Chapter Twenty #2
Matthias winced. “Was he wrong? Am I invading your space? I would murder someone if I found them in my kitchen.” He shoved a plate of sugar-dusted madeleines at her as if disarming a bomb. “Try these.”
“He wasn’t wrong, exactly,” she allowed, still wondering what it meant. If anything.
“He said he wanted you to have time in your garden.”
“Oh.” She softened. Unacceptably so. She couldn’t fight Keepers and Iron Crows and Charles bloody Aster if she went soft. She took a hasty bite of the madeleine before she could do something mortifying, like sigh into her teacup. Or blush. Again. More.
“Does he do this sort of thing often?” she asked.
“Like this? Not exactly.”
“It’s rather high-handed.” And surprisingly sweet. Though he would definitely scoff at being called sweet.
Matthias also scoffed. “Are you asking me if the captain of a ship of Iron Crows is likely to ask permission before he does things?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose not.” She took another bite. “Matthias?”
“Yes?
“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
Briar hated to admit it, but spending several hours with the sun on her shoulders and her fingers in the dirt was exactly what she had needed.
She felt stronger, brighter. Replenished.
Magic did not have an inexhaustible supply.
Nor did a calm state of being. They had to be cultivated, just like hollyhocks.
There was the ever-present danger of burning out your magic. Briar had never had to worry about it before now. Coddling rosebushes, encouraging plum trees, and bewitching violet petals did not take much from her.
Black Shucks and boggarts and sirens, on the other hand…
Not to mention the heavy weight of worry for her sister.
It was taking its toll. Her hip was not the only part of her that needed a rest. And nothing was more restful, more soothing, than deadheading hydrangeas, murmuring to bumblebees, scolding slugs.
She filled a basket with rosemary, another with mint.
Three more with roses, foxgloves, and stalks of lavender.
She harvested dandelion heads for wine, the purple thistle nearby catching its spikes in her hair and pulling.
“Rude.” She reached for her trowel. “We talked about this,” she murmured to the thistle, before gently prying its roots loose.
“I don’t believe in weeds—all plants have a purpose—but you grow too fast and too strong for this little patch. You’re a bit of a bully, you know.”
She carried it to the edge of the garden, just on the other side of the low stone wall. It took only a few minutes to dig a hole and plant it in its new spot. “There. Try to be more polite.”
A shadow fell over her.
She glanced up, a tall, dark figure blocking out the sun. She stumbled back onto her bottom, skin prickling with fear before she recognized the slant of the jaw, the muscled forearm tattooed with an anchor. The silver rings.
“Mr. Swansea.”
He narrowed his dark, fathomless eyes at her. The prickle of fear turned into a thrill. “Miss Foxglove,” he returned pointedly.
Oh. He had been right to be cross when she called him Mr. Swansea. She did not care for it at all either. It was formal and polite and not at all Dragon. The pointed lift of his eyebrow was entirely of the Dragon, however. As was his presence, looming over her.
Also, the blood on his chest, the deep scratches on his left hand.
She shot to her feet, scowling. “You’re wounded!”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re bleeding on my hydrangeas,” Briar pointed out. “So it’s not nothing. Come with me.”
When she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the garden, he let her.
She led him to a table and hurried off to fetch water and the basket of supplies she kept under the counter.
Matthias was busy charming three elderly ladies who were suddenly in desperate need of lemon possets and bergamot tea and pink flummery.
“What happened to you?” Briar demanded of Ethan when she returned. He was sprawled in the sun very like a pirate king on a throne. Except for the pink forget-me-nots around his boots. They danced on their green stalks. “Where did you go?”
“I needed kelpie teeth and more mermaid hair.” He shot her an accusatory sidelong glance. “Someone stole mine.”
Briar shrugged, very much as he had shrugged. “I needed it.”
