The blue roses had not withered in years.
Winter buried them beneath snow. Summer scorched the gardens. Storms tore branches from ancient trees and shattered statues older than kingdoms. The blue roses remained.
Every spring they bloomed again.
Every year someone attempted to replace them.
And every year they failed.
The most memorable attempt had involved a young palace gardener who suggested white roses would be more appropriate around a memorial.
The following morning every white flower in the palace had turned blue.
The gardener resigned before breakfast.
No one had questioned the roses since.
Arthur couldn't blame them.
He occasionally questioned the roses himself.
The garden sat behind the western wing of Reinstle Manor, hidden behind pale stone walls and old trees. It was not particularly large, nor especially impressive by noble standards. Yet nobody visited it unless absolutely necessary.
The servants avoided it.
The gardeners avoided it.
Even guests eventually learned to avoid it. Not because it was dangerous. Because it was private.
And some grief became sacred if left undisturbed long enough.
At the centre of the garden stood a statue.
Arthur stood before it.
The marble figure smiled exactly the way she always had.
Warm.
Patient.
Amused.
As though she knew something everyone else didn't.
Arthur hated that smile.
Not because there was anything wrong with it.
Because he couldn't remember it properly anymore.
Twenty-four years was a very long time.
He removed a blue rose from inside his coat and placed it beside the others gathered at the base of the statue.
"Happy birthday."
The words felt absurd.
Birthdays belonged to the living.
Cake.
Presents.
And questionable decisions.
His mother had avoided all four for years now.
Arthur looked up at her.
"You remain surprisingly difficult to shop for."
The statue offered no response.
Which, admittedly, was rude.
Arthur brushed a fallen petal from the stone base and stood quietly for a moment longer.
The garden was one of the few places where nobody expected anything from him.
Some days, that felt like a blessing.
Outside the garden, Reinstle celebrated.
Music drifted faintly from the city below the manor. Bells rang from distant temples. Fireworks painted silver scars across the sky.
The Blue Moon had not yet risen.
That fact had done absolutely nothing to reduce anyone's enthusiasm.
Apparently, anticipation was enough reason for celebration.
From the terrace overlooking the city, Arthur could see lanterns drifting above the rooftops. Children raced through crowded streets wearing paper crowns painted silver and blue. Merchants shouted over one another while selling Blue Moon pastries, Blue Moon wine, Blue Moon scarves, Blue Moon candles and, according to one report Arthur had received earlier that morning, bottles of ordinary pond water being marketed as Lunar Tears.
Arthur had specifically ordered the city guard not to arrest that merchant. Anyone foolish enough to purchase moon water deserved the experience.
Most of the people celebrating below had never met him. Which was precisely how Arthur preferred it.
The citizens of Reinstle knew their Duke existed. They knew he lived somewhere within the manor.
They knew taxes occasionally appeared and roads somehow got built. Anything beyond that quickly dissolved into rumour.
Some believed their Duke was an old scholar who never left his library. Others claimed he spent his days studying forbidden magic beneath the manor.
A fisherman once insisted Arthur had married a sea serpent. Arthur still wasn't entirely sure how that rumor started.
The truth disappointed most people. Reality often did.
A faint rustling came from somewhere behind him. The sound was familiar, accompanied by the unmistakable sensation that something was attempting to be stealthy and failing spectacularly at it.
Arthur didn't bother turning.
The rustling continued and then increased.
Arthur sighed.
"If you are attempting stealth," he said calmly, "you should know the bush is losing."
The rustling stopped immediately.
A pair of golden eyes appeared between the leaves.
Then came a grey head, two flattened ears, and the deeply offended expression of a creature whose brilliant ambush had been ruined by narrow-minded criticism.
Cheshire forced his way through the hedge. He emerged with a twig caught in his fur and three blue petals resting on his head like an undignified crown.
He was the size of a well-fed house cat, provided the house cat had eaten another house cat shortly before being measured. His coat was thick and silver-grey, his tail absurdly long, and his roundness deceptive. Beneath his soft appearance lived a celestial beast capable of outrunning horses, shattering stone, and emptying a royal kitchen without alerting a single cook.
The last talent was the one he practised most diligently.
"I was not attempting stealth," Cheshire said. "I was making an entrance."
"You entered through a shrub."
"A deliberate creative choice."
"You have leaves in your whiskers."
"Decoration."
Arthur reached down and removed the twig from his head.
Cheshire glanced at the flower beside the statue.
"You brought her a blue rose again."
"I can see that nothing escapes your legendary powers of observation."
"It is the same gift every year."
"She has not complained."
"She is made of stone."
"You have complained, and yet I continue to keep you."
Cheshire considered this.
"That is because I provide emotional stability."
"You provide fur on all my furniture."
"A small price for emotional stability."
Arthur walked toward the nearest stone bench. Cheshire followed, his tail raised with confidence.
The bench faced the memorial. Arthur sat at one end.
Cheshire leapt onto the other and immediately occupied most of it.
