I have every intension of obeying him as I dart around, gathering my clothes, dressing in a hurry, throwing on my favourite mauve silk gown.
Dressed. Ready. Cloaked.
I freeze. I stare at his closed washroom door but feel as if I cannot wait. Or perhaps, I don’t want to. Through this long pause, something tugs at me. To make my way to her. To be there for her.
Swallowing, I push through the bedroom door and rush past Kong and a Guard.
“Aster!” I hear Rome roar.
Needing to get to Ana, I sprint from the royal wing, down the paths and around the gardens, Odio coasting above me, his shadow a dark patch below my tread.
Inside, my nerves flutter.
That feeling heightens the moment I enter the Silk Girl Ward and see Daisy, Blossom, their Watchers, and Paisley with their hands pressed to a window, peering in.
I pace over.
Through the glass, Ana is lying awake on a high trundle bed, looking both exposed and brave, while a woman in white stitches a smile-shaped wound in her abdomen. Ana nervously chews on her lip but does not appear to be in any pain as she peers past the woman, desperate to find something.
I whip my gaze around the room. It is full of machines, bright lights, but still unsettlingly stark. A woman in coral colours—a Trade nurse—fusses around Ana, and a man in white holds a bundle of— My mouth drops open. A baby. He holds a lovely, tiny baby swaddled in a purple cloth.
I press my palms to the glass that divides us, feeling the floor under my feet shift. My heart twists, but I am unsure what emotion is causing this tight anguish. Happiness? Am I not utterly happy? What do I feel? There is something else, something I cannot identify. Something with a heavy, haunting presence.
What is it?
“Is she well?” I breathe.
“They both are,” Daisy answers.
A tear slides down my cheek as the doctor places the babe in Ana’s outstretched arms before moving to approve the stitches in her abdomen.
“Would the Silk Girls like to come inside and say a quick hello to the new baby boy?” A nurse is leaning through the door beside the viewing window, looking at us.
“Oh, yes, please,” Daisy answers.
And we waste no time at all, flocking into the room and surrounding Ana and her baby. My skin prickles as the cooler air wraps around me. It smells like fresh skin, blood, and lemons, but somehow, their mingling scent is pleasant.
“Look at you,” Blossom coos softly, touching the babe’s flushing cheeks.
“He is divine,” Daisy gushes. “You have Meaningful Purpose, Ana. You did it.”
The tight feeling has followed me into this room, a dark phantom with no name. It coils itself around me as I reach out and run my fingertip down the inside of a chubby pink palm.
So soft.
Like a pillow.
“He is everything,” Ana says, her eyes flooding with awe, her smile filling with tears.
I want to speak but cannot find the words. Why don’t I have words for you, little one?
Then I see them.
Then I know why.
My eyes pan across as Rome—my Rome, my king—and Master Cairo enter the room, sending ice through my spine, provoking my hand to cradle the swelling at my abdomen. The phantom at my back hisses in my ear, ‘For The Cradle, I shall adore all its children equally and with quiet humility. I have no claim over what I provide for The Cradle.’
Daisy’s smile falls.
Blossom’s chin trembles.
I find a word. “No.”
No. No. Not now.
The baby is scooped from Ana’s arms by one of the women in coral and set into Master Cairo’s.
I look at Ana’s face.
I read in a book that we have over two billion muscle cells in our heart. I didn’t think it was possible to see them, but it is, because I just saw all two billion cells in Ana’s heart break.
“I know what The Crust is now,” Ana mutters as her newborn is taken away, her voice vibrating and hollow. “The Crust is a place with a baby that you can keep.”
And I know the name of the haunting emotion… The one twisting me, squeezing my heart and wringing it dry. It is grief.
Chapter Nine
Aster
None of us can talk.
There is nothing to say.
Blossom has no optimism to share, and Daisy has no strength to ground us with rationale. I have no stories, no puzzle metaphors, or folktales.
And Ana…
She has nothing.
We watch with helpless eyes as the room clears, doctors and nurses, Rome and Master Cairo with the baby, leaving us alone with her empty arms and hollow expression.
Without a word, Ana twists her face toward the wall. With all two billion of her heart cells broken, I don’t think she has enough pulse left for anything.
I reach out my hand, desperate to comfort her, to touch her dark hair, and tell her it will all be okay, but I stop. It won’t. I retract my hand. It’s not enough. It is unbearably inadequate.
Unable to stay and remain calm, I walk from the Silk Girl Wing with my head down, the breeze stirring silence around me until I hear two men talking.
Rome…
How could he?
What did I expect?
I knew it would happen. Was warned. Prepared, even. But nothing could have prepared me for that level of… vulnerability. We cannot object, rally together or even mourn.
How do you mourn something that was never yours?
The ache is profound. And even though we are not meant to feel it, it is bottomless.
I follow the building until I get to the edge, listening to the private conversation as it takes place just around the corner.
“Was that necessary?”
I almost collapse under his rough tone, but my spine finds strength in the limestone wall, needing it to hold me upright as Rome speaks with such deep, dark apathy.
“Sire. This is the great problem with removing boundaries. One’s place in The Cradle becomes confusing.” I hear Master Cairo’s sigh. “The girls will move on. I assure you. They will focus on their Purpose.”
His voice drops, hinting at anger. “You could have waited until the other Silk Girls left the room.”
“And protect them from reality? This is life. The babe needs to bond with the Sired Mother as soon as possible. A young Silk Girl can barely care for itself. They are spoiled and have leisure—luxuries. Fed. Bathed. Dressed. A Sired Mother is a mature, highly skilled caregiver. This is what is best for the child. When the Silk Girls finish producing, they will have matured and be ready to take on the important task of raising the children of The Cradle.”
I cannot listen anymore.
Strolling away, I head straight for the garden with the rose fields. The one that holds my first memory here in The Estate. When Meaningful Purpose was all I wanted. How has four months changed my desires so drastically?
I beg for the ignorance back. For the bliss of small pleasures, chocolate, reading, and birds. How I wish for the mysteries of love, not this… Not the reality of love. Love creates falsities—expectations that cannot be met. Love betrays.
It is painful and… unkind.
I sit on a disarrayed patch of grass between barricading rose bushes, long arms twist and creep from the trunks. I nestle between them. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I hold on as tears race down each cheek, leaving tracks of salty residue that cling and tighten the skin.