A Passion for Potions (Petalfall #1)

27. Twenty-Seven - A Plan

Twenty-Seven - A Plan

Ana

“Why are you so fixated on vampires?” My mother asks as I braid Mina’s hair.

The conversation hadn’t included her—which was my first mistake—and now, as we sit in front of the fire, she’s going to make sure it does.

“It just occurred to me that sometimes, people focus on bad stories about them.”

Mina chuckles. “Dad did.”

“Some of them,” I correct her. “Don’t you remember the one about the rabbit and the night cavalry?”

It’s my mother’s turn to laugh, but the sound is an ugly snort. “The night cavalry were a bunch of blood drunk murderers who would have killed everyone on our side and theirs if they weren’t leashed by the Queen.”

Mina cranes her head to look up at me, concern in her dark eyes. “Did they eat the rabbit?” she asks.

“That’s not how the story ends, so I don’t know... but we had rabbit three days ago, so whether or not they ate it doesn’t really signify, does it?”

She grimaces and I know she’s reconciling our past dinner with the fluffy image she had previously had in her head.

Whatever she ends up doing, I doubt she will marry or apprentice with a butcher.

“Vampires are vile creatures,” our mother says before taking a sip of her tea and both Mina and I look at her. “The absolute worst of society.”

“Have you ever met a vampire?” I ask her, trying to remember, because she would have told me.

“Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

It’s Mina who asks me, “Have you?”

“Yes.”

“You have?” Our mother looks utterly affronted.

“I’ve met several.”

I don’t hear the first part of what my mother says under her breath, but it ends with “That gnome girl.” So I can only assume she’s casting aspersions on Leaf.

“So many people pass through our little village, it’s hard not to meet random strangers of all kinds.” I tie the ribbon at the bottom of Mina’s braid. “It’s hard not to make friends as well.”

“You’re friends with a vampire?” Mina asks, the words low, as if she doesn’t want our mother to hear them, but they’re too sharp to be missed.

Before I can answer her, our mother says, “Absolutely not.”

I had not considered the benefit of including our mother in Mina’s gentle education... the way she’s glaring at her now, Mina might like Viggo simply to spite her.

By the time I escape to my bedroom, I’m certain of it.

Shoving a chair beneath my door handle—Mina already knows I will be sneaking out, so she won’t come looking for me tonight—and plucking the tiny wooden hand from my pocket, I open my closet door into their home and slip inside.

“Welcome back, flower,” Dorrian says as I put his hand back in my pocket and close him tight.

“Thank you,” I smile at him, wondering if he can see it with his wooden eyes. “And thank you for letting me come back whenever I please.

“They’ve told me I can’t add you to my collection yet. Not until you let me.”

“I’m needed in the village more often than I’m needed here.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Blicks hurries to me, but I have no coat or anything for him, and he looks a little forlorn. Next time, I’ll bring something so that he can pretend it is why he needs to keep me here a little longer than he does.

“How was your day, Misstr—Ana?”

Penny and Viggo had not been wrong in worrying that the others would get attached if Blicks is already having a hard time not thinking of me as mistress of the house.

“Some parts were better than others, thank you for asking. How was yours?”

“More pleasant now that you are here.”

He shows me into the sitting room, where Viggo sits on a small sofa with Penny’s hand on his shoulder.

As soon as Penny’s hand moves, so does Viggo.

He crosses the room and lifts me up and spins me around, kissing me flagrantly.

Blicks says, “manners” under his breath, but leaves me with them anyway, closing the doors behind him.

“I have been told,’ Viggo says quietly, glancing at Penny. “That I’m to ask you if you need to eat and then we’re supposed to have a talk before I ask if you’ll let us take you upstairs and exhaust you.”

I laugh, because he’s not the only one who would like to wear me out.

Penny grips the back of the sofa, watching us with an intensity that makes me want to slip out of my clothes and see how long it takes him to fail in that resolve.

But I’ll be nice tonight.

“I ate with my family and then had another conversation about vampires,” I say as Viggo lets me go and Penny comes around the sofa to me. “My mother is turning out to be an unlikely ally.”

“She likes vampires?” Penny asks.

I shake my head. “The opposite. She hates them.”

“I thought you knew that already,” Viggo asks, “why else would she have broken all her furniture to stake me?”

“Oh, she would have stabbed Penny too. It wasn’t that you’re a vampire, but that you stand a chance of giving me a reason to leave.”

Viggo grimaces and Penny turns me around and makes me sit in one of the chairs, so I look up at Viggo. “Mina will probably like you now, simply to be contrary.”

“Any way to win them over, I suppose.”

“And how do you plan to win over the rest of the town?” I ask. “Leaf will like you, even if she’s incredibly suspicious of you, ” I say, turning from Viggo to Penny.

Viggo sits on the edge of the sofa and clasps his hands, worrying his thumbs together. “My sister is going to come visit. And we will all let the village think that I came with her.”

“Your sister?” I glance between them, and a silly worry pokes at my mind. It coils in my stomach. “Do you think she’ll like me?”

“She’s going to adore you.” Penny says. “But even if she didn’t, what she thinks isn’t half as important as what we do.”

“And we think you’re scrumptious.”

I laugh at that and look at Viggo. “Do you need to eat?”

“It’s my cock that’s hungry, not my stomach.”

“Well, I was already headed to bed.” I stand and hold my hands out to them. “Maybe you should tell me the plan upstairs.”

“If we go upstairs,” Edric casts a wary glance between us, “the plan will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“I trust that you’ve taken all the important things into account.”