vee between his brows. The boy was rarely obvious about his tendency toward willfulness, but he didn’t like being told what to do without any explanation. Even Cassie had eventually realized that it was easier to just talk to her young charge than try to make him do something when he didn’t have a reason to do it.

  Pandy laid a paw on Thaniel’s calf, just above his tall white sock, and when he looked down at her, she shivered slightly. Instantly, he melted, leaning down to scoop her into his arms. He took the jacket from Geraldine, who looked deeply relieved, and put it on just so he could cover Pandy with the warm blue fabric. It neatly covered the smudges of dirt on his britches, as well as the snags in his shirt, and Geraldine fussed with his hair for a moment, tugging out leaves and small twigs until he looked as presentable as possible after having spent the last hour in a thicket.

  Catching hold of Thaniel’s free hand, Geraldine said, “Let’s go!” and tugged him after her, stumbling over his own feet as they rounded the building to the front steps.