Chapter Ten
“You look ghastly,” her friend Sorcha said as she walked into the tearoom two hours later, raising an eyebrow at the back door, which was still only barely propped open, and then that same eyebrow at Briar.
“Well, cheers for that,” Briar said, though she was quite sure it was the truth. Her eyes were gritty and she didn’t need a looking glass to know there were smudges beneath them. She had tied on an apron patterned with violets to match them.
“Your swan’s being beastly, even for a swan,” Sorcha added, dropping the covered basket she carried onto the counter. She had two more slung on her other arm and a wagon waiting outside with more. “She tried to bite me when I came up the path.”
“I am sure she is very sorry.”
“I am sure she is not.” Sorcha snorted, not the least bit offended.
She was too used to roaming the hills every day with all manner of creatures, both ordinary and magical.
She lived alone in her family’s abandoned manor house, baking for the shops in Haven and Hallow.
It would have made much more sense for her to move into one of the villages, but she claimed she would only start biting people, which would be bad for business.
Instead, she sent the blacksmith’s son with a cart full of breads and sweets, only popping down herself when the mood struck. But for the Midsummer Festival it was all hands on deck.
“I made what feels like another thousand sunwheel cookies. Do you have any more marigolds? I’m running out of petals.”
“I think I do.” Briar encouraged the marigolds and sunflowers to grow for the festival. And some families hired her to visit their own gardens for a little extra green magic for the season, something to show off to visitors. It was bad luck to run out of them before the solstice.
“So, what happened here, then?” Sorcha added, watching Briar sweep up the last of the broken crockery dust and mud.
“Storm broke the door and made a mess.”
Sorcha leaned against the counter. Her dark hair was in its usual side plait.
Haven might strive to be as fashionable as Mayfair, but Sorcha would rather lick rust, and said so on a regular basis.
“And here I thought it was having two Keepers on your doorstep last night that has given you that delightful pallor.” She narrowed her hazel eyes in accusation.
Her crow familiar cawed from the threshold. Also accusingly.
As Sorcha had named him Elderberry, he had a great many things to be accusatory about.
“There were Keepers here,” Briar admitted.
“Whatever for?”
Because my sister stole a piece of magic.
Because she’s in trouble.
Because I can’t wake her up.
She didn’t say any of these things, of course.
Not with two customers wandering in, talking in hushed, worried tones, followed by Mr. Allens, the busiest busybody that had ever busybodied.
He wore his green cravat that he claimed had been blessed by the Toad Mother in the Goblin Market.
He was bordering on ancient, and his many years had not made him any kinder.
“Surely you’ve heard the shields have dropped?” Briar asked her friend instead. It must be common knowledge by now. Though happily, neither Bear nor Oliver had returned. Yet. She knew it was only a matter of time.
In the meantime, Petal still slept. Bramble said she had not woken once during the night, not even when the thunder rattled the windows. Her breathing was easy, her color healthy. She did not appear to be suffering.
But she would not wake.
Not even when Briar had cracked a sunlight charm right over her. The acorn had split, revealing a burst of light strong as the sun at noon. She and Bramble had to cover their eyes. It had no effect whatsoever on Petal. Neither had a ring of peppercorns, or iron against the witch knot on her palm.
“There isn’t a single vole left in the deepest den who hasn’t heard about the shields,” Sorcha said.
“It’s just awful,” one of the visitors interjected. “I didn’t sleep a wink all night.”
“My sister frets,” the other said, rolling her eyes.
“Magic is tricky, even in Lyonesse.” She patted her sister’s arm.
Rather forcefully, it had to be said. “The Keepers will sort it out by the time we have to go home. In the meantime, it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good festival vacation.”
“We saved up for ages to afford it,” the fretful sister admitted. She had black hair to her sister’s blonde. Her familiar was a tiny garden snake curled among the silk flowers pinned to the brim of her bonnet. It glowed fitfully, as if it had eaten fireflies.
Briar nodded with her best shopkeeper’s smile. “I have just the tea for you. A little chamomile, a touch of passionflower. You’ll sleep like a baby.”
“Not valerian?”
“Heavens no—valerian is all well and good, but it tastes like an old sock. No matter how much honey you add.”
The visitor chuckled. “You’re not wrong about that.”
“No sockwater tea at the Rose and Petal Teashop,” Sorcha promised.