He pulled a small glass bottle from his pocket and handed it to her. Inside curled a shimmering strand of seaweed-dark hair. It felt like a posy of wildflowers. A song sung outside her window under the full moon. Calm down, Briar.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll keep my hands to myself, then.”
He frowned. “Let’s not get drastic.”
A laugh bubbled out of her. How she could laugh when he sat glowering and covered in blood after having done only the gods-knew-what? Right after leaving her bed before the sun.
“Did you find out who sent the grimsong?” she asked.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “An Iron Crow who likes to dabble in baneful magic, as expected. A friend of Twyla’s, also as expected.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And where is he now?”
“He’s thinking about what he’s done.”
“Where? At the bottom of the ocean?”
Ethan did not reply, but he did smile. Just a little.
It was not a reassuring smile.
She washed his cuts and applied a comfrey salve to them, as well as to his bruises.
The knuckles of his hand were both cut and bruised.
He sat very still as she ministered to him.
When was the last time someone had tended to his wounds?
She assumed by his scars that he was often hurt, but by his demeanor that it was not something he let others see.
The moment stretched between them, warm as a cup of chocolate on a midwinter night.
Followed by a swig of whiskey.
The man did pack a punch.
Even sitting idly, menace and command fairly emanated from him. It didn’t help that she knew exactly what he could do with his hands now. His mouth.
She cleared her throat. “I never told you that baking is my least favorite thing about the tearoom,” she said.
“You didn’t have to. You get a little line right here between your brows when you bake.” He pressed a finger to the spot. “And when you think someone is being rude.”
“I do?”
“It’s very fearsome, I assure you.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“I only make fun of things that scare me.”
She scowled. “Now you really are mocking me.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if I scare you.”
“More than you know, little thorn.” His voice was quiet, as if he were speaking to himself. “More than you know.”
Briar stayed in the garden a little longer.
Which was her first mistake.
Ethan went inside to talk to Matthias, and she took a turn in the orchard, murmuring to the plums and the pears ripening on the branches.
Bumblebees hovered, drunk on pollen and sweetness.
The heat between her and Ethan had not been banked by their night together.
Not at all. If anything, it was growing more complicated.
She felt flushed just knowing he was nearby.
He was probably used to that reaction. She saw the way people looked at him down in the village.
She could not blame them. She was absolutely certain she looked at him the very same way.
It was difficult not to, and that was even before she knew the sound of his breaths growing ragged in her ear.
The lick of heat when he pinned her down to use his tongue and teeth. The—
“Miss Foxglove.”
She could not think of a more unwelcome visitor than Charles bloody Aster.
Any interruption of the pleasant reminiscence she had been having about the feel of Ethan’s mouth on her skin ought to be a criminal offense. Clap a Keeper’s iron collar on him. Posthaste. Let a kelpie eat his liver.
Alas, if the Keepers were still watching her, they were not very interested in Mr. Charles Aster.
She could hardly blame them.
She was not interested in him either.
And her fountain was not large enough for a kelpie.
“Mr. Aster,” she said evenly. She knew Ethan could not see her from the kitchen window. She was not sure where his dragon was. Snapdragon flapped its wings, beak open to show tiny, vicious teeth.
“Control your swan,” Charles said.
Briar smiled. “No.”
He blinked, taken aback. “I saved you, Miss Foxglove. I think I deserve a little courtesy.”
“What do you want, Mr. Aster?” She did not put worms down his shirt or ask a bee to bite his backside. If that was not courtesy, then what was?
“I know where your sister is, Miss Foxglove.”
A cold stone dropped into the pit of her belly and lodged there. She was half surprised her teeth did not chatter when she spoke.
He had not happened by the ship after all.
She had known it was too much to hope for.
“Do you?” she said, positively dripping politeness. She blinked as though she were a little confused. Couldn’t possibly know what he was hinting at. She was only a green witch, after all, with a limp and marigolds in her apron. “That’s a relief, as I assure you, no one else does.”
He was spiteful and spoiled. And unfortunately, not stupid. More’s the pity.
