The Impossible Garden of Clara Thorne

by Summer N. England

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Romantic Fantasy; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

Love grows in the most impossible of places in Summer N. England's debut sweet and spicy cozy romantasy for fans of The Spellshop and For Whom the Belle Tolls! 

All gardener Clara Thorne wants is to live "happily ever after" in her beloved town of Moss, magically growing herbs and vegetables and trying to write her book. But Fate has other plans when The Goddess unexpectedly bestows her with an impossible quest. Clara has one month to travel to the cursed and abandoned town of Dwindle and grow them a garden. If she fails, she will be banished.

Only Clara's magic doesn't work outside of Moss, a fact she has kept hidden for years. Worse, the Goddess has assigned the absurdly sexy, annoyingly cheerful Hesper Altanfall to keep her safe. All leather and crossbows, Hesper is as determined to protect Clara as she is full of secrets—but Clara would rather eat thorns than accept help. Nevertheless, the two can't help but grow closer as they make their way across enchanted woods, share one too many tavern beds, and work together to rebuild Dwindle one garden bed at a time.

Clara, however, refuses to give in to their blossoming romance. She’s had one too many losses, and Hesper might the one to break her beyond repair. But if Clara can find the key to opening her heart, she may just unearth the life and love she's always believed to be impossible.  

Release date: April 7, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

The squirrel won the war, and the wench ruined the carrots.

—opening line attempt 1

Will you please move your spiky bum elsewhere?”

Two big, shrewish eyes stared back up at me in reply, not budging an inch.

“I swear to the Goddess, I will toss you outside if you don’t move this instant.” I pointed to the open attic window, a gentle breeze billowing the curtains. Even if I did throw him, the plunge would be harmless. Just a few seconds in the air, then into the rosemary bushes below. Though even with the cottage being over twelve feet high, he didn’t respond to threats.

I took a steadying breath and, in a cloying voice, said, “Warty, my dearest and only companion, will you please remove your body from my inkwell so that I may write this morning?”

He didn’t move. He. Kept. Staring.

The lines I’d written this morning stared back up at me, too. I already despised them.

Most stories end with a happily ever after. But mine? Well, it begins with one.

Who spoke like that? Simply no one. I rubbed at my temples, warding off the headache creeping its way into my skull like unwanted ivy.

Did I feel like I was already living my happily ever after? Indeed, I did. But a book beginning with an ending? That just wouldn’t do.

My second try wasn’t any better.

Most stories end with a happily ever after. But mine? Well, it begins with one.

Fire blazed in the sky. Thousands of murky shadows flew overhead, breathing death into the realm.

I suppose dragons weren’t the worst way to begin a story. But I couldn’t quite imagine how that tale might unfold, considering an ornery hedgehog had crawled into my inkwell and refused to remove himself. Maybe this was his way of telling me to stop trying to write anything exciting and stick to what I knew. The balled-up parchment mountain in the corner of my bedroom might concur with him.

But a gardener has to have something to do that isn’t digging in the earth. My entire life’s work was considered to be other people’s hobby. Thus, I’d taken up writing. Or I would if my hedgehog would stop ruining the morning with his stubbornness.

I braced my hands on both sides of my ancient writing desk, careful to avoid where the wood had begun to splinter, and leaned in close to Warty. Our noses touched; he blinked. The fresh parchment from this morning was now pinned underneath my dress, and I sighed as I remembered the ink had not yet dried. Excellent; another garment irrevocably stained.

Frustration took over, and I prepared myself for a proper squabble, but a loud clunk stopped me in my tracks. I straightened. Warty even gave a small wiggle, sloshing more ink onto the desk and my dress. Did something fall?

I glanced around in search of the culprit. Everything remained in its proper place… as proper as my bedroom could look.

I meticulously cared for my garden, the kitchen constantly shined, but my bedroom held another story altogether. Abandoned yarn in all colors spilled out of my desk drawers, empty water jars sat on the bedside table, dog-eared books lay half-read on the planks of wood I had nailed into the wall as makeshift bookshelves, and the evidence of my brief painting phase was permanently etched onto the cottage walls forevermore. My armoire was only slightly neater, but only because my wardrobe comprised three outfits in total—I hated too many options. Even so, those few articles of clothing were strewn on my desk chair more often than not.

Good thing only Warty and I ever saw it.

