Chapter Twenty-One
Briar stopped only long enough to take her driftwood cane and the basket she usually took to market.
It swung from her arm as she hurried down the hill like any other witch looking to buy potatoes for stew or golden bells for solstice charms. The rooftop gargoyles watched her, wearing their flower crowns.
Tourists ate lemon ices under the sun. A Pegasus trotted down the center of the road, golden wings gleaming.
Children chased after him, hoping for a fallen feather for luck.
Briar stopped at the grocer for cheese she could not afford, and at the charm shop for black salt and an iron nail tipped with a tiny shell. She kept her pace easy and unhurried even as everything inside her screamed, Go, go, go.
She bought a bottle of strawberry cordial even though she preferred dandelion wine.
She traded bundles of rosemary for water from the healing baths in a blue bottle. She tied gold bells on red ribbons around her basket handle. She avoided Aster Apothecary, for obvious reasons.
The shop specializing in grimoires refused to sell to her, sliding panicked glances at Charles outside, bowing to all of the ladies and charming them into trying lotions that would stop sun freckles.
Briar snuck glances at the portal. The red door was still locked, the garland flowers starting to wilt. The daisies had drooped; the Queen Anne’s lace had shed its petals. All but the white roses.
Three Keepers stood at attention, observing the crowd who stared curiously back, whispering, on their way to the beach.
There were even more iron charms and red rowanberry necklaces than Briar had seen yesterday.
Ethan’s dragon circled above, trailing sparks of light and gathering cries of wonder from below.
While the dragon pulled gaze after gaze, Briar pondered the red door.
If Petal had come through the portal, how had she made it up the hill to the cottage garden without being seen?
She could not have taken the main road. She would have had to circle behind, either dropping down into the sand dunes or running behind the last row of houses.
How had she managed to stay hidden when the Midsummer crowds were everywhere?
Briar cut through the alley between two shops, sending her magic out like vines of ivy, searching, searching.
As it turned out, she did not need witchcraft. Only eyes.
Even the alleys and back gardens of Haven were picturesque, whitewashed and dripping flowers. There were pots of geraniums and rosemary for protection. Red poppies, blue irises, pink sweet peas.
And white roses.
Just there, bursting in a froth of petals and thorns, choking the spaces between the wooden gate and a white-gravel walkway. They spilled from the inn’s stable roof, wound around a nearby water trough, tangled over the stone wall.
Her witch knot tingled, green magic waking.
White roses where Petal had lain in the garden. White roses climbing up the side of the cottage to crawl through her bedroom window. White roses on the cliffside near Ethan’s ship.
White roses here, where a witch might keep to the shadows on her way home.
It could not be a coincidence.
Briar bent over the roses, plucking flowers for her basket in case anyone happened to glance in her direction.
A dove cooed from a nearby rooftop, perched on a gargoyle’s head.
Her heart thumped in her chest as she peered among the roots, dragging the toe of her shoe through the dirt.
Nothing but leaf matter, ants, a surprised worm to whom she apologized.
The petals shivered under a breeze off the sea.
She dug deeper, the back of her neck prickling. She waited for someone to jump out of the alley, to shout at her from a window. A Keeper to descend on her with iron chains.
But it was only the roses growing where they shouldn’t be and her tingling witch knot.
And there, just there…
The glint of silver. The sheen of a small seed pearl.
White as bone, white as salt.
White as the moon.
She pulled it from the ground, anticipation racing through her.
The other half of the moon charm.
She tucked it into her stays, down between her breasts, and straightened.
Wandering slowly back to the main square, her basket bursting with flowers, was the hardest thing she had ever done.
She wanted to run up the hill. But Miss Briar Foxglove galloping up the road with a mad grin would be noticed. And she could not afford that.
Bad enough that Charles Aster noticed her. Again.
The bastard. Why was he suddenly everywhere? He smiled in her direction. She whirled on her heel. Better to be seen running than stay here.
“Miss Foxglove.”
Too late. She froze, cursing under her breath.
“Miss Foxglove, have you any news of your sister?” he called out loudly.
Heads turned, attention sharpening.
“How odd that she should go missing at the same time as the shields dropping.”
Someone gasped.
Briar vowed to put something in his next cup of tea to induce a rash. Or he could do with a few sores. Painful ones.
