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He’d sent her books.
Elain thought it a strange change of strategy at first, until she realized he’d sent books to Feyre as well, tomes on Prythian art history. He’d even sent Nesta a slender copy of a volume on Valkyrie battle strategies. It seemed he had a surplus of books in his new home in the Day Court, where he now resided full time.
Feyre had not given her the details on that particular bout of drama, and Elain had refused to show any interest in the matter, even though it was exactly the sort of gossip she would’ve devoured in her old life. Spite won out against curiosity, but only just.
She’d accepted the books from Feyre without reading the titles and dropped them onto a shelf in her closet–atop the brown jacket whose pockets held enchanted gloves and pearl earrings. Despite her best efforts to glean no information from his latest gifts, she’d not been able to miss the elegant depiction of a butterfly etched into the top book’s cover. That drawing had tickled the dark corner of her mind that wondered about him, wondered what about these particular books had reminded him of her.
He thinks I am simple, she decided, that all I see are pretty flowers, and that I know nothing of their inner workings. He thinks I should learn about butterflies because I don’t know anything about them already.
In the spring, that butterfly resurfaced in her thoughts, when one wholly unlike any she’d seen before floated through her garden. She watched it flit on orange and black wings over rose bushes and between stalks of lavender. It drifted like a leaf on the river, never once landing before it dove behind a hedge and out of sight. Beautiful as Elain’s garden was, it did not offer whatever that butterfly sought, and watching it wander fruitlessly had sent a spear of longing through her chest: longing to provide, to nurture. To be useful in the one domain she was allowed to control.
She hoped the butterfly would return and give her garden another chance; but first, she had to learn what it needed.
That night, Elain peered into her closet. The butterfly book sat on top of The Classification of Soils and A Botanist’s Guide to the Night Court, Volume 1. Carefully, she slid Lepidoptera of the Solar Courts off of the stack.
Thankfully, there were illustrations. She didn’t let herself stop to skim any of the words as she flipped through the pages until she found one that looked promising. The illustrations were not colored, but the black lines and white spots along the wings’ edges matched quite well with what she could recall of her garden visitor. The word Monarch sat in bold script above the illustration, with a descriptive paragraph on the opposite page.
A brush-footed butterfly, orange with black veining, white spots along the edge of the wings, white spots on black body. The black veins on the female will–
Elain blinked and shook her head. She couldn’t read the whole page. That set a dangerous precedent to the book being interesting–it was intolerable enough that it be useful. She instead set to scanning the page for anything about eggs or caterpillars. Luckily, in addition to providing illustrations, the book’s author was also concise.
Host plants are any milkweed varieties native to the solar courts. Females lay eggs on the underside of the milkweed leaf, and larvae feed exclusively on the milkweed until the fifth instar. Larvae prefer to pupate as far from the host plant as possible. Chrysalis is a bright green with gold–
Elain slammed the book shut. She didn’t need to read about the chrysalis. She’d see it for herself. She only needed to find a milkweed plant that was native to the solar courts.
Her gaze drifted to the other books, where A Botanist’s Guide to the Night Court, Volume 1 sat with the silver foiling of its spine shining in the faelights’ glow.
Scowling, Elain stood and placed Lepidoptera of the Solar Courts on her bedside table. As she blew out a long breath, she willed the tension from her shoulders and picked up the other book. Lucien Vanserra could win, just this once. It’s not as though she had to tell him about it.
—
Those varieties of milkweed had turned out to be rather difficult to acquire. Her supplier in Velaris had few seeds and even fewer plants available. Elain cleared out their stock, much to the nursery owner’s surprise. Milkweed was highly uncommon in Velaris gardens, being considered, as its name implied, a weed. But he assured her that she’d have no trouble sowing more seeds come autumn.
As soon as she returned to the river house, she put the three plants in the ground. Two specimens had tall, gangly stalks topped by clusters of pink flowers, while the third was smaller with thin leaves and had not yet begun to bloom. Only an hour after planting, Elain was rewarded with the return of her orange-and-black visitor, who floated directly to the leaves beneath the pink blossoms.
Elain’s fae eyes found the eggs right away, dotting the undersides of the leaves like tiny pearls. Every day, sometimes every few hours, she bent over the plants until her hair nestled in the dirt to peer at those little eggs. At last, she ventured out to the garden one morning to find holes in the leaves where the eggs had been, and dozens of larvae the width of her smallest fingernail and half as long.
She tried to focus on other tasks throughout the garden, to stop herself from spending all her time worrying over the caterpillars; but it was summer, and there were only so many deadheads to prune, only so many leaves to sweep from the stone steps. Some days, when the river house was silent and there was nothing left to water, Elain allowed herself to lay on her stomach on the grass, her chin upon her hands, and watch the caterpillars nibble and creep, allowed herself to feel that swell of pride–that these creatures might not have found a home if not for her.
She did not allow herself that faint flutter of affection, stirring in the pit of her stomach, for the one who’d gifted her the knowledge she’d needed. She stamped it down whenever it threatened.