Warty and I and whatever made that sound…

Unease laced its way up my spine. No one could be in the cottage. Surely something had fallen, nothing more. Nevertheless, I grabbed a knitting needle and stuffed it into my dress pocket before poking my head upside down through the attic floor’s opening into the room below. The world went topsy-turvy, but no assailant nor monster could be seen.

They wouldn’t have had a place to hide anyhow. There was just a small, simple kitchen and a hearth downstairs.

I was being ridiculous. A monster or murderer in the town of Moss? Simply unheard of. The most nefarious crime here came from not paying your book-lending fines in a timely manner.

I let out an exasperated laugh and pulled my head back into my bedroom just as a rock sailed through my window—a spray of rocks, actually. They clattered all over the room, knocking books off of shelves and tumbling over my empty water jars, a few managing to hit me, too. I yelped, covering my head with my arms.

Warty bolted out of the inkwell and into the parchment mountain; crumpled balls of paper rolled everywhere. I scrambled to my feet, racing to the window, only to duck so as to avoid the next gaggle of rocks.

“Stop it!” I yelled, shielding my eyes from the onslaught of pebbles.

“Clara! You’re up!”

“Yes, of course, I’m up you—” Imbecile squirmed on the tip of my tongue, but I figured I should uncover my eyes before I threw that type of insult around.

Oh, dear Goddess above.

Helda Ninnus.

Imbecile indeed. But still, perhaps, not the best greeting.

What in the hells is wrong with you? was my next thought, seeing as she stood right in the middle of my carrot crop. Eldrene’s requested crop for the Goddess Celebration, no less. And there Helda traipsed, trampling it all to bits. The carrot flies would smell those freshly pressed tops from a mile away. I’d have to sing the poor roots a protection song, though it may do nothing at all at this point with Helda atop them, spreading her bad energies like a plague.

Helda epitomized the phrase “drop-dead gorgeous.” A blonde with impossibly large blue eyes, she was vivacious and always well-dressed, courted only the most renowned of folk, and had a lovely singing voice. Much to my chagrin, her list of attributes could go on forever. Every part of her entranced, though considering she possessed beauty magic, that only made sense.

It was on the rarer end of the lesser magics that could be found in Nestryia. Lesser magics, for the most part, were on the more mundane end, useful for bolstering daily tasks but not flashy. Kitchen magic aided cooking and baking. Garden magic encouraged the growing of things within the earth. The other offshoots worked the same, the only difference being that some folk were stronger than others.

Village bread bakers had kitchen magic, along with gastronomical revelations. You get the picture.

But beauty magic encapsulated something altogether different. Yes, it ensured that the beholder remained utterly irresistible, but it also meant that everything they did appeared soul-wrenchingly well-done. Only appeared, because it had a bad habit of falling apart when no one was looking. I suppose that’s how physical beauty worked anyway—it only mattered when it was being watched. I never understood why people valued it so highly. There are many other qualities that are far more interesting. Like archery, or an impeccable ability to knit without looking, or an impressive collection of buttons. That’s true beauty to me.

Nevertheless, I once saw Helda pick up a lute for the first time and proceed to play one of the most enchanting tunes I’d ever heard in my life. Did I tell her that? Of course not. Instead, my left eye twitched and an unnecessary amount of rage coursed through my body. Sure, the lute eventually fell out of tune the longer she played. Nothing stays beautiful forever. Even still, the show she put on was mesmerizing.

What must it be like for magic to come so easily? I did not begrudge her because of beauty magic. The carrot tops were my main issue.

Besides, here in Moss, we have a secret name for that type of magic—trickster magic. Just because someone appears good at something does not mean that they care. And that’s what was important in this little town I called home. Caring and tending. No one liked Helda, per se, but they still cared for her in the way everyone in Moss cares for each other.

However, Helda Ninnus didn’t care for anything other than herself, which would be fine under normal circumstances. We all had our preferences. I loved to be alone, holed up in my cottage like a dastardly hermit. Only Helda insisted upon breaking my peace, my preferences, thus making her the most infuriating person I’d ever known.

“Did you not hear the first rock?” She looked up at me expectantly.

“Yes, I—”

“I didn’t throw that one in your window. Far too big. It took a huge chunk out of your cottage. Just there!” She giggled and pointed to a large, crumbling divot in the cottage wall. “I hope you aren’t angry! Anyhoo, I have loads of things I need to ask you. Mind if I come in?”