“Magic is unpredictable,” Briar returned calmly. Serenely, even. He wanted a reaction from her—they all did.
They would not get one.
“Even the Keepers fear the shields have trapped her in the between,” she added over her shoulder, hurrying away. “Thank you so much for your concern, Mr. Aster. How gentlemanly of you.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
She wanted to keep walking, but others had drifted into her path, frowning. A cat familiar swiped at her leg. Charles sauntered closer. His cravat points were perfectly starched. She hoped fervently that they poked him right in the eyeball.
“There have been Keepers at your tearoom,” he said. “And Iron Crows.”
The shocked whispers made her grind her back teeth. As she needed customers, she could not even threaten to poison anyone.
“Very suspicious, don’t you think?” Charles asked the gathering crowd.
“Is this true?” someone shouted. She did not recognize him. “Are you why I’m stuck here?”
“No,” Briar said. “My sister is missing. She didn’t drop the shields.”
Well, not on purpose, anyway.
Briar did not think anyone currently glaring at her would care for the distinction.
This was precisely the sort of attention and delay that she could not afford.
If Charles really did know where Petal was, she had to swallow her ire.
Vengeance sang in her heart. But it would have to wait.
“I assure you, we know nothing about the shields.” She added, “I am only worried for my sister.”
“I think you do know!”
“Why else would Keepers care about a tearoom?”
“Where is she?”
Someone shoved her. She was a small woman, but strong. And angry. Briar stumbled, not expecting it. Her cane stuttered on the cobbles.
“I want to go home!”
“Bring her to the Keepers!”
“Put her in an iron collar until she tells us how to get home!”
Another shove, this one hard enough to take Briar’s legs out from under her. She landed awkwardly, her basket spilling bright flowers at everyone’s feet. The golden bells for good luck rang.
The Keepers were tracking the moon charm.
Worse, Lord Coventry was tracking it. It would only be a matter of minutes before they came for her if she stayed here much longer, tourists and villagers yelling at her, a stolen amulet piece between her breasts.
The wild dance of magic from so many revelers would only hide her for so long.
Especially with Charles trying to prove a point, showing his power, such as it was.
But he had miscalculated. Briar was perfectly willing to be pushed around if it meant keeping her sister safe.
The Dragon was not.
A clap of thunder rattled the sky. The sound reverberated, sharp as needles. It scraped the inside of the skull like a single, giant iron bell. Everyone froze, a tableau of angry witches in a circle around Briar.
Ethan did not have to raise his voice. “Get the hell away from her. Now.”
Briar sat up, pushing her hair off her face as the others scurried away.
“Not fast enough,” Ethan added, silkily. Menacingly.
A bolt of lightning seared the perfect blue summer sky, slamming into the ground. Someone screamed. The smell of burning ozone and cobblestone was thick.
Another bolt hit just outside the apothecary. The window shattered into dust. Keepers ran into the square. Ethan did not even spare them a glance. He stared at Charles, who had gone red, then pale. His throat bobbed as he struggled to swallow.
“I won’t tell you again,” Ethan said.
The violence that came off him was enough to send three more tourists running and a cat up a tree. Charles was not that brave. He backed away, sweating. The fire from the lightning strike licked at the apothecary door.
Ethan reached down to help Briar up. His usually impassive expression was as mutable as a summer storm. Lightning changes, thunderous fury, and something softer. Something she could not name.
“You said you’d let me go alone.” Briar frowned at him.
He grunted. “I lied.”
She nearly smiled despite the bruises on her hip, the shocked stares, the whispers already traveling from shop to shop.
Ethan glared at Charles over his shoulder. “Still here?”
And then he tossed him something small and green. Charles was too slow, too stunned with fear. He caught it out of reflex. It was a bundle of coltsfoot leaves, also known as horse hoof, wrapped with a strand from a white horse’s mane, and red thread. A curse.
Ethan finally smiled. “Enjoy your nightmares.”
The charm sent seven nights of nightmares. Charles dropped it like it had stung him, wiping his fingers on his fine breeches. But it was too late. He stumbled back a step, another, before turning and dashing back to the apothecary.
“It would be so much easier if you let me murder him,” Ethan grumbled.