The Tenth Muse: Rebellion

Chapter 1

one

. . .

Tansy

The gate sticks like it’s trying to keep me in.

I throw my shoulder against the wrought iron with a grunt, my boots skidding on the wet stone path.

Thunder rolls overhead, loud enough to shake the garden wall behind me, and I don’t wait for another strike.

I push harder, gritting my teeth, feeling the hiss of metal scrape my arm as the latch finally gives.

It’s open.

The sound echoes in my chest like a spell breaking.

It’s really open.

I slip through the narrow gap like smoke and sprint into the trees.

The air changes the moment I leave the boundary of the estate. It thickens, humid and green and wild, like the world has just remembered how to breathe. My lungs stutter on it. My magic pulses, aching to respond.

I keep running.

Behind me, the formal rows of hedges and rosemary shrivel into memory. The manor’s silhouette, white stone and tall symmetrical windows, is swallowed by mist and trees. Even now, part of me expects a voice to call after me. Command me back.

But they won’t.

They think I’ll come back on my own.

Good girls always come back.

The words ring sharp as a whip crack through my skull. I shake them off and stumble deeper into the woods, shoving my hands into the pockets of my rain-damp dress and gasping like I’ve just broken the sky in half.

My hands are still glowing.

Faint golden white light creeps down my fingertips like sugar syrup, pooling between the lines in my palms, catching in my bitten down nails. It shouldn’t be like this. I was supposed to stay still. Supposed to obey. Supposed to kneel in the chalk circle and let them bind it out of me.

It was a correction rite. A formal one. Clean lines, cold voices. They said it would settle the chaos inside me. That it would help me become “useful.”

I didn’t mean to scream. I didn’t mean to burn the sigil off the floor.

Now the whole greenhouse reeks of singed thyme and fear. My hair still carries the scent, sharp and scorched and clinging.

So I ran.

My satchel flaps against my hip with every step.

Inside, I’ve packed the bare minimum: a bottle of clover honey, a charmed compass (which hasn’t worked in years), a cracked journal, and a charm bracelet I made when I was ten.

Only half the charms are still intact. A daisy bead.

A brass sun. A tiny blue vial that used to hold lake water before the stopper rotted away.

I don’t know why I brought it. It’s not like I believe in wishes anymore, anyway.

The trees begin to press closer now, the path narrowing until there is none. I have to kick aside ferns and duck beneath low hanging branches, scraping my arms on bark that feels more alive than it should. The rain has soaked through my clothes, and each step squelches with the weight of it.

The forest is watching me. I can feel it in my skin.

My breath catches on a sob, sharp and sudden. It slips out before I can bite it down.

The woods don’t care.

They swallow the sound like it’s nothing.

It’s getting darker. I trip over a root and scrape my knee, but the pain grounds me. Makes it real. I scramble back to my feet, blood blooming warm against the inside of my sock, and keep going.

Then my magic starts to spill.

I don’t mean to let it. I never mean to let it.

But the more my heart races, the more the edges blur. My fingertips tremble. The light pulses.

A ring of mushrooms sprouts in my wake … small, white, and perfect. A moment later, petals burst along my collarbones like fever blossoms. I slap at them. Thorns crackle in my shadow. I can feel the way the forest bends around me, confused and unsure whether I’m a threat or a prayer.

I try to rein it in, clenching my fists, breathing in through my nose like they taught me. But it’s like trying to cage a thunderstorm.

There’s a humming in the back of my throat. A spell I almost say. A scream I almost let out.

Instead, I drop to my knees in a patch of moss, gasping, fingers shaking too hard to untie my satchel. I press my forehead to the earth.

“Stop,” I whisper. “Please stop.”

The vines don’t listen.

They twitch at the edges of the clearing, sensing me. Testing the air.

I’m too much. I’ve always been too much.

My family called it an imbalance. Said my power leaked because I couldn’t control my feelings. Because I cried too easily. Because I laughed too loud. Because I wanted too much. They said I’d never make a proper hedge witch unless I learned discipline.

So they gave me circles. Chains. Scripts to repeat.

Silence, stillness, symmetry.

I clutch the dried flower from my bag, a sprig of statice, crushed and crumbling at the edges.

It’s the only thing I saved from the old herb bed before they repaved it into a perfect spiral.

I used to think the statice was special.

That if I carried it close enough to my heart, something good might grow there.

Now, I just want it to stay whole.

I curl onto my side, pressing the flower to my chest, fingers trembling.

The moss is cold beneath my cheek. It smells like damp bark and crushed violet and something older I can’t name. Something that feels like grief.

My throat tightens. My whole body aches from holding too much.

I breathe.

I try not to cry.

My magic flickers, then fades.

“I ruin everything,” I whisper. “Everything I touch.”

Above me, the trees shift. Just a little. Like they’re leaning closer.

But I don’t see them.

Because I close my eyes.

And for the first time in years …

I don’t wish for stillness.

I just wish to disappear.