Over the next few days, Aurum learned more about gardening than she had ever truly wanted to know. She grew to find it interesting, even reading the books the cottage and Alice kept pushing onto her. Alice would leave them beside her at breakfast, and the cottage would knock books down from the bookshelf whenever she walked by. At first, she much preferred the books that Alice made her read, simply because they were not chosen to insult her. The cottage was clearly mad at her, or just didn’t like her very much – or both, for that matter – because it kept giving her books on manners and ethics and common sense as well as on gardening. It was sneaky though, only insulting Aurum when Alice was distracted, and giving her educational books on gardening and forest ecologies whenever Alice was around.

Alice, for her part, seemed hellbent on teaching Aurum some kind of self-sufficiency, which was insulting in its own way. She had taken it upon herself to split up all household tasks between them, and practically demanded that Aurum help her in the gardens as well. As kind as Aurum had thought her to be, she now found Alice’s hospitality to be somewhat… lacking. The strange woman had a habit of giving instructions in a very blunt, practical way which grated on Aurum’s royal pride more than she cared to admit, and she treated Aurum not as a guest or even a tenant but rather as a full-fledged member of the household, with all the responsibilities that entailed. It was maddening. It also left Aurum with barely any time to consider her larger problems. Like the witch who was threatening the well-being of the entire kingdom.

One morning, about a week after the incident when Alice had gone to town, Aurum was grumbling at the cottage under her breath – it had dropped a book called Social Bonds: Honesty and Dishonesty in Friendship – when it occurred to her that she really should take initiative and look through the bookshelf for something more useful. Something useful for fighting the Witch, that is.

“Alright, you little demon house,” she muttered quietly, taking care not to speak loudly enough for Alice to hear from the kitchen, “you can conjure any book, right? I need help. I need information on memory alteration spells.”

The shutters slammed, and Alice dropped a pan in the kitchen with a clang. “What’s gotten into you?” she scolded, thankfully ignoring Aurum who had nearly jumped out of her skin by the bookshelf.

“Not to use on her! Stupid house. The witch used a memory spell on my family. I need to find out how to undo it so we can all fight her together.”

Silence. Aurum waited, holding her breath. Eventually, grudgingly, a faint breeze ruffled Aurum’s hair, and she smiled. Looking at the shelves again, she saw a set of books that she hadn’t noticed before. Amnesial Magicks and How to Use Them. Mundane and Magical Memory Work. Forgetting: A Guide to Amnesial Spellcrafts. Aurum sighed in relief, and gathered the books, looking surreptitiously over at Alice, who was still cleaning the kitchen. The two of them took turns to cook and clean, and luckily it was Alice’s turn to clean up today. Trying to seem nonchalant, Aurum sneaked into the bedroom and hid the books under the nightstand. She would read them at night so Alice did not notice.

In the room, Aurum stood for a moment, considering the bed. It struck her suddenly that this was Alice’s room, and she had completely taken it over. Alice had been sleeping in the armchair since she had recovered. The realization compounded the guilt she still felt at not telling Alice the truth. It was fortunate that Alice had shown little interest in Aurum’s background so far, making it easy for Aurum to hide the danger she was in by harboring a runaway princess. But Aurum knew it was no excuse. Alice had already been hurt once. As much as Alice was now certain that she needed to stay in this sanctuary in order to have any chance of defeating the witch, lying by omission to someone who was showing an awful lot of care for her was painful. Aurum tried to convince herself it really was for the greater good. She just couldn’t risk Alice deciding the danger was too great until she had some sort of plan to defeat the witch.

The cottage is right about me. Aurum had been taught to always consider the well-being of the public over her own, and over any one person in general. But actually applying this lesson in practice felt wrong.

“Just help me out a little longer, cottage. The sooner I figure out a plan, the sooner your companion will be safe again. And I promise to reward both of you however I can if I survive.” Aurum whispered.

“Aurum! Where are you? It’s time to start on the vegetable plots. If we wait much longer we won’t be able to finish everything before dark.”

Gardening with Alice was an exercise in humility for Aurum. The first reason for this was that the exercise impressed upon her how little she knew. She had long studied the economics of agriculture, and the factors behind major famines in history. But she really knew nothing about how the food she ate was actually grown. The amount of work and care – and frankly, dirt and sweat – that went into it was astonishing to her. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Alice was making it look easier than it really was. Aurum swore she saw a seedling visibly grow as Alice talked to it in an encouraging voice. She had never heard of people manipulating plants with magic, but that was one explanation. Then again, she had never heard of magic houses before, either.

The other reason Aurum found gardening with Alice so humbling was Alice’s habit of speaking to her as though she were a bit dense. It had improved somewhat since they started – as Aurum grew more competent and used to the work, they operated more smoothly together as a team. But it was still not the way the princess was used to being treated.

“I told you, don’t pull the weeds out sideways! Pull the straight up, grasping at the base. Otherwise, you could tear it and leave the roots intact, and it will just grow back,” Alice scolded Aurum, oblivious to a smudge of mud on the side of her nose as she looked over at Aurum from across a row of vegetables. Aurum found it very distracting in her current state, still stressed from her revelations earlier, and just stared back at Alice blankly. Dark eyes flashed with annoyance, and suddenly Alice was crouching in front of Aurum, gesturing at the clump of torn leaves in her hand.

“See? All you did here was rip off the tops. That won’t protect the seedlings.”

Aurum nodded dumbly, noticing suddenly how many pale freckles Alice had across her nose. The mud was covering some. She dropped the leaves and took off one of the gardening gloves.

“What on earth are you doing? You can’t just drop the weeds back on top of –” and Alice cut off suddenly as Aurum reached out and tried to wipe off the dirt from her face. At Alice’s sudden silence, Aurum realized what she was doing and froze. Alice’s wide, confused eyes stared back at her. The pause stretched on, growing unbearably awkward, and all at once Aurum realized she still hadn’t lowered her hand. She did so slowly, looking away, her face hot. She did not notice Alice’s ears tinged with pink as she cleared her throat and grabbed her glove, hurriedly going back to her original task.

“You had –” she started, voice rough. “Ahem. You had dirt on your nose.”

“Oh.”

“So I pull from the base. Okay. Right. Thank you.” Still looking anywhere but at Alice, Aurum gathered the leaves she had dropped and started pulling the remaining weeds properly. She heard Alice get up and move back to what she was doing, seeing her stumble slightly as she walked away.

What was that? Aurum thought to herself, cheeks still burning. Why on earth did I do that?

The rest of the afternoon, Alice seemed to avoid Aurum as they worked, no longer scolding her nearly as much and finding excuses to work on the opposite side of the garden. Aurum grew more and more glum as the day went on. First I show up and steal her bed. Then I get her injured. Now I’m coming onto her at random times. What next? Will I steal something from her? Break something by accident?

She was so distracted, in fact, that she tripped over the bucket filled with water, flooding a patch of lettuce seedlings. The puddle of water was enough to dislodge a few from their still tenuous link to the soil, and they floated, swirling slightly in the still-moving water. Aurum wanted to cry, but Alice came over and calmly, silently started to fix the problem, gently collecting the seedlings and then adding more dry soil before replanting them carefully. She murmured quietly to the little plants as she worked, and Aurum found herself standing by and watching, silent and confused, staring at Alice as she worked much as she had on the first day she had seen Alice gardening.

“It’s alright,” Alice said suddenly, sounding commanding. “Don’t worry about it. And go get more water.”