Honeysuckles heart was beating painfully against her ribs. Lost for words, she gazed up into Hellebores dark eyes. He gracefully inclined his head. "So I see you recognize me."
"But...", Honeysuckle stammered, "you... how do you know?"
The lord slowly drew nearer to her bed, his long black cloak hissing as it swept across the floor. He reached out and touched Honeysuckles sweaty forehead with an unexpected gentleness. "Your dreams, my Lily", he murmured, to Honeysuckles surprise calling her by her second name which she had got as a memento of her late mother, "your dreams have been calling out to me for all these years."
"Then why have you waited so long to come to me?" Honeysuckle inquired, "why didn't you ask for my hand before Pothos did?"
Lord Hellebores face betrayed the slightest hint of a sad smile. "My clever Lily, your mind is as sharp as a Rose's thorn, but still you don't know as much about the way of the world as I do. Please be content when I tell you that our fates have decided it had to come to this."
Instinctively, Honeysuckle fought against being lulled by Lord Hellebores alluring voice. "So, now it has come to this, how do you plan to get me out of here?" she demanded to know, with "here" embracing her father, her fianc� and her apparently incurable illness.
Again the lord bowed his head majestically. "As for your ailment - I told you already that I can cure you. As for your family commitments..." With a rustling of his silken clothes Lord Hellebore sat on Honeysuckles bed, bent down to her and asked in a conspirative whisper:"Have you ever had the thought that it is your life that makes you sick? That if you could quit it, your father, young Wormwood, everything - that you would be healthy again? Healthy and free?"
Honeysuckle gasped in shock as Lord Hellebores hand slipped under her blanket like a pale snake. He found her cold fingers and gripped them tightly, all the while looking deep into her eyes. "Come with me, my Lily", he whispered seductively. "Leave your life behind, leave your sickness behind, your pains and sorrows. Come with me and be my Lily, free and pure."
The lord had gently untangled Honeysuckles hands from her blanket, lifted them to his lips and kissed them, softly and sweetly like a drop of morning dew on a flower's petals. Honeysuckle felt dizzy. The little girl in her wanted to throw her arms around her knight, wanted him to carry her out of her sunforsaken valley. She wanted to leave the shadows, to see the sunlight and bloom again.
"Yes, I want to be free", she admitted, and her voice was coarse. "Yet what freedom can you offer me? You know that Pothos, simple as he may be, is proud. He would let neither you nor me get away with this. He would chase after us, and so would my father."
A sudden warmth flooded through Honeysuckles weakened body, and she felt a nearly forgotten strength. Her eyes swept over to the window, her mind travelling beyond the curtains into the snow-capped hills, soaring up into the blindingly blue sky. "You promise me a life in flight, a prison that is worse than any illness, any engagement, any family tie."
Honeysuckle halted for a moment before she looked at the lord again. Dumbfounded by his quickness and quietness of movement, she beheld that he was cradling a small vial in his pale hand. "My brave Lily", he murmured, "my brave and wise Lily, you would have surprised me if you had decided any other way than this." Lord Hellebore quickly pressed the vial into Honeysuckles hand. It was made of the same black glass as the vase on her bedside table that had heralded the lord's arrival, and enclosed in its center was a miniature Lily in full bloom that looked as if it was floating in the ruby-red potion contained within the vial. There were a few wet stains on the outside, and Honeysuckle examined the stopper for a leak until she realized that the drops were Lord Hellebores tears.
Again he lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them tenderly. "Still, I have promised you freedom and loss of pain, and this promise I will keep." He motioned to the red potion. "Drink this, and your pain and illness will be but a memory. Drink the Lily's Blood, and you will be free."
Without hesitation Honeysuckle uncorked the vial and, smiling happily at her knight, lifted it to her lips.