“Helda, I have a lot to do today. Eldrene—”

“Oh, I know!” she said imploringly. “Eldrene is coming tomorrow! My oh my, I am so very excited. Every year I think, ‘Three years will be too long to wait for another Goddess Celebration.’ But then, the three years pass, and poof!”—she snapped her pristine nails—“Eldrene comes again! Another quest is doled out. So very sad that she has to come because of a silly little bit of magic.” Helda pursed her bottom lip in a mock-pouting gesture. “But the party makes it all worth it. For me at least!” She let out a tinkling laugh. The morning birds mimicked the sound; even they couldn’t resist her charms.

Traitors.

Maybe this year Helda would get sent on a quest… and not return. That had only ever happened once, but here’s to hoping.

“Yes,” I said, gripping the edges of my windowsill to maintain composure. “But I really must get to work. I have to harvest the carrots and tulips today, and—”

“And the Crown Jewel Tulip, too. Don’t forget that, you silly girl!” She swayed her shoulders like she danced to music only she could hear. It made me want to gut her where she stood. Her blood would ruin the soil, though.

“I’m well aware.” I breathed deeply, willing patience into my body like I willed life into dying flowers. I failed miserably. My ability to control my anger was about as successful as my relationship with my magic—so, almost nonexistent. But I was trying.

“I just think what you do is so impressive. But it must be stressful for you. And you certainly have had a bit of an attitude these last few months. You are living up to your namesake, Clara Thorne.” She grinned up at me, her impossibly white teeth gleaming in the morning sun. I gave her a tight smile back.

As much as I wished otherwise, Helda—at least in the moment—was not wrong. Being Moss’s Town Gardener and providing the majority of fruits, vegetables, and flowers for the townsfolk already strained my meager garden magic. The Goddess Celebration was a whole other gauntlet. Eldrene had only requested one vegetable this time, mercifully—carrots. And the usual abundance of tulips.

But the Crown Jewel Tulip, her most important requirement, was notoriously testy, requiring very specific preparation—two months of rest beneath the shade of an old oak tree in an enchanted wooden box filled with pine needles, individually plucked by hand, before being serenaded by magic to awaken the bloom.

Of course, I also had to handle special requests from the town’s bakers and cooks: courgettes, herbs of all kinds, flowers for filling up the shoppe windows.

My usual disposition ran grumpy, but prepping for the Goddess Celebration had me frenzied and grumpy. But maybe I could prove Helda wrong today. I could be sweet—or at least whatever was the opposite of grumpy.

“Helda, what do you want?” I forced my tight smile into a wider grin, certain it looked more like a grimace.

“I suppose you insist on staying up there, then?”

I plopped down on the window ledge as an answer.

“Fine then! I need to know the color of the Crown Jewel Tulip so that I can match my dress to it. And my hair. And my nails. And my jewelry, you know. The usual.” She whipped out a small piece of parchment and a travel quill. “So, could you just tell me what the colors will be? I know it’s meant to be a secret, but I figured we were such good friends that you could give me a head start!”

Such good friends? I stifled a scoff. Helda and I were many things—but friends we were not. Besides, she’d been to plenty of Goddess Celebrations at this point. How had she missed the pinnacle of the entire ceremony?

Be sweet, I told myself. Or be not grumpy, you can do it.

“The Crown Jewel Tulip only blooms when Eldrene herself touches it.” I attempted to say it kindly.

“But you have it now, don’t you?”

“Yes, I—”

“What’s the point of you having it if nothing happens until she touches it?”

“It’s not like the tulip is just sitting in the box, Helda. Magic is an intricate thing—sometimes it needs as much of a growing season as everything else.”

She quirked an eyebrow up at me as if in disbelief.

“Is the tulip in there?” She pointed to the plain wooden box sitting under the oak tree. I gave her a curt nod. She pursed her lips together before narrowing her eyes at me.

“Why can’t Eldrene just grow it herself? What makes you so special?” Her sickeningly sweet tone lingered on “special.”

Tight coils wound their way around my heart, and the tenuous hold on my patience ebbed. The only special thing about me was that I ever managed to grow anything at all. Magic and I worked together about as well as Helda and I did.

