Ro seemed to have noticed Amira looking at her rose piles. She shifted uncomfortably.
“What are those?” Amira asked.
Ro didn’t reply.
Xylia had instructed them to take cuttings of roses that would be useful for their heist; anything that would make it easier to steal the seed compendium from the palace. And Amira could see a number of such roses in Ro’s collection — especially the ground cover roses, which would provide them with valuable camouflage abilities. But on the edge of the pile was a shiny pink hybrid tea rose that Amira had never seen before. It was so unnaturally bright and vibrant that it looked almost poisonous.
Amira’s brows shot up. “Why have you got that?”
Ro’s face crumpled, and she turned away, the amber glow of the setting sun casting her profile in darkness. A tight coil of fear began to unfurl in Amira’s stomach.
“There is so many hybrid tea rose varieties,” said Ro slowly. Her mouth was working strangely, as though it was difficult for her to fit the words around her tongue. “Some are edible, some are not. It just so happens that I have decided to collect those that are not.”
“Ro,” Amira began. She wanted to stride over to the girl and shake her, to rattle her brains around and hope some answers fell out. “This is a heist, not an assassination.”
When Ro turned to look at her again, something had shifted in her face. Her eyes, once beautifully inviting and readable, now displayed nothing but the glimmer of guilt Amira had seen reflected in Xylia’s gaze barely two days earlier. Amira staggered back, the weight of betrayal ploughing into her.
Ro smiled weakly. “Xylia and I are in agreement that the king has held too much power, for too long,” she said. “You were right, Amira. There’s magic in the seeds, and in the roses. And it’s keeping him alive. Pruning those roses and cutting the king down is the only way to free our people.”