Chapter 3 #2
And to the back of the garden, along the forest line, there are pale flowers growing, with their petals all curled in, like they’re trying to protect themselves from the cold.
They draw my attention, and I’ve just taken a step forward when the door opens and closes at the front of the hut, and a gruff voice says, “Here.”
Turning around, I find the minotaur offering me a pair of gloves. I arch a brow at him.
“They’re the smallest pair I own,” he huffs, flopping them toward me. “You want them or not?”
For some reason, I’m enjoying annoying him. Maybe it’s because I have about a million better things to do than help this grumpy groundskeeper muck around in the mud all day.
I tip my head and purse my lips. “No thanks.”
His eyes narrow. Annoyance level: rising.
Eyebrow arched, I ask, “So, what special brand of punishment do you have in store for me today?”
The minotaur tosses the extra pair of gloves onto a narrow table alongside the hut, already cluttered with pots and soil and gardening tools, and says gruffly, “Compost.”
AS FAR AS I KNOW, compost is supposed to be soft and fluffy and smell good.
This is not compost. This is slimy leaves and garden debris and muck. And it’s my job to turn it. Because, apparently, compost likes to be turned. I didn’t realize how high-maintenance rubbish piles could be.
I shed my cloak an hour ago, and I wipe sweat from my forehead before sinking the three-tined compost fork into the big pile and grunting with the effort it takes to turn it over.
When Mr. Axton showed me how to do it, he made it look simple—of course, he’s probably got about two hundred pounds of muscle on me, so for my scrawny arms and wrists, this is anything but easy.
With another grunt, I flip a glob of the unfinished compost, then pause to catch my breath.
My hands sting, and with a wince, I peel them away from the handle of the compost fork to find blisters forming along my palms. They’re angry red and tender to the touch.
And now that I know they’re there, they start to burn hotter. Funny how awareness does that.
Shit. My eyes narrow. Should’ve worn those gloves after all . . .
Movement to my left catches my attention.
It’s Mr. Axton, bringing yet another wheelbarrow full of fallen leaves to dump onto the compost. There’re numerous piles back here, and I’m only on the second one.
He doesn’t even look over at me as he hefts the wheelbarrow up and dumps everything out. The tunic he’s wearing is stained at the hem with mud, and he’s a bit sweaty, like me, but somehow, it suits him—like he’s meant to be part of the salt and the earth. Unlike me. I just burn everything down.
A flare of irritation goes through me. It’s done that innumerable times today.
Why can’t my magic just listen? Why can’t I control it the way my peers can? It’s gotten me into more messes than I can count, but this—I look down at myself, finding my pants and tunic smeared with compost and dirt and leaf litter—is certainly the worst of it.
And it’s also the only thing standing between me and possible expulsion.
The thought of losing my place at the academy makes my stomach twist. I can’t let that happen. Papa would be so disappointed, especially after how hard we both worked to get me into Coven Crest in the first place.
“Finished?” the minotaur asks.
It’s only one word, yet it feels spoken slowly, and as he comes to stand beside me and I look up at him, I get the impression that he may have been a mountain in another life—ancient, stoic, towering above everyone else.
But maybe lonely too. I’ve always felt like mountains are lonely, so high up in the sky, in the quiet and the cold.
I pull my focus back to his question.
“Not quite,” I grumble.
His dark eyes narrow, and he crosses his broad arms. “Then why aren’t you working?”
I want to tell him to kindly screw off, but my hands are burning even more now, and I’m not so sure I can finish this pile without utterly ruining my palms.
So, with a defeated sigh, I drop the compost fork to the ground and open my hands, holding them out toward him.
He assesses the bright red blisters with a furrowed brow.
I can hear the “I told you so” on his tongue, recall clearly the way he held the gloves out and I carelessly turned them away.
Go on, say it, I think bitterly.
With a huff, he draws himself up and says, “Come on.”
Taking the handles of the wheelbarrow, he heads away from the compost piles and out of the garden. I hurriedly grab my cloak from where I tossed it across a garden table that wasn’t in use, then scamper after him, having to move fast to keep up with his wide strides.
As we walk back across the academy grounds toward his hut, my gaze is drawn down to his hooves.
I’m not sure how much of his lower half is human, as he wears baggy trousers that only just reveal his hooves as they press deep into the soft earth and grass, leaving moon-shaped prints behind.
So far as I’m aware, minotaurs are all a little bit different, just like witches and humans and orcs and all the other creatures who call this place home.
I dismiss the curiosity as a few students pass us on the cobblestone path, looking like they’re headed for the Mistwood and the long walk into Wysteria.
I desperately wish I were at Poppy’s mom’s café instead, eating strawberry shortcake and teasing Alina about Raelan and how I was right about him all along.
But instead, I’m stuck here, splattered in mud, with my palms covered in painful blisters.
And I’m pretty sure my hair is one big halo of red frizz right now.
Ugh.
The students’ eyes follow me, and I stare right back until they finally turn their gazes away.
Mr. Axton parks the wheelbarrow just outside his hut, then wipes his hooves on his doormat before walking in—and closing the door before I can follow in behind him.
Asshole.
Another spike of irritation goes through me, but it just makes my hands throb more fiercely. Blowing out a breath, I take a seat on the big bench outside the hut—big enough that the toes of my boots barely brush the ground. Perfect size for a minotaur, I suppose.
A couple minutes later, the door opens again, and Mr. Axton emerges with something held in his hand. Eyes slightly narrowed, like even this is an inconvenience to him, he holds something out to me.
I eye the squat little jar. “What is it?”
“Healing salve.”
Sounds like heaven. But something stays my hand. Pride? Anger?
The minotaur looming over me arches a brow. “You want it or not?”
I meet his annoyed expression with one of my own. With a sigh, he starts to turn away. At the last moment, I lunge, intending to snatch the jar out of his hand. Instead, I accidentally knock it free, and it falls to the stone at his hooves, the little glass jar shattering on impact.
The breaking of the glass sounds ear-shattering against the stillness of the hut and the dried leaves rattling gently on the trees overhead. And the salve—which I can now tell smells of lavender and tea tree—sloops out onto the clover-packed stone beneath Mr. Axton’s hooves.
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, starting to stoop to clean up the mess. “I didn’t mean to.”
But the minotaur holds out a hand, stopping me in my tracks. “We’re done for the day.” His hard brown gaze cuts toward the castle looming over the stone wall in the distance, then back to me. “You can go.”
He doesn’t want my help? Fine.
It’s not like I want to be here anyway.
Whipping around, I snatch my cloak off the bench, then storm back toward the castle. But despite how high I hold my chin and how firmly I square my shoulders, one thought echoes in my mind.
I did it again. And I didn’t even need my fire this time.