“The pine needed for the tulip’s rest cannot be found where Eldrene is confined in Moss Wood.” Any warmth in my voice evaporated like the morning dew. “As the Goddess Celebration Gardener, I am able to travel to the Idle Groves, retrieve the needles, and tend to the tulip bulb. She could have chosen anyone. I am not special—just in the right place at the right time.”

Any ole Town Gardener could serve as Celebration Gardener. All the job required was garden magic to tend the Crown Jewel Tulip. Before I showed up, the position of Celebration Gardener rotated around the realm. Folk dreaded the job—granted, it’s a massive undertaking.

I showed up here at thirteen, alone and scraggly clothed, on the same day the former Town Gardener had just announced his sudden resignation—right when it was Moss’s turn to serve as Celebration Gardener. He was on his way to the Golden Isles, and thanks to a well-timed accident, I looked to have both garden magic and a desperate desire to be Town Gardener. Some might call what happened that day Fate, but I called it my ability to keep a tight schedule.

And Moss’s magic, of course. But Helda needn’t know that. No one needed to know that.

“Something you do must be special,” Helda countered. “You take longer to harvest your crops than any other Town Gardener we’ve had. Yet Eldrene always requests you.”

“Some things take time,” I said as I rubbed at my temples, the coils around my heart growing tighter by the second.

“Is that not the benefit of having magic? It takes less time,” she quipped back.

“Perhaps,” I conceded.

“And you sing to your harvest; why? I’ve never heard of any other Town Gardener having to do that,” she said with a sickeningly sweet tone, twirling her hair around her fingers like a threat.

“That’s the only way—” to get my magic to work most days. “That’s just how I do it.”

“Couldn’t anyone with garden magic do your job?” she pressed, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised high.

“Yes, but—”

“Then why you?” she asked again.

“I—well—” I scrambled for words, for anything to gain purchase in this conversation. The rosemary bush below my window began to yellow at the top—a telltale sign that my emotions were getting away from me. Why was I letting Helda get to me this way? There were plenty of things in this life that made me unsure of myself, but my work was not one of them.

My harvests were always on time—albeit never early. But who likes being too early anyhow? Moss was well-fed, shoppes overflowed with my crops, and the Goddess Celebration had never seen tulips grown better than mine. Magic did not make me special. But my life, my purpose, rested on my dedication to being Town Gardener. I loved this town more than folk knew, and it seeped into the very soil that I worked in. What’s more, I wanted to be Celebration Gardener—so I’ve had the job ever since.

“Because being the Goddess Celebration Gardener is about more than just magic,” I said proudly. The tightness around my heart loosened, the rosemary bush below grew green again. “It’s about—wait, how do you know I sing to my garden?”

“And what does the squirrel have to do with it?” Helda flung her arms up into the air, her singsong voice taking on a discordant edge.

“What are you—”

“Why does the squirrel get to touch the tulip before Eldrene? I don’t get to know the colors ahead of time, but some wood rat gets to poke around in the box?” She threw her parchment on the ground, stomping on more carrot tops in the process.

But her temper tantrum was the least of my worries. Because, for the second time today, Helda was not wrong. The box under the oak tree lay empty, and a squirrel with a tulip bulb in its mouth dashed for my garden gate.

My heart stopped.

“No!” I shouted, leaning too far forward from my place on the window ledge and falling into the rosemary bushes below.

I rolled my ankle in the process and yelled a slew of curses.

Helda stopped her protests and tried to assist me, but I threw her hand away as I struggled to get up. My shoe wedged deep into the roots, and after a few unsuccessful tugs, I unlaced my boot and left it behind, setting off in a mad half-limp, half-run dash after the squirrel.

He was already far ahead, but I could see his black-tufted tail on the horizon. A Shadow Woods Squirrel then. So he wouldn’t divert to any nearby woods. He’d head straight back to his native murky forest, which required going through Moss’s main street. My only chance to catch him would be there.

If he got to the forest, the Crown Jewel Tulip would be impossible to recover.

If I lost the Crown Jewel Tulip, the Goddess Celebration would be ruined.

If the Goddess Celebration was ruined, Eldrene, the protector of this realm, would wither away.

