Chapter Thirty-Three #2
Finlay turned back to me at the threshold, his expression full of something I couldn’t read. Was he angry? Hurt? Disappointed? Ashamed? “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said, but his eyes didn’t meet mine, and I wasn’t sure I believed him.
The old Willow would have immediately leapt to her own defense, explaining everything in a jumble of lies and excuses, convinced that everything I’d ever done was for some noble end that no one else could see. “I’m sorry,” I said instead.
He looked at me, then, his blue eyes inscrutable. Did he believe me? I wondered. Was an apology from Willow Stokes worth nothing, in the end?
Finlay closed the door behind him and Argyle pawed at it lightly, breaking my heart into a million pieces.
Bri stared at me open-mouthed before snapping her jaw closed and grabbing a cloak. “I’ll go after him, Willow. I’ll tell him everything. He’ll understand.”
“Don’t bother,” I said, but she was already gone, and I was too demoralized to stop her.
Eventually I made myself some fresh tea, sipping it without tasting it, wondering how I could have done things differently. Even if Finlay knew everything, would it be enough to change his opinion? Would it be enough to change mine?
I shook my head. What was done was done. I could only choose to start fresh from today and hope it was better than the day before. I stared into the dregs of my tea, wishing I could read the future in the leaves, but found only emptiness.
I woke the next morning in my room, having cried myself to sleep despite Bri’s attempts to console me.
“He’ll come around,” she’d said, but I couldn’t hear her over my own sobs. Finally, I asked her to leave me alone for a while so I could wallow in my sadness.
My skin was tight with dried tears as I washed my face and donned my new dress, the only thing I had clean.
Bri was still sleeping, Argyle with her, and I let myself out into the rain to walk, alone, to Wexley’s.
This was something only I could set to rights.
I’d considered bringing my one remaining bargaining chip with me, but I decided I was more likely to walk out of this alive if I kept it safe at the shoppe
It was still early when I knocked on Wexley’s door, my hands half frozen from my journey.
It would snow before the end of the month.
Last year, I had welcomed winter. It gave me an excuse to stay in, even during business hours, knowing my already pitiful clientele wouldn’t be out, either.
Winter meant a warm hearth and hot cider and candlelight, and the darkness outside matched the aching void inside of me.
But this winter, things would be different.
I no longer wanted to match the darkness.
Fromme answered the door, peering down at me as though I were a mouse who’d arrived to pester him.
“It lives,” he said, opening the door wider. “I’ll tell Mr. Wexley you’re here.”
As usual, I was told to wait in the cabinet of curiosities.
I seated myself in the green velvet chair, running my hand over the nap until it was all the wrong way.
My pockets were conspicuously empty, and I couldn’t help the twinge of longing in my gut as I looked at all the treasures in this room. So close to being mine.
My eyes fell on The Oxblood Book, almost as if it were calling to me.
Could I possibly get to it in time? I strained my ears to listen, but no footsteps approached.
I hurried across the room to the shelf, my head filled with buzzing as my fingers grazed the bloodred cover.
Silently, I slipped it from the shelf and laid it on the floor, flipping it open.
My eyes widened at the inscription on the first page. The Oxblood Book of the House of Hargrave. The endpapers were lined with fabric, the same tartan I’d seen on Bri’s blanket.
Bri had said her parents were Foundationalists. Why would a family sworn off magic have their own grimoire? I turned the gilt-edged page, my eyes skimming for the word curse.
There! I flipped again, my heart hammering now.
Any moment Mr. Wexley would be here. He’d likely tell the authorities I’d stolen his counterfeit egg.
He might even contact someone at Blackbay and give away my location.
I didn’t have a dragon egg now to protect me. I had nothing but my own dormant magic.
Hurry, Willow. Spells for forgetting, spells for remembering … spells for unbreaking curses! I had finally reached the correct page and my heart was racing so fast I couldn’t believe I was sitting still.
To remove a curse placed on any member of the Hargrave family, recite the words below.
“Hello, Miss Stokes.”
I sprang to my feet, slamming the book closed in the process. “Mr. Wexley.” He stood in the doorway, observing me silently. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I can see that.” He looked pointedly at the grimoire.
“Now I understand your fascination with The Oxblood Book. As soon as you left, I did a little research on your friend. Brianna Hargrave. The surname threw me at first—her mother’s, you know—but I remember her parents and the scandal surrounding their abrupt departure.
Her father, James Smithe, was one of the worst Foundationalists I’d ever encountered.
He despised magic, and here he is, the father of a witch. ”
He didn’t know about the curse, then. He believed Brianna really was a witch. “Why do you have their family grimoire?”
He knelt to pick it up, cradling it in his arms as he straightened. “Grimoires always add value to a collection,” he said. “The family left many of their possessions behind, escaping in a hurry the way they did. I purchased this at an estate sale.”
“But it should go to Brianna. It’s hers by birthright.”
“It will be, just as soon as you hand over the egg.”
I swallowed, hoping he’d keep his hands on the grimoire so they weren’t free to strangle me. “About that…”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Oh, Miss Stokes. Please don’t tell me you failed. Surely you wouldn’t dare show your face here if you had.”
“I didn’t fail,” I said, my stubborn pride taking over. “I got your precious dragon egg.”
“Then where is it?”
I knew I should mention the wolpertinger now. Offer it to him in place of the egg as I’d intended. But something about seeing the greed in his horrible eyes stopped me. He didn’t deserve a wish any more than he deserved the egg or The Oxblood Book. He wasn’t worthy of a single item in this room.