Arthur looked down at him.
"You have your own cushion in my chambers."
"That cushion lacks atmosphere."
"It is made from cloud silk."
"I require emotional atmosphere."
"You slept in a laundry basket yesterday."
"The basket understood me."
Arthur turned his attention toward the city.
Another firework climbed above the walls. It burst into the shape of a crescent moon, shivered in the sky, and transformed accidentally into something resembling a bent spoon.
The people cheered anyway.
For several moments they sat in companionable silence.
Finally, Cheshire spoke.
"Vladis sent me."
"Of course he did."
"He says you're expected at the celebration."
"I am not."
"He says you promised."
"I said I would consider it."
"In ordinary language that means perhaps."
"In my language that means no."
"Your language is unpopular."
"One of its better qualities."
Cheshire followed Arthur's gaze toward the city. His expression softened, though his voice remained light.
"There is food."
"There is always food."
"Free food."
"I own the palace."
"Food tastes better when someone else believes they are paying for it."
Arthur leaned back against the bench.
The celebration had been planned for months. Foreign dignitaries filled the manor with gifts, proposals, and carefully disguised demands.
There would be hundreds of people in the hall
Hundreds of smiles.
Hundreds of ambitions hidden beneath silk and jewels.
Arthur had no desire to meet any of them
Not one of them would speak to him without wanting something.
The statue wanted nothing.
The roses asked for nothing.
The silence had no expectations.
"I think I shall remain here and remember the day we first met."
"I was young."
"You were older than most legends and yet somehow less wise."
"You looked edible."
"I was five."
"You were very small."
Arthur looked at him.
Cheshire cleared his throat.
"I have matured."
"You stole seven trout yesterday."
"Six."
"The cook counted seven."
"The cook lacks imagination."
For the briefest moment Arthur smiled but the cat just groaned.
Attachment only created suffering.
Arthur had learned that lesson early.
Life had made sure he never forgot it.
It was easier to tolerate a creature who could make affection look like an argument.
The music from the city shifted into a livelier tune. Arthur watched a line of lanterns rise into the sky, each carrying a written wish. Wealth. Health. Marriage. Children. Victory. Forgiveness.
Humans placed an astonishing amount of faith in heavens.
Perhaps because the heavens never answered.
"If the heavens offered you one blessing," the cat continued, "what would you request?"
"Peace."
The cat blinked.
"Unexpectedly noble."
"Peace from this conversation."
Cheshire's tail struck the bench.
"I am sincerely attempting to understand your."
"You would have better luck with the laundry basket."
"I understand the basket already. It wants socks."
Arthur looked towards his mother's statue.
"What would you wish for?"
Cheshire answered instantly.
"An immortal fish."
"A fish that lives forever?"
"A fish that replaces whatever portion is eaten."
"That is horrifying."
"That is efficient."
"You were born with the soul of a tyrant."
"And the face of an angel."
Arthur groaned.
The cat looked proud.
"The face of a criminal caught in a pantry."
Cheshire opened his mouth to continue.
Then stopped.
Arthur felt it too.
A strange pressure settled over.
The wind disappeared.
The garden fell silent.
Slowly both of them looked toward the horizon.
A blue light appeared beyond the distant mountains.
Fireworks ceased.
Music faded.
Conversations stopped.
Reinstle watched.
The Blue Moon was rising.
It emerged slowly from the darkness.
Enormous.
Beautiful.
Impossible.
Blue fire shifted beneath its surface like currents beneath frozen water.
For a brief moment the entire city stood still.
Arthur stared upward.
Something about the sight felt familiar.
Not the moon itself.
The feeling.
Like standing on the edge of a memory.
His hand drifted unconsciously toward the silver bracelet around his wrist.
His mother's bracelet.
One of the last things she had ever given him.
A memory surfaced.
A little girl crying as rain battered the windows. His mother's voice echoed somewhere nearby. A door slammed deep within the manor, followed by blood.
Too much blood.
A white dress-stained crimson.
Then-
Gone.
Arthur froze.
His pulse quickened.
That wasn't a memory.
Not entirely.
For twenty-four years there had been nothing. No visions, no glimpses of tomorrow, no fragments of fate. Nothing.
His gift had vanished the same night his mother died.
Or so he had believed.
Beside him, Cheshire frowned.
"Arthur?"
Arthur barely heard him.
The fragment had lasted less than a heartbeat. A hand reaching out. A girl's laughter. A voice he couldn't quite hear.
Nothing more.
Yet it had been enough.
Enough to make his heart race.
Enough to make old fears stir.
Enough to remind him that the impossible had once been part of his life.
Slowly, Arthur lifted his gaze toward the Blue Moon. Its pale sapphire light washed across the city, across the manor, and across the sea of blue roses surrounding his mother's grave.
For twenty-four years, the future had been silent.
Tonight, for the first time since his mother's death, it had spoken again.
Arthur had no idea what it meant.
And for the first time in a very long time, that frightened him.