I picked up my pace, my legs burning and my ankle throbbing. We crested the last hill that led into town and barreled down the sloping ridge. My feet hit the cobblestones, and I was grateful that Moss still slept. They usually awoke to Francis playing his lute, but today, more than likely, folks were startling awake from my bare feet slapping the stones.

The squirrel slowed slightly. The tulip bulb must have been heavier than he anticipated. A thrill of triumph went through me. My breath came in hot, sharp pants, but my pace only quickened. If I could just get my hands on the bastard…

The fiend darted into an alleyway filled with seller wagons.

I smiled. That alley was a dead-end, and he was dead meat.

A rip filled the air; my dress snagged on the jam lady’s cart, sending it teetering. I reached out to right it when the squirrel darted in between my feet and tripped me. I went sailing, the jam cart toppling and taking the ale and baker cart down along with it.

Broken glass scattered everywhere, and all sorts of reddish liquid now covered my dress. I let out an almighty shriek and scrambled back up again, ignoring the searing pain in my foot from stomping on the shards.

I was gaining on him now. He may be fast, but I knew these streets far too well to be bested by a squirrel. His claws pulled at the thatched roofs as he went along, raining hay down and blurring my vision.

We reached the last row of cottages just before the grassy clearing that led into Moss Wood. My legs burned with white-hot fire, my twisted ankle screamed, and my bare foot profusely bled, but if I could get to the end of the street before he did, he’d have no choice but to land in my arms. The world would be right again, the tulip would be safe, and my nemesis would be in a stew by the evening.

He made it to the last cottage, readying for a jump, but I beat him to the chase.

Got you. The squirrel leapt into the air, his body mere centimeters away from my outstretched arms—

The world split in two.

My skull cracked in half.

The world went dark. I was probably a little dead. Or a lot.

A door. A Goddess-damned door had opened, and I’d run straight into it, falling back into a pile of steaming hot horse shite. At least it cushioned the back of my head from busting on the cobblestones.

“Are you all right?” a gravelly voice asked through the haze. Two rough hands tried to hoist me up.

“Get off me!” I pushed them away. They were shockingly difficult to move. “Where is it?” I asked frantically, straining to focus.

“Where’s what?” the stranger asked gently.

“The squirrel!” I sounded deranged, scanning the roofs for the beast. But hot tears blurred my vision, turning the world into watercolor slashes against the morning sky. My heart began to crumple. No squirrel. No tulip. Utter disaster. He had escaped, and I failed. The stranger offered a hand again, and I swatted it away. “Whoever you are, I don’t need your help. You’ve done enough.”

“I heard a commotion,” the voice replied. Bits of my vision started to come back, but all I could see was a swirling shadow in front of me. My head suddenly became too heavy to hold up and dropped to the side. Rough hands caught it immediately.

“I said”—I gritted my teeth—“I don’t need your help.” I tried to move, but flashes of pain seared through me, and I fell back to the ground again.

“We need to get you to a medic,” the voice said with finality. They hoisted me over their shoulder with ease.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, beating at the stranger’s back.

Then, I heard a squeak from high overhead.

From behind a chimney, a small silhouette emerged. The squirrel surveyed me from his perch. The bastard must have returned to the roof to watch my demise. I arched my neck as much as I could from my place behind this fool who’d ruined everything. Squirrels couldn’t smile; I knew they couldn’t, but even through my tears, I swore a devilish grin played across his face.

He held the Crown Jewel Tulip high in his grimy paws.

I helplessly pointed to the chimney looming over us.

“Please,” I bit out. “The squirrel, he has my”—my vision swirled, inky blackness creeping onto the edges—“He has my”—bile rose into my mouth, the salty tang on my tongue—“He has my tulip!” I finally cried.

Then I vomited all over the stranger’s back, my last bit of strength finally sputtering out as we made our way through awakening Moss.

With a cracked head and a broken heart, our hero found herself… rocky, lifeless, and a little hungry, with zero soul-realizations.

—opening line attempt 9

I awoke to groaning. My groaning.

Pain lanced through my head, and my body jolted with unease. Where was I? What had happened? Heavy quilts weighed down on my chest, threatening to suffocate me. I made the mistake of moving my foot and immediately remembered that I’d shredded it on broken glass.

Chasing after a squirrel.

The fog cleared as my memories came into sharp focus.

