Chapter 17. She Had Laughed. She Had Smiled

ROSETTE

“There’s a greenhouse,” Kross said, no longer looking at me but at the wall behind me, a faraway look in his eyes. “Just behind the mansion. It was once a place of beauty but it’s now overcome by weeds and the like. That’s your job. Revive the garden.”

I know nothing about gardening—I don’t even know how to hold a trowel—but that is what the internet and books are for.

I nodded, though I was just nodding to myself because he wasn’t still looking at me. I stared at him, looking at him from a fresh view. He didn’t seem so cold right now. It seems all his walls have been dropped. Maybe it was because he was tired, but it made me see him with fresh eyes.

He wasn’t a machine; he felt things. And right now I couldn’t decipher what he was feeling, but I could still see the sadness.

“The greenhouse meant something to you, didn’t it?” I asked softly.

He worked his jaw, as if he hadn’t wanted to be caught showing emotions like a human, turning to fa