Excerpt: Plain Flowers

Millie had left both the sword and her sketchbook behind. The rest of the party seemed to feel that I was the one that should take care of these possessions now, because I woke up one morning discovering a few things. The first thing was that I could see clearly; the edges of my vision were no longer blurry. Secondly, my head felt less like a crushed rock and more like a slightly cracked stone. All in all, that was an improvement! I moved gingerly to a sitting position. The sketchbook was next to my cotton bag. One hopeful moment I thought that Millie had returned. Then I saw the sword too, with the Potato Fairy bopping around it.
‘Meh,’ I said. My voice was croaky. With both hands I rubbed my face. It hurt less than three days ago, but I still felt the damage: bruises and cuts; some that would heal, others, as Ladybug had told me, which would remain forever as scars. No one carried a mirror about. I didn’t think I would want to gaze at my own reflection anyway.
Merope wandered over to me, noticing my sitting position.
‘You feel better,’ he said. It was a statement. I nodded, glancing in the direction of the Rough Rebels. When I had just been attacked, they had swallowed their enmity to some degree; enough, at least, to make sure I wouldn’t die. I knew that the problems weren’t over with that. Millie and I had lied to them; so much, in fact, that I wondered if the group of freedom fighters had only taken care of me now in order to personally kill us later on.
Merope must have noticed my uneasy looks, for his mouth shaped into a bitter line. ‘I warned you before not to play with fire.’
‘You did,’ I groaned. ‘I should’ve listened to you, your majesty.’
He sniffed and sat back on his heels to observe me. ‘Can you walk again?’
‘I think so. Has Millie…?’
His eyes travelled to the items on the ground next to me. ‘I found the book when I tried to retrace her tracks,’ Merope said softly. ‘The sword was a few metres ahead, stuck in a thorn bush.’
‘But Millie?’
He sighed. ‘There’s no trace of her, Daffodil. She hasn’t come back and we haven’t seen or heard anything of the bloodhounds.’
I buried my face in my hands again. This time it was not to feel how much the dogs had left of me, but out of embarrassment. ‘If they’ve killed her, it will be my fault.’
He said nothing to this. We both knew that the hounds had not been my idea, but since I had taken Millie a-questing, what difference did it make?
‘You must eat something.’
I glanced at him through my fingers. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t ripped open your throat yet.’
Merope’s face had a haughty, cynical expression. ‘They don’t have the guts,’ he said. ‘Not here. Not in this place. You remember what happened last time.’
‘The Potato Fairy turned his sword into a vegetable patch,’ I remembered. Somehow, the memory seemed distant, as if it had happened a year ago and not only a few days.
‘Pretty, wasn’t it?’ He put a handful of berries and nuts on the cloth of the cotton bag. ‘Now eat. We need to make some decisions and I’d like to have you involved.’