The Crown Jewel Tulip was gone. The significance of that loss settled deep into my chest. That tulip wasn’t just the centerpiece for Eldrene’s crown every three years. The tulip symbolized the hope of our realm.

A fact we mortals try to forget, lest our fear overcome us and ruin the precarious balance that has been set in place.

Everyone knew the story.

A millennium ago, the Prince—his name now lost to time—sought to end the realm with withering magic. A dark magic that sucked the life out of everything and everyone around it, warping all it touched into an unrecognizable version of itself. His magic seeped into the land and spread like poison. Villages turned against each other; peace treaties were torn into shreds; war was imminent. Mortals, magical or not, had no chance of stopping its reach.

Eldrene was the only Goddess still walking the earth after the Elden Wars—the rest had retreated to the stars. She was the sole being powerful enough to stop withering magic from causing more harm. So she poured her power into the land, to contain the contagion. In doing so, she ended the Prince, enveloping him in her light—blotting out his darkness forever.

But the withering magic was too powerful. Once her power connected to the spreading darkness, she could not break the bond. Withering magic drank from her power, her life force, until she was almost drained dry of both. She had been willing to sacrifice every last drop if it meant ending the withering magic for good, but even that wouldn’t vanquish it entirely.

With barely any magic and only a whisper of life left, Eldrene wove the last of her spirit into a flower, binding herself to this realm forever, sacrificing the rest of her days to fighting the darkness that still seeks to end all.

As long as she walks this earth, withering magic will be held at bay. Though she can’t walk much of it. The day she sacrificed herself, she was in Moss Wood, and in Moss Wood she must stay. That’s where the essence of her power is the strongest, where she channels what she can to combat withering magic far and wide.

But this takes a great toll on Eldrene. Her power is not what it once was, and withering magic tries every day to infiltrate the land she sacrificed herself to protect so long ago. Without her former strength, she must rely on the dedication of mortals. Belief, while not inherently magical, is a powerful thing. Belief is what renews her life force every three years.

The flower she bound herself to, in truth, does protect her life. But only through the people’s belief. It casts hope through the realm. The hope that everything will be all right, in turn, funnels into the bloom, which feeds back into the land, into the people, and into Eldrene herself. In essence, ever since the Prince died, the realm has operated on its own water cycle of hope, so to speak.

Eldrene bound herself to a tulip—a symbol of new beginnings, of love itself. Nonmagical tulips that needn’t hold dark magic at bay while also carrying the belief of an entire realm normally bloom and die, leaving behind a seed pod for future flowers. The Crown Jewel Tulip, however, produces only a single seed.

That seed remains with Eldrene’s Forest Train for two years until it grows into a bulb. A precious, sacred thing. The only one of its kind, the future of Nestryia resting within. In the bulb’s final months before the Goddess Celebration, it’s bestowed into the care of a Town Gardener. For only those with garden magic can tend to the bulbs; luckily, there were plenty of us.

Luckier still, my garden magic also worked on the blub despite it not being quite normal.

Never once had someone lost the tulip. Never once had someone jeopardized the entire realm.

Had I just killed a Goddess? Had I just doomed all of Nestryia?

Even if the tulip served as symbol alone, the Celebration ensured that the realm knew our Goddess protected us. Without that hope, what would fill in the gaps? Fear had no place; if fear took hold, who knows what darkness could crop up that not even Eldrene could stop.

Half the realm was still reeling from the burning of Fennings Forest a hundred years ago. Dragons, infected with withering magic, had carved a path of destruction. Folk then believed that Eldrene’s power might be waning.

Which, of course, did cause it to wane. But that was a Celebration year, and the Crown Jewel Tulip reinvigorated the hope lost.

Had I just lost the world’s physical manifestation of hope?

Why did it have to be so small? Small things love to get lost.

Oh Goddess.

I let out another groan.

“Shhh,” a soft voice cooed. “You always overdo it.”

Despite the possibility of the world ending, I smiled. I would know that voice anywhere. The panic creeping up my spine subsided at the familiar scent of honey from Sylvie Alderson.

At least I’m home; at least I’m safe.

Even if I was a failure who needed to get to work right away.

I tried to lift my head, but gentle hands forced it back onto the pillow. There was no use in fighting this battle. I fancied myself to have quite the iron will, but it was nothing compared to one of my dearest friends.

“I don’t think so,” Sylvie admonished. “You w. . .