I watch Pace shrink away from the warmth of my home—my people, my family—and it doesn’t just make me sad. It scares the crap out of me. The thought of raising our son in all that stiff coldness is galling. It becomes a mission then, the thought of making the palace into a home blooming outward in my mind just as delicate and thorny as the roses in its garden. Maybe it’s impossible. Perhaps all the grand rooms and dark nooks of the palace are too obstinate and haunted to shed any warmth into. But now that its halls are free of Rufus Ashby, I resolve to try.
