Caine placed his black feather quill into the ink pot and leaned back to survey his work. His lips lifted into a grimace when he considered what he was doing. 

It wasn't the prospect of getting caught that agitated him. He knew that most, if not all, messenger doves were intercepted now by the King's spies, and their letters searched — if he thought about it that way, his reasoning for hiding his message inside a love letter made sound sense. No spy, including himself, would spend more than a minute skimming through such lovelorn ramblings. (He had taken much inspiration from a particularly besotted young man's letter, though he had diluted the passion of his own sentences to keep his dignity intact.)

It was the prospect of Fia reading it that left him slightly sick. If she ever found out who the mysterious Verona was... Caine shuddered as he rolled the parchment into a tight spiral. He had no intentions of her ever finding out.

A bundle of snapdragons lay wrapped besides his ink pot. If Fia knew of the language of flowers, she would know that snapdragons conveyed deception. And the four perfect stems of lavender buds... an oddly specific number. It barely made a bouquet. Caine wished he did not have to make his message so cryptic, but he knew Fia would note the oddity of the flowers. The strangeness of the number. Four.

Fourth. [This post must be read on desktop!]

@Seraphina

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