“And are you Rose or Petal?” the black-haired sister asked as Briar scooped herbs from glass jars into muslin bags.
“Neither,” Briar replied. “I’m Briar Foxglove.”
“No greater green witch on the island,” Sorcha said loyally, all while keeping an eye on Mr. Allens and his cat familiar, who kept hissing in her direction. Animals loved her, even the magical ones. “I’m telling you there’s something wrong with that cat,” she muttered.
Briar added rose-petal honey without a comment when the blonde sister blushed over simply inquiring about it out loud.
It was a popular love charm, just a little nudge, really, always in demand.
There was barely any magic at all, truth be told.
It was such a well-known custom that just offering the honey to someone or adding it to your tea was statement enough.
One of the musicians who played at the assembly came in to ask Briar if she would come down to his house to deal with the wild roses choking out the climbing peas.
Someone else came in to inquire if there was a tea that might stop her father from reading her private letters.
As Briar had met the father in question, the answer was, regrettably, no.
Once they had left, Sorcha frowned quizzically. “What on earth do the shields have to do with you?”
“Pardon?”
“Why would Keepers come here?”
“Oh. Nothing, of course.” Everything. Briar glanced at Mr. Allens, who was examining one of the many flower crowns she had woven for the festival.
He had only ever bought a single thing from her: a charm for baldness, at midnight at the back door, even though she sold them at the counter all the day long.
“I think they must have started at the top of the hill before working their way down.”
“Making a fuss over every little thing, as usual.”
“You’re not worried about the shields?” Briar asked.
Sorcha shrugged, pragmatic as ever. “I’m worried I’ll run out of sunwheel cookies or strawberry jam. Or my oven chimney will clog. Like I’ve ever been through the portal.”
“Still.”
She nodded, relenting. “I suppose.”
There was something odd and faintly itchy about the shields being locked around the island. They might not be visible, but when you grew up on Lyonesse, you learned the feel of them, the way you learned what it felt like when the winds changed and a storm was brewing.
And it had felt utterly wrong and deeply uncomfortable when Briar was forced through the barrier.
And not just because she had been tied to a mast. What was Ethan doing now?
Had the Keepers found him? Would he tell them what he knew?
That didn’t seem likely. Iron Crows did not share. Especially not with Keepers.
“What’s that look on your face for?” Sorcha asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Ethan. She was fairly sure whatever her face was doing was the fault of one Ethan Swansea.
Mr. Allens, drifting closer, knocked over a bowl of rose petals. It was next to a jar of mustard seeds labelled eye of newt and poppy seeds labelled blindworm’s sting. His neck mottled red when an eavesdropping charm fell out of his pocket.
Sorcha’s crow swooped at the few strands of hair left on top of his head.
“Go on,” Sorcha barked after him when he hurried away. “Or it’s the last bakery delivery you’ll see from me, you old fishguts.”
Briar had to smile. “I do actually need my customers.”
“That wasn’t a customer—it was Mr. Allens. And he never paid for his last order of sticky buns.” Sorcha poked her head out. “And take your mangy familiar with you!”
The cat slunk away, tail bristling with insult.
Fired with righteous indignation, Sorcha turned back to Briar, crossing her arms. “Well, now that that’s over with, are you going to tell me why you are lying to my face?”
“I’m not…” Briar glanced around to be sure they were alone.
Sorcha poked her. Hard. “You are a lying liar, Briar Foxglove.”
“Ouch.” Briar poked her back. “Just hush a minute.”
And because Mr. Allens was not the only gossip in Haven, she reached into a jar of tin charms, the kind every child had sewn to their clothes for good luck, every lover hoping for a kiss, every old man cursing his painful joints.
They came in all types: eyes to blind the evil eye, roses for love, shells for secrets whispered between friends, horses for leaping over obstacles.
Also, every body part from eyeball to baby toe, mostly used for healing spells.
Briar pulled out a tiny ear and placed it down on the counter. She turned a teacup over it, around which she also drew a circle of salt. She could not risk anyone overhearing. Not a single syllable.
“Who do you suppose is trying to eavesdrop on us?” Sorcha asked. Her crow hopped up onto the windowsill to keep a close watch.
“The Keepers were looking for Petal,” Briar whispered.
“What? Whatever for?”
“They say she stole a moon charm from the London Museum of Magic.”
“Get away.”
“They’re blaming her for the shields and the locked portal.”