Homegrown Magic

Chapter 26 Margot

26

Margot

Margot’s journey from the stables to the Glowing Coin is a blur. The coachperson drops her off outside the inn, where Margot strides across the lobby, ignoring the stares of guests up late. Feathers float behind her as she hurries past, like she’s some exotic bird, but she ignores them as well. She storms up the grand staircase, tripping on her long skirts and tearing them at the hem, but she couldn’t care less.

Once she’s outside their suite, she fumbles for her small room key—thank goodness she’d thought to slip that into her dress, at least—and shoves it into the lock. The door swings open, and then as it closes, she is blissfully, entirely alone.

Which is well and good until her eyes fall across Yael’s trunk. And their discarded day jacket. And their pillow. And the small flower—a daisy, oh gods—Yael has left for Margot on her own pillow. Where they’d gotten a daisy or when they’d set it out, Margot doesn’t know, but it hadn’t been there when they’d both been dressing.

She walks to the bed now, picking up the daisy, which is perfectly in bloom and gleaming slightly silver and gold. It’s clearly been enchanted to stay fresh. Margot closes her eyes, remembering a moment from earlier that evening.

“I’ll be just a second,” Yael said as they were walking out the door. Margot had a hand on the knob, and her corset was digging into her ribs, feeling tighter by the second as her anxiety about the ball ratcheted up.

“You can’t leave me standing here,” she’d said as teasingly as she could manage. “I’m depending on your arm in mine all night, so I don’t go tumbling in these heels.”

“You’d manage just fine on your own,” Yael said, throwing a smirk over their shoulder. “I’m sure of it, but I’ll be right back. I just have one thing to do…” And then they’d disappeared back into the bedchamber.

A daisy. They’d left her a daisy. Margot slumps heavily onto the bed. Yael’s surprise gift is simple, but it speaks volumes. Perhaps it says that they love her.

Perhaps Yael walking away was the only real option left to both of them, and underneath it all, it’s a noble sacrifice that frees Margot from having to make the terrible choice herself. Which means that Yael might have left in order to protect her. Gods, though, if that’s the case, is there any hope for them? Someday? Maybe?

Is that too much to wish for?

Probably, but Margot cannot help holding on to a small ember of hope, even as she weeps.

Not that it matters now, since the Clauneck family has their claws so deep into both Margot and Yael that they can’t survive a life of their own together.

Suddenly, the room feels too small. Too gilded. Too much like the Clauneck Manor. Without Yael at her side, Margot feels how very out of place she actually is in this world.

Standing, she goes to the mirror. A line of Yael’s golden kisses still paints her neck and collarbones, the glittering ghosts of their touch. Grabbing a cloth, she scrubs at the lip paint, rubbing hard until her skin is red and painful. But at least the kisses are gone.

“You should go, Margot,” she murmurs, repeating Yael’s words to herself.

She has to go home. Alone. Now. Perhaps there is some way out of this mess between her and Yael that she’s not seeing, but she’s been trying and failing to fix her life for years, and she’s so tired. She was a fool to think that she could possibly save Bloomfield and make a life with Yael Clauneck in Ashaway. Not that she wants a life in Ashaway; she knows that now. If she stayed in the city, even with Yael, she could see herself growing bitter and miserable with missing Bloomfield. Besides, she cannot leave Bloomfield without a solution. Before she finds any sort of happiness herself, she has to make sure the village and the people she loves are safe and secure.

You will never have a life with Yael Clauneck, thanks to their appalling family.

The thought levels Margot, and she sinks to her knees as sobs once again rack her chest. When they finally cease, she stands. Reaching behind her, she tugs on her dress. Yael had laced her into it earlier, and the plan had always been for Yael to help her out of it too.

The corset digs more tightly into her ribs, and suddenly she can’t breathe. The world spins and her heart races.

She rips at the sleeves, not caring when beads and pearls go skittering across the floor. She tears at the feathers along her neck, shredding the silk and loosening the gems. All her anger at Menorath and Baremon, heartache over Yael, and despair for her own lies that let everything progress this far fuels Margot’s hands as she rips the dress from her body. When the gown is finally pooled at her feet and she manages to unlace her corset, Margot gasps for air. She can almost, nearly breathe again, though her hands still shake.

Stepping away from the pile of silk and feathers, she looks in the mirror once more. Her hair is askew, braids unraveled, but divested of the finery, she almost looks like herself. Stumbling to her trunk, she sifts through the clothing to find her strawberry-print dress, which she packed in a fit of sentimentality. She slips it on. Over that goes a green cardigan that Clementine knitted for her last winter.

Heart heavy, Margot laces up her traveling boots, packs a small bag with her personal effects, and then glances around the room for anything left behind. Her masquerade dress is still piled on the floor, but the Claunecks will pay someone to sort that out. The everblooming daisy Yael left out for her is still on the bed, and Margot picks it up. She can take this at least, to have something to remember Yael by. Though who is she kidding? She’ll see them in every flower, in every gleam of a greenhouse window, and every time she walks to Clementine’s for a meal.

But she will have to live with that, even if she can’t live with Yael.

She tucks the daisy into her pocket.

She really shouldn’t leave in this state, but staying another night in this room paid for by the Claunecks isn’t an option. If she hires a coach now, she’ll be back in Bloomfield before morning. Margot grabs the handle of her trunk and tugs it toward the door, then pauses at the threshold.

There is one last thing to confess before she leaves.

Turning back to the table, she plucks a piece of paper from a sheaf on the desk and quickly scrawls:

Yael,

I’m sorry. For it all.

—M

She wants to say more. She really does, but what else could she say? That she loves them? That she’ll always keep a place in the cottage for them, for as long as she can keep the cottage? That more than anything else, she wishes the two of them had never come to Ashaway? That their parents are scheming spiders and both of them got caught up in the web? That maybe, if she figures out the Natural Caster Potion and settles her parents’ debts, things can change?

No.

Although she gave the Claunecks their heir back, she’s not sure if Menorath will keep her word, or how, and whether she’ll ever truly be free of their clutches.

All she knows now is she must live with the hard truths of her own life, and without Yael at her side.