Elara was on her knees in the feverfew when I found her, with her sleeves pushed up past the elbow and soil to the wrist.
The Astoria healing gardens ran down the south side of the estate in long, orderly beds, held in a permanent warded spring while the rest of the grounds lay under January frost, each one labelled in small brass plates in her father's careful hand—Feverfew. Comfrey. Silverleaf. Mourner's Balm. At this hour the dew hadn't burned off yet, and every leaf in the place was beaded with it, and the whole garden smelled green and bitter and clean, like the inside of a physician's satchel.
She was wearing a pale blue dress that she had very obviously not chosen with gardening in mind. Her brown hair was tied back with what looked like a strip of bandage. She didn't look up when my footsteps crunched on the gravel.
"Grandmaster," she said. Then, after a pause, as if correcting a small error in a prescription: "Arthur."