“By now, somewhere deep down in the Obsidian Sea, I’d wager.” I tapped my lip. “Unless a whale ate it, which would make for an interesting experiment. Do you suppose dragon eggs are digestible?”
He laughed without mirth, his hands tightening on the book. “Such a funny girl.”
“I’m not joking, Mr. Wexley. I had the egg, and I realized how dangerous it would be if it fell into the hands of someone like you.”
“What are you saying?” he snarled, leaning closer.
It was an effort not to recoil from him. “I’m saying I dropped it into the ocean on my way back from Azure Cay. You’ll never find it.”
He gasped, dropping the grimoire onto the ground between us. I considered bending down to retrieve it, but he was screaming for his servants. I could already hear Fromme’s footsteps thundering down the hall.
I squared my shoulders, grateful that I’d worn my one good dress today, that no matter who I’d been even a week ago, I was someone different now. Someone who could hold her head high in Ardmuir. “Whatever your plans, Mr. Wexley, I won’t be a part of them. And you’ll leave my friend alone.”
“I’ll take her witch’s bones and turn them into broth,” he hissed, grabbing my arm with surprising strength.
“Like hell you will.” I placed my hand on top of his and he shrieked, pulling away as though he’d been burned.
“Mr. Wexley!” Fromme burst through the door.
“Are you all right?” He started to reach for me, but Wexley held his hand up, revealing the blisters already forming.
Fromme froze, and my attention went back to Wexley and the mourning ring he was wearing on his right index finger.
Black and gold with a glass locket at the top, containing what looked to be a curl of golden hair.
“Your father tried to hide your mother from me,” he said, circling me. “I was disappointed when she died before I could get to her, but I thought her mewling brat would do. Alas, you proved to be as unmagical as your father. Otherwise, why would he sell fakes and ruin his good name?”
I could hardly process his words. I was too busy trying to formulate an escape plan. My eyes once again darted to the door. Was there any chance I could muscle my way past Fromme?
“As it turns out, I don’t need your friend’s bones at all. Not when I have a much more powerful witch right here.”
My gaze dropped again to the mourning ring. My mother’s mourning ring. “Where did you get that?”
A cruel smile was my only reply.
Have you ever had a moment in your life when you suddenly knew the truth about something that you hadn’t known before? When it becomes so obvious that you can’t conceive of how you didn’t see it, when it had been staring you in the face all along?
Well, I have. There was the moment I understood how babies were made, when I was eight years old and I saw two cows in a field and …
you get the idea. There was the moment I realized that the other children at school called me names because they’d heard them at home, where their parents referred to me as “that Stokes bastard.” And there was this moment, when I realized my father had not died of a heart attack any more than his friend Alfred had.
That it wasn’t the coroner who’d stolen the mourning ring, and there wasn’t a chance Wexley had come by it honestly.
The morning of his death, Da had told me he was meeting a trader for breakfast at the Four Swans. I’d been angry, because there was so much work to do before the big sale, and we could hardly afford a fancy meal, particularly one I wasn’t invited to.
He had kissed me on the cheek before heading out. “You’re just like your mother,” he’d said. “More than you can possibly know.”
He never came home. It wasn’t until I heard shouting in the streets that I ran outside the shoppe and saw him, surrounded by people who did nothing to help him. By the time I reached him, he couldn’t speak. He died only a minute later.
“What did you do to him?” I asked.
“Lock her up, Fromme,” Mr. Wexley said.
“You killed Da’s friend Alfred, too. Didn’t you? What were you hoping to gain? More items for your ridiculous collection? They weren’t a threat to you, and you killed them!”
“What if I did? You’ll never prove it,” Wexley growled. “Fromme!”
I shot the other man a glare. “Try it.”
Fromme clenched his fists at his sides, but he glanced at my hands with genuine fear in his eyes, and he didn’t come closer.
“I’m going to the police,” I said, strolling past them both.
I turned, because I was still a Stokes, after all, and we never liked to leave well enough alone.
“I’m going to tell them everything you’ve done, and then I’m going to come to the docks the day they ship you out to Blackbay Prison, so the last person on Ardmuir you ever see is me, and you’ll know I was the one who put you there. ”
“Please! As if they’d believe the likes of you!” Mr. Wexley shouted, but there was real fear in his voice.
“Perhaps not,” came a voice from behind me. “But they’ll have a hard time not believing us, too.”
I turned to see Bri standing in the hallway, arms folded across her chest. Beside her was Finlay.
“What are you doing here?” I cried. “It isn’t safe.”
“We’re safer together,” Bri said, stepping toward me and taking my hand. “I thought you’d figured that out by now.”
Wexley and I stared at each other, daring the other to blink first.
He started to step forward, but Bri and I held up our hands in unison, and he faltered.
That probably would have been our moment to run, but I couldn’t help myself.
I cast him the same pitying glance he’d once offered me.
“Aw, poor wee fellow. Afraid of a skinny little orphan and her outlander friend. Don’t worry, we’ll see ourselves out. ”
I turned my back on Wexley, linking arms with Bri and Finlay. Fromme, the big, scary bodyguard, shrank down into a crouch, his arms over his head, as though an actual dragon were walking past. Bri hissed at him, and I had to bite my lip to keep from snickering.
Together, we stepped onto the street, blinking against the morning sunlight, and I felt almost as free as I had when we escaped Blackbay. There was only one more thing to do.
“But the grimoire,” Finlay said as we headed up the street. “Shouldn’t we go back for it?”
“We don’t need it.” I smiled reassuringly at Bri and squeezed her hand. “I know how to break the curse.”