Chapter Eighteen #2
There was a reasonably large crowd of customers when Briar finally opened her doors, which was a relief, considering Mr. Crane’s visit. Ethan had returned without a word, sitting in a chair and sharpening his knife on a whetstone. It was most uncivilized.
Briar could not have said why she found it so comforting.
The tall, scarred Iron Crow, the grim set of his jaw, the repetitive scrape of metal on stone. A teashop should be full of whispers and birdsong and the light tinkling music of a harp.
Which sounded dreadfully boring all of a sudden.
When he moved on to whittling a chunk of wood, he did not look any more refined.
She served strong tea and scones with clotted cream and strawberries.
The queen cakes were popular, decorated with tiny marzipan swans.
Children were allowed barley sugar candy and chocolate drops and candy comfits, even though it was still early in the day.
Her customers were more nervous than they had been yesterday, even the locals.
The dropped shields and circulating Keepers were beginning to take their toll.
Problems with Lyonesse’s magical barriers were usually mended more quickly than this.
Aidan returned, frowning at the white flowers. Of course he had noticed. And of course he was suspicious.
Everybody wanted answers and no one had any to give.
In its absence, gossip would do. It was clear in the way people sat, shoulders tight, glances flickering.
There were a lot more iron-nail pendants, which had never been popular in Haven.
They weren’t nearly pretty enough. Some enterprising soul had already begun to sell them ornamented with pearls and rock crystal.
Briar brought Ethan a pot of tea, even though he had not asked for it. She added a marzipan dove because it amused her that a grim-jawed Iron Crow might eat a pink bird of peace. He held her gaze and devoured it in two easy bites.
Something warmed in her belly. Something most inconvenient. The struggle not to blush was real.
“Charles Bloody Aster is lurking in the bushes,” Sorcha announced not long after, and with deep distaste, as she marched into the shop. The tip of her nose was red from the sun. She had been walking the moors again. Briar hoped she had found the Black Shuck. “And it’s dodgy, even for him.”
“Wonderful.” Briar sighed. She was not surprised, not after yesterday. But she had hoped the damage to Charles’s favorite hat might have put him off.
“And there’s some other bloke very carefully circling your peonies.” She lowered her voice. “Which are all white now. Why are all of your flowers white?”
“I don’t know,” Briar whispered back. “They were like that when I woke up this morning.”
“I told Old Man Harlow out on his stoop that you did it for the festival.”
“I can’t turn an entire garden’s worth of flowers white.”
Sorcha shrugged. “He doesn’t know that. And he’s stopped making the sign against evil toward your front door. Someone else already painted an evil eye on the street outside your cottage.”
“Wonderful.” Briar sighed again. “Have a cup of tea—the evil eye is free, on the house.”
Her friend snorted. “Nothing’s free in Haven.”
Briar snorted back. “True enough.”
Sorcha leaned against the wooden counter and plucked a chocolate drop from a jar, crunching it between her teeth, the colorful sugar sprinkles catching the light. “Why are these so good?”
“They’re even better when you let them melt on your tongue instead of chomping away like a badger.”
Sorcha waved a hand. “Who has the patience? We could all die tomorrow.”
“You’re very cheerful.”
She grinned. “I like any excuse to eat more chocolate.”
“I am aware.” Briar grinned back. She smacked her friend’s hand when it returned to the jar. “Eat the broken ones, you savage.” She brought out the plate she had already put aside for her.
Sorcha ate half the pile before raising her eyebrows meaningfully in Ethan’s direction. “He’s still here, is he?”
“He’s been…helpful.”
“Excellent. Now I don’t have to murder him. I’d hate to get blood on my chocolate.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” Ethan said drily, not looking up from his dagger. The chunk of linden wood in his hand was taking the shape of a swan.
Sorcha choked on a chocolate drop. “Oops. Good morning, Dragon.”
“I’m not sure he wants people to know he’s the Dragon,” Briar murmured, watching one of the gentlemen nearby give a full-body start. He was pale as boiled milk.
“Then he shouldn’t have let his very large dragon take a nap on your roof.”
“What?” Briar stepped out and squinted against the sun.
Ethan’s familiar was indeed curled up on her roof.
He barely fit. His scaled tail was wrapped around the gargoyle crouched on the corner.
