Chapter Twenty-Two
Wexley’s barely veiled threat echoed in my head as I hurried down the street.
Once I was at the end of the block, I broke into a run, not slowing until I’d reached the outskirts of town and my familiar moor.
I walked as fast as I could, trying to catch my breath, though it was nearly impossible.
Normally I wouldn’t make this journey alone in the dark, but I had no lantern, and I wasn’t going to venture back into town to see if Bri had left yet.
There was too great a risk of running into Fromme or Wexley.
I did my best to pick my way through the gorse in the moonlight, cursing every time a pheasant took flight or a rabbit darted past. Finally, in the distance, I spotted a light bobbing toward me.
I was torn between calling for help and hiding in a ditch until they passed.
I settled for staying where I was, as it required the least effort.
Then the shape materialized, and I burst into tears.
“Willow!” Finlay shouted, running the last few meters toward me.
“What are you doing out here? Bri and I found the house dark and empty. I was afraid something terrible had happened.” When I didn’t respond, he raised his arm, flooding my eyes with lamplight.
“Crivvens, Willow! Something terrible did happen, didn’t it? ”
I collapsed into his arms, unable to formulate words.
I realized with detached curiosity that I was weeping on Finlay’s shoulder, something I had sworn I would never do, but I seemed unable to stop myself.
He set the lantern down by our feet and pulled me into his arms, shushing me quietly but not demanding any more answers.
In all my selfish desire to save the shoppe and live a comfortable life, I had inadvertently drawn the only people I had left in the world into a horrible situation.
Now Wexley was going to blackmail me into something far worse.
No matter what I did, my friends would be implicated, possibly harmed.
How could I live with myself if I became a thief?
How could I live with myself if I didn’t?
Finally, I managed to get a grip on myself and straightened, wiping my tears on my sleeves. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice wobbly and watery.
“Are you hurt? Did you get lost?” Even as he asked it, doubt tinged his voice. He knew I’d never get lost in these moors.
“I had a meeting with someone I thought might be able to help us find Bri’s grimoire.”
“What? Alone? Why didn’t you tell us?”
I explained about my meeting, how a man had seen our advertisement and asked to meet with me under the guise of selling us items for the shoppe, but had instead accused us of scamming our customers.
I almost told him everything then, including the threats he’d made against Bri and Finlay.
But seeing the fear and fury in his eyes, I knew he’d do something incredibly stupid if he heard the full truth.
I’d have to figure out a way out of this on my own, without worrying Finlay or Bri.
I dried my tears when I finished. “I’m sorry. I know I sound mad.”
“You don’t,” he said, smoothing my hair back from my face. “It sounds very much like he was threatening you. Maybe you should close the shoppe for a few days, just until we can find out what he plans to do.”
I shook my head. “We have appointments booked out for weeks. If we close now, everything we worked so hard for will be lost.”
He sighed in exasperation. “What’s more important, Willow? The shoppe, or your safety? What about Bri? If this man discovers—”
I started to walk toward home, afraid that if I let him continue down this train of thought, I’d end up telling him everything. “I think he was trying to see if I had a source he was unaware of. He doesn’t want anyone competing with him in this town.”
I heard the rattle of the lantern as Finlay picked it up and followed me. “Willow, Bri told me what you were planning.”
I whirled on him. “What?”
“That you intend to continue selling, after you run through your inventory. Knowing you, you’ve probably got some crazy scheme to make that happen.”
All my insecurity that Bri and Finlay had a relationship outside of ours came flooding back in.
And if I was being honest, defensiveness was a far more comfortable feeling than fear.
“You talk about me behind my back now, is that it? I thought I was your best friend, Finlay. Since when did your relationship with Bri become more important?”
He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. “It isn’t, Willow. That’s the whole point. We want you to be safe.”
“Me? Or Bri? Because you certainly seem more invested in her security than mine.”
He blew out a breath. I knew I wasn’t being entirely fair, but the thought of the two of them spending time together, discussing how unreasonable I was, hurt more than I could have imagined. This was the trouble with trios. It always ended up as two against one.
