Lord Xu returns the next morning with flowers, which is somehow worse than everything from yesterday combined, because flowers mean he’s not just charmed, he’s committed.
“For you,” he announces, presenting a bouquet of something bright and expensive that clearly did not grow anywhere near this palace, let alone in my compost-adjacent excuse for a garden.
“I thought, given your fondness for plants, you might appreciate something a little more decorative than what you’re currently cultivating.”
I stare at the flowers.
I stare at him.
Somewhere behind me, I hear Mei make the exact strangled noise she’s been making all week whenever this man opens his mouth.
“They’re very nice,” I say, because they are, objectively, very nice flowers, and I refuse to let my personal crisis make me rude about horticulture.
“Lord Xu, might I ask, has anyone officially informed you that this match is still under consideration?
Not confirmed?”
“Oh, I intend to petition formally today,” he says, beaming, entirely unbothered by the concept of consent as a factor in any of this.
“I’ve already spoken with my steward about the arrangements.
I find it best not to delay these things once one’s mind is made up.”
“How efficient of you.”
“I try.”
He leaves shortly after, presumably to go be efficient at more paperwork, and the second the gate swings shut behind him I turn to Mei with the specific, focused panic of a woman who has run out of gross dinner tricks.
“We need an actual plan,” I say.
“Not a bit.
A real, functional, this-man-cannot-marry-me plan.”
“I could poison the tea,” Mei offers, entirely too casually for someone who spent the last week helping me serve unappetizing food, not attempted murder.
“We are not poisoning anyone, Mei.”
“Just a little.
Nothing fatal.
Just enough to make him rethink his priorities.”
“Absolutely not, and also I need you to never say that out loud again where anyone official might hear it.” I pace the length of the garden, the same nervous track I’ve worn into the dirt over the last two days, and force myself to think clearly instead of just panicking in increasingly creative directions.
“Okay.
New approach.
We stop trying to make me unappealing, since that’s apparently backfiring spectacularly, and we find something real.
A reason nobody can argue with.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet.
That’s the problem.”
Casimir shows up that evening looking like a man who has spent the entire day losing an argument with himself, which, given last night’s conversation, is probably exactly what happened.
“I looked into him,” he says, without preamble, dropping onto the crate that’s become unofficially his over the past few weeks.
“Lord Xu.
His estate, his family, his finances.”
“And?” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“And it’s mostly unremarkable.
Minor holdings, modest income, nothing that explains why he’s suddenly so eager to marry a disgraced empress with no dowry and no political value left.” He frowns at this, turning it over.
“Which is itself slightly suspicious.
Men like him don’t usually reach upward without a reason.”
“Maybe he genuinely likes weed tea.”
“Nobody genuinely likes weed tea, Wren.”
“Fair.” I sit down beside him, close enough that our shoulders brush, and pretend the small, warm jolt that goes through me at the contact is nothing at all.
“So if it’s not genuine affection for my personality, what is it?”
“I don’t know yet.
But I intend to find out.” Something tight works behind his jaw again, the same restraint I watched him fight last night, and this time I decide I’m done letting it sit there unspoken.
“Casimir.”
“Yes?”
“You could just tell your brother you don’t want this match to happen.
You’re his brother.
You clearly have some influence.
Why haven’t you used it?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, staring at the garden instead of at me, and when he finally answers his voice has gone low and careful in the way it does when he’s about to say something that costs him.
“Because if I intervene,” he says, “I reveal exactly how much this matters to me.
And once that’s known, it becomes a weapon.
Against you, against the investigation, against anything I might want for myself that isn’t in service of the crown.” He exhales, slow.
“I’ve spent my whole life keeping what matters to me hidden, because anything visible gets used.
I don’t know how to stop doing that just because I want to.”
“So instead you’re going to sit here and watch me get married off to a man who thinks weed tea is delicious, because protecting your feelings from being used against you matters more than actually doing something about it?”
It comes out sharper than I mean it to, and I watch it land, watch something flicker across his face that’s part hurt, part surprised, like he wasn’t expecting me to call it out this directly.
“That’s not fair,” he says.
“Maybe not.
But it’s honest, and you’ve been dancing around honest with me since the day I cut you out of that rope trap.” I turn to face him properly, done letting this simmer unspoken under jokes and interruptions.
“I’m not asking you to declare anything to the whole court, Casimir.