He glowed, not like fireflies and starlight, but like sunlight off the sea.
Like knives. He was menacing and beautiful. So much like Ethan.
“He’s protecting you,” Sorcha said smugly. “Ethan.”
“He’s protecting his path to the moon egg.”
“Well, you’re in the middle of that path, so I’m glad you have someone keeping an eye out.
” She shook her head at Aidan, who really was staring at a moon-white peony blossom.
He was dressed exactly as one would expect from an earl who worked in a museum: tidy, a bit formal.
Expensive. “Who is he, really?” Sorcha asked under her breath.
“He works for the London Museum of Magic. He came yesterday with two Keepers.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. Outrage and worry sparked off her. Her crow flew out of her chest, screeching a warning.
“You probably can’t eat his eyeballs,” Briar pointed out mildly.
“Spoilsport. You can’t just let him poke around.”
“I don’t like it either, but I only look guiltier if I don’t.”
Sorcha huffed out a breath. “I suppose. Luckily, I don’t have that problem. Oi!” she added with a sharp whistle. “You!”
Aidan straightened, his serious-scholar face a combination of arrogance and curiosity.
Sorcha marched right up to him, her red tangled hair in its unfashionable plait, no bonnet to be seen.
One would never guess her grandfather had been a duke.
Disgraced, of course. But still a duke. Her green eyes flashed.
“You gave him something to eat?” Sorcha said to Briar before he could say anything at all. She shook her head, even more outraged with Aidan after a glance inside the paper bag. “And you chose marzipan?”
Aidan frowned. “Yes.”
“The worst of the sweets. The most boring.”
“I was not aware there was a hierarchy.”
“That seemed unlikely.” Sorcha scoffed. Aidan blinked. He did not seem the type accustomed to women who scoffed. Or shouted “Oi” at him over the hollyhocks.
Briar was not sure if she should save him or throw him to the wolves. “Sorcha Beauregard, this is Lord Coventry.”
Sorcha snorted. Aidan appeared both bewildered and irritated. A common reaction to Sorcha, truth be told.
“It’s not polite to trample about in a lady’s garden,” Sorcha pointed out.
“I assure you, I was not trampling.” Aidan was so serious, so courteous. Briar almost felt sorry for him. Sorcha would find it irresistible to needle him until he turned purple and possibly exploded. He bowed stiffly in Briar’s direction. “I shall be in the orchard for the rest of my inspection.”
Sorcha crossed her arms. “I am coming with you.”
“I do not need assistance.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not helping you. I’m keeping an eye on you.”
“I assure you, miss, there is nothing unseemly about this,” he said stiffly. “I am on museum business.”
A snake slithered from behind a pot of thyme. It ought to have been green, but it was white.
Moon-white.
Briar stifled a squeak. White flowers and white snakes would not endear her to a museum curator hunting for the effects of his tracking spell on a moon charm.
Worse yet, the snake was curled around something that flashed silver, edged with pearls and crystal. Exactly where Bramble had dragged Petal into the garden.
Around a part of the moon charm.
It had clearly broken, as this looked to be the bottom cap, seed pearls dangling.
Sorcha followed her gaze and then immediately snapped it back to Aidan. “It’s Lady Sorcha, actually,” she said forcefully.
“Pardon?” Aidan asked, too taken aback by her general demeanor to notice Briar gently dragging her foot back, hiding the silver and pearls under her heel.
She kept her smile placid. The roses perfumed the air. A bee arrived to investigate. An acorn dropped on her head. “Stop that,” she murmured to them.
“I’m not miss,” Sorcha continued. “I’m Lady Sorcha. Technically.”
Aidan was surprised, as expected, but clearly too polite to remark upon it. And when she marched ahead into the orchard, he naturally followed. Sorcha was a force of nature.
She had taken him away from the white snake—and the white snails Briar had also just noticed on the gravel walk.
Away from the piece of the moon charm, which she crouched to scoop into her palm. It seared her witch knot. She slipped it into her apron just as Aidan said, quite stiffly, “After you, Lady Sorcha.”
“Keep up, Lord Coventry,” Sorcha returned, with a cackle.
Briar exchanged what could only be called a commiserating glance with the dragon on her roof.