Chapter Thirty-Two
Phillip
The palace garden was the one place that seemed to see no passage of time. Phillip knew that was strange. Trees grew with each year, towering over them. Flowers bloomed and folded in on themselves with the seasons. Winter came, covering the ground in a dusting of snow, only to melt into the ground at the awakening of spring. The heat of summer brought a lack of rain that shriveled the greenery and made the grass crunch beneath his feet, followed quickly by fall and the leafy coverings that accompanied it.
Time moved on, and yet Phillip remained locked in a state of suspension, never pushing forward, never moving on. The lines in his face deepened. A few of the hairs surrounding his face turned gray.
But in his mind, he was always the boy who fell in love with