She could call out for Ethan, but what would that do but confirm any suspicions Charles might have of him, of where Petal was hidden? Perhaps he was bluffing.
Unlikely, but not impossible.
Charles remained on the other side of the shields Briar knew Ethan had worked at the borders of her gardens.
Iron and rowanberries and bonedust. She did not know if it was dumb luck or mindfulness that kept Charles from triggering them.
He did not mean her well, that much was obvious.
But he was unlikely to physically hurt her.
He did not like to get dirty by mud or blood or magic.
That was for others to do on his behalf. His mother. Mr. Crane.
“Don’t cross me again, Miss Foxglove. We will have this land, and you will keep it hale for us.” He ducked under a branch and walked away, crossing onto the cobblestone street, whistling. For some reason, that enraged her most of all.
Briar was still frozen in place. He could be lying. He might suspect something, but that was not the same as actually knowing something he should not, something he could use to hurt Petal. And it was not as if he would be welcomed on the Sea Dragon ship to snoop around. Not him nor any other.
She had to stay calm.
Tell that to her trembling hands. Her stuttered breathing.
Was it her panic that triggered Ethan’s wards? Or something else? She did not know. She only knew that one moment she was standing in the sun feeling cold to her bones, and the next, Ethan was stalking through the orchard.
But it wasn’t Charles he hauled out of the lilacs on the other side of the pear tree by the shirtfront. It was an Iron Crow. This one appeared to be an ordinary brute with flat, angry eyes. He had no Black Shuck, no siren. Only fists the size of hams.
They did not save him from Ethan’s wrath.
Every one of Ethan’s blows landed with vicious precision.
A fist to the jaw, the stomach. An elbow to the back of the head.
The Crow dropped like a stone, gagging on pain.
Ethan pressed his boot to the man’s chest. Blood stained the side of the Iron Crow’s lips, dripping from his nose. “She’s mine.”
The Crow coughed, groaning when it tore at what must be a set of cracked ribs.
“Understand?” Ethan did not remove his boot. He tilted his head as though he were listening carefully. His left eyebrow rose. “I said, do you understand?”
His dragon snapped at the Crow’s familiar: a wasp with a glowing stinger. He clawed at Ethan’s ankle. “I understand.”
“Good. I’m going to leave you with just enough of your teeth so you can tell the others.”
And after all of that, it was the white roses shedding petals that stuck to Ethan’s hair that did it.
The cold stone in her belly melted. Her witch knot flared. She tasted mint and roses and fennel. She jumped to her feet. “I have to go.”
Ethan’s hand around her wrist stopped her dead. “Not alone.”
“Yes, alone. Just down to the village.” She pulled but could not break his hold. Not that she had expected to.
“Briar, perhaps you failed to notice, but there was a Crow here not five minutes ago. And he was here for you. So if you’re going, I’m going with you.”
“You can’t.”
His expression hardened. “Pardon, sweetheart?”
“You can’t,” she repeated with a huff of impatience. If she was right, she needed to hurry. “No one will notice me on my own. But if I go strolling through the square with the Dragon…”
“Yes, that’s the point.”
“I can’t be noticed, Ethan.”
“I’m a Crow. I think I can handle it.”
She snorted. “You are not exactly easy to ignore.”
He snorted back. “And you think you are?”
“I have nearly thirty years that prove it.” Her voice softened. “Please, Ethan.”
His gaze snapped to her mouth, eyes darkening. “Hell.”
She tugged her arm free.
“My dragon will circle. That’s not negotiable.”
“Fine, fine.” She darted away before he could stop her, possibilities whirling in her head. Was she onto something? Could she be right about this?
“You have ten minutes, and then I’m coming after you.”
She nodded at him, ducking under a mulberry tree, distracted, impatient.
“Briar?” His tone was so quiet it lashed around her, unexpectedly restraining.
She stumbled to a halt. “Yes?”
“Make it five.”