“Go home, Finlay,” I barked. “I don’t need your help.”
“I have to go back,” he said, sounding more frustrated than I’d ever heard him. “Bri has Fergus. She rode out looking for you in the opposite direction, in case you were in trouble.”
“Oh.” I deflated a bit, my righteous indignation quickly running out of steam. I realized suddenly how exhausted I was. “That was nice of her.”
He arched an eyebrow. “For Pete’s sake, Willow. If that man finds out what Bri is capable of, he could decide to add her to his collection.”
I winced, despite Marcail’s reassurance that people weren’t out hunting witches. Mr. Wexley might not want her for her bones, but she was certainly a handy pawn when it came to getting me to do what he wanted. “That’s not going to happen,” I insisted, with far more conviction than I felt.
“Why’s that?”
My eyes darted around, as though the answer to all my problems could be found here on the moors. Finlay was staring at me with the same disapproving look as the night he’d chastised me by the burn, when all I wanted was for him to take me into his arms and tell me everything would be all right.
But it was Bri he was concerned about. Bri whose future would be determined by whether we found a way to break her curse. So without thinking beyond my next breath, I said the one thing that I knew would earn me Finlay’s approval. “Because I know how to break Bri’s curse!”
Finlay stiffened. “I— What?”
Oh, bollocks. When would my mouth learn not to go running off without my brain in tow?
I had no idea how to break Bri’s curse. That was the whole problem!
I scrambled for a moment, wondering if it was too late to backtrack.
But now Finlay was looking at me differently.
The disappointment in his bonny blue eyes was melting into something like hope.
“Willow, what are you talking about?”
Neeps and tatties, I was in it now. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you until I’d had more time to research it, but I saw something in one of the grimoires at the library. Something I think could help Bri.”
“Willow, that’s brilliant!” Before I knew what was happening, Finlay had taken my hand and was yanking me toward home. “Bri is going to be thrilled!”
I hadn’t realized how cold my extremities were until my hand was wrapped in the warmth of Finlay’s.
Even though he was pulling me toward Bri, I let myself indulge briefly in the fantasy that he was pulling me toward home.
Our home, that we shared. Inside, he would shower me with the glory of his full smile, acknowledging finally what a wonderful person I truly was, a selfless friend, a dutiful daughter, a generous lover …
He dropped my hand as the cottage came into view, where Bri and Fergus waited in the front yard.
The next thing I knew, Bri was embracing me and Fergus was nuzzling my pockets for sugar cubes.
Then I was back inside the house, where it was warm and safe and Argyle wove between my legs like a furry eel.
Finlay wrapped an arm around my shoulder, beaming wider than I’d ever seen.
A person could stop time with a smile like that.
“… Willow has something wonderful to tell you,” Finlay was saying to Bri. “Come on, you’ll want to sit down for this one.”
The next thing I knew, I was plopped down in my armchair, the two of them watching me eagerly from the sofa.
“Go on,” he urged. “Tell her the good news.”
“I—” I glanced around the room as I had on the moors, desperate for an ally, but Argyle was as likely to be helpful as the stack of firewood. Shite, shite, triple shite!
“Give her a minute to catch her breath,” Bri said to Finlay, turning her sympathetic brown eyes on me. “Are you all right, Willow? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. I was so worried when I came home and found the house empty.”
I nodded, the guilt settling on me like a sack of stones. “I’m all right. I had a meeting that didn’t go quite the way I’d hoped it would.”
“But none of that matters now,” Finlay said, practically bouncing in his seat. “Because Willow found—”
“I may have found the antidote to your curse,” I muttered, wishing I could take back this entire day. Of all the things for me to lie about.
Bri gasped, wide eyes meeting mine. “When? How?”
I explained to them both about the line in the grimoire from the Abundance library. My only excuse for not telling them sooner was that I didn’t want to get their hopes up, that I’d planned to do more research first, but we’d been too busy in the past few weeks for me to get to the library.
“The willywag tree?” Bri asked doubtfully.
I nodded sagely, though I was pretty sure I’d butchered the name.
Finlay was watching me with one brow raised skeptically.