I’m asking you to actually tell me what you want, instead of just standing there being tightly wound about it while a man brings me flowers.”
He looks at me for a long moment, something raw working behind the careful composure, and when he finally speaks, the words come out slower, more deliberate, like he’s choosing each one with real care.
“I don’t want you married to Lord Xu,” he says.
“I don’t want you married to anyone the crown finds convenient to hand you off to.
I want—” He stops, jaw working, and I watch him force the rest of it out anyway, like it costs him something real to say it plainly instead of hiding it in careful, deniable language.
“I want the chance to find out what this is, between us, without a political marriage cutting it off before either of us has decided what to do about it.”
The garden goes very quiet.
Even the chickens seem to have picked up on the moment and gone politely silent for once.
“Okay,” I say, quieter now, something warm settling low in my chest.
“That’s honest. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Thank you for that.”
“You’re not going to make a joke.”
“Not this time.” I reach over, lacing my fingers through his, and he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t go careful and guarded the way he usually does when something gets too real too fast.
“But we still need an actual plan, because feelings don’t stop a marriage petition, and I’d rather solve this with strategy than desperation.”
“Agreed.” He squeezes my hand once, brief and grounding, before letting the practical part of his brain take back over, which I’ve come to recognize as one of his more endearing qualities, the way he can hold something tender and something tactical at the same time without dropping either.
“I’ll keep digging into Lord Xu’s finances.
There’s usually a reason a minor lord reaches for something this far above his station, and I intend to find it before his petition reaches my brother’s desk.”
The reason, as it turns out, doesn’t take long to surface.
Tan brings it two days later, delivered along with his usual basket of scallions, looking entirely too pleased with himself for a man who spends most of his time being nervous.
“Lord Xu’s family owes a significant debt,” he reports.
“To a moneylender with close ties to the Dowager Consort’s household.
Word around the kitchens is the debt gets forgiven if the marriage goes through.
Apparently someone very influential wants him married into this specific family, disgraced or not.”
I feel the pieces click together, cold and clear.
“The Dowager wants me married off,” I say slowly, “not just to get rid of me quietly, but specifically to Lord Xu, because it puts someone she can control in a position close enough to keep watching me.”
“That would explain his…
enthusiasm,” Casimir says grimly, arriving in time to catch the tail end of the report.
“He’s not chasing affection.
He’s chasing debt relief, on behalf of people with a very specific interest in keeping you contained.”
“Well, that’s certainly less flattering than I was hoping for, but at least now we’ve got something real to work with.” I think it through, turning the new information over the way I’d turn over a suspicious mushroom, checking every angle before deciding whether it’s safe to use.
“If we can prove the debt forgiveness is tied to the match, that’s not romance, that’s bribery.
Nobody wants their name attached to an obviously bought marriage, not even a minor lord desperate enough to accept one.”
“It would also embarrass the Dowager, if handled carefully,” Casimir adds.
“Enough to make her reconsider pushing the match publicly, without ever revealing we know why she wanted it.”
“Face saving for everyone except her.
I like it.” I grin, feeling the specific, sharp satisfaction of a plan finally coming together instead of just flailing at problems as they land.
“So we don’t refuse the match outright.
We just make sure the right people quietly learn exactly why Lord Xu’s so eager, and let his own ambition talk him out of it before it ever reaches a formal petition.”
It takes exactly four days for the plan to work.
A carefully placed rumor here, a quiet word from Tan’s kitchen contacts there, and by the end of the week Lord Xu withdraws his interest entirely, citing vague, unconvincing reasons about family obligations elsewhere, clearly unwilling to have his debt forgiveness scheme dragged into daylight.
I watch him leave the palace grounds from my garden, flowers unclaimed and wilting on the table where he left them, and feel something loosen in my chest that’s been tight for the better part of a week.
“We did it,” Mei says, delighted, watching the gate swing shut behind him for the last time.
“We did it,” I agree, and glance over at Casimir, who’s watching me with an expression that’s stopped bothering to hide how relieved he is, warm and unguarded in a way that still catches me off guard every time I see it.
The threat’s passed, for now.
The Dowager’s move failed, quietly, without ever revealing we saw through it.
But the conversation from two nights ago is still sitting there between us, honest and unresolved, and as the evening light goes gold over the garden, I have the distinct, warm feeling that this particular chapter of my very strange second life is only just getting started.