He couldn’t have known about that butterfly whose name she’d wanted to learn. He couldn’t have known how bugs like that made a garden, gave it blood and breath, just as surely as the soil. That they elevated the flowers to a purpose beyond beauty.
He could not have known, she insisted to herself, even on that day she spotted him on the other side of the windows of Feyre’s solarium. He did not look out to the garden even once as he spoke to her sister, but she knew that golden eye of his saw too much. Could it see even down to the fat, wriggling buds of life on the leaves before her?
It didn’t matter. As long as they were bound to the plants she’d planted, these caterpillars were hers alone. She could claim that much, at least.
As much as she could claim anything in this court.
—
Elain glared at the new plant in its makeshift paper pot, two vines adorned with broad, heart-shaped leaves winding around a wooden post.
It was a clever ploy. Gloves and pearls could be stashed away; gardening books, begrudgingly used before they, too, were shoved into the darkest corner of her closet. But a plant was alive, a gift that she could not, in good conscience, condemn to death by neglect.
Worst of all, it was a climbing vine, and damned if Elain hadn’t been looking for something to train on the garden’s eastern fence.
A tag sticking out of the soil read, Wooly Pipevine. A smaller tag, written in a different, elegant script, stated, host plant to swallowtail butterflies.
Elain folded her arms across her chest and huffed out a sharp breath through her nose.
Beside her, Feyre shifted on her feet. “Do you want me to get rid of it?” Ironic, as she’d been the one to accept it, the one who’d let that red-haired menace into this house to begin with.
“That won’t be necessary.” Elain bent to wrap her arms around the paper pot and, without a glance back at her sister, marched outside.
She grumbled to herself on the arrogance of the fae as she paced the length of the fence in search of a suitable spot. She grumbled more as she dug a hole, as she tossed in fertilizer and packed down the dirt with more force than was necessary. And standing back to observe her work, she grumbled still, on the choice of pipevine, of all things.
“They don’t even have pretty flowers!” she pouted to the plant in question.
Yet there it was again, that flutter of delight trapped inside her ribs; much of it came from the simple joy of a job completed, of new life and growing things. But there was that spark, too: warmth that circled her heart and squeezed it tight, etching upon it the words on that little tag, the words of someone who looked just a bit closer.
Two weeks later, a butterfly in shades of velvet midnight with a trail of black-rimmed suns along its wing drifted through her garden. It passed by roses, morning glories, even the pink and white blossoms of the milkweed, ignoring them all to alight upon a leaf of the pipevine.
—
Lucien looked as if he’d been caught in the middle of an attempted robbery–only he’d brought something into the house instead of taking something away. Elain wished she felt vindicated about catching him in the act, but it was a different sort of emotion tangled inside her chest, sending tremors through her limbs.
He’d brought another plant.
Elain kept her face a haughty mask, raising an eyebrow as she asked, “Passionflower?”
Still no vindication came to her, but she did feel a tad smug at how off-guard she’d put him. He inclined his head, looking suitably cowed. “Yes, my lady.”
“Why?” She forced accusation into that word, more than the curiosity that she’d spent so long swallowing, curiosity that had now grown so large she feared she’d choke on it.
Lucien met her gaze at last, and Elain caught a glimpse in his eye of the vulpine predator her sister had warned her about. That gaze held a danger that did not seek to intimidate or overpower, but to analyze. Dangerous in how much that gaze saw. Dangerous in how it did not feel dangerous at all. “I thought you might be looking for more host plants to add to your garden.”
Elain narrowed her eyes. “Are you well versed in the raising of insects, sir?”
He shifted the plant and its pot into the crook of his left arm. He winced as one of the little vines whipped at his cheek. “Not in the slightest.” Though he angled the plant away, the thin, curling tendril still swayed towards his face. Maybe it thought it had found the sun in his gold eye, or the reddish flakes of pine bark in the other.
Elain squared her shoulders and jerked her chin towards the plant. “It’s a host for the solar fritillary.”
He nodded. He did not look surprised. He’d done research on insect larvae and the plants that nourished them, a subject that he admitted little interest in. What led you to this? What did you see? The questions burned down her throat as she swallowed them. Did you look past the rose blossoms and see the thorns, the grubs, the detritus beneath? But it was too much to ask, too soon to hope.
“Fritillaries are rather plain,” she said instead, a half-truth. Fritillaries were a rusty orange with small streaks of black, but if one looked close enough, they would catch the striking white spots on the undersides of their wings. Had Lucien researched enough to learn that much?
But Lucien tilted his head and gave a smirk that somehow wore the guise of a frown. “I did not realize your garden had such a strict dress code, my lady.”
Elain blinked. She’d expected an empty apology. She’d grown used to being placated, to being offered deference that sounded suspiciously condescending. She did not expect a riposte, nor did she expect the smile that tugged at her lips in response. “Are you good with a shovel, my lord?”
It was a relief to see his eyes widen, to know that at least here, with a vine tickling his face, he did not feel the need to wear a mask, to hide his fear and hope. “I’m afraid I am untrained,” he said.
She turned to open the door to the garden. “Well, if you’re such a quick study on butterflies, I’m sure you can learn about planting.”