Chapter 9
Rumor
Twenty leapt from his perch on the counter and sauntered over to my feet as if a random girl didn’t just show up and admit to murder at the breakfast table.
“You killed your brother? With… magic gloves?”
“No, silly, with my bad magic touch. Everything I touch dies. It just started a few days ago, the same day all the fighting went down in the square. Someone brought me to Empath, she consulted with some other witches, and they sent me here.” She outstretched her arms. “Ta-da!”
My brow furrowed in confusion. “Your bad magic touch killed your brother? You don’t seem very upset.”
Trinket took a half-eaten slice of bacon from my plate and plopped it in her mouth.
“You know, I’ve always thought that’s a funny thing about death.
No matter how horrible a person is when they’re alive, no matter what they did or said, when they die, everyone’s supposed to feel sorry for them.
Or act like they were great—or act like you’re some jerk if you don’t miss them or mourn them. ”
“Was your brother a bad man?”
Trinket glanced up at me through her lashes and something slight, something other than mirth, danced across her features before she answered. “Yes.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Then congratulations. He’s better off dead, and you are free.”
The corners of the girl’s mouth lifted. “They warned me you weren’t very nice. I think you’re great.”
“I bet the coven had all sorts of nice things to say about me.” I rolled my eyes. “Well, while we await their word, I’m going to go rummage through the garden and see what I can find for lunch. Make yourself at home.”
“I’ll clean up breakfast,” Trinket answered, clearing my plate carefully so as not to brush my arm.
“Death touch,” I mused. “I’ve never heard of such an…” I struggled to find the word. Affliction? Gift? Curse? “Ability.”
“Neither had Empath. That’s why she had to, I don’t know, research it or something. It’ll suck if I can never pet a dog again, or ride a horse, or give someone a hug.”
The realization of those realities sank in, and something like pity twinged in my chest. “Well… I suppose so, but…”
“But what?”
“No one can ever hurt you again, either.”
The girl considered me for a beat before nodding. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Leaving her to wash dishes, I exited out the back door, onto the frosted grass.
The vine-covered fence still creaked, as I stepped back in time to the garden of my childhood.
Echoes of my mother glittered under the thin sheet of frost. Bewitching and enchanting just like she was, fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs from every season shimmered back at me.
It had been many moons since I wandered outside and into this capsule of old; it was too much of her.
It was too much of my childhood. It was too much of a life that didn’t exist anymore, yet it stared back at me so plainly.
There were many nights that I wanted to come out here after my mothers were taken, and all I wanted to do was tear the garden to shreds.
I wanted to rip up every flower, kick every gourd, smash every tomato, pummel every vine.
I wanted to make the garden look as destroyed as I felt.
The only thing that stopped me was Prism.
Instead of wanting to eradicate the beauty as I did, my little sister saw to tend to it.
She saw it as a parting gift, something left behind, something rare and delicate to hold on to.
Proof that our mother existed, proof that her hedge witchery lingered on, even if her body no longer did for her.
It was a comfort for me, a cruel reminder of everything I’ve lost, and now, in horrific irony, it reminded me again, but not only had I lost my mothers, I’ve lost my sister as well.
I lost her physically and I lost her love emotionally.
My moms would be so disappointed in me. I wandered deeper through the well-worn dirt paths, not even sure what I was looking for.
Maybe a squash would be nice to make soup later.
I didn’t know; my brain hadn’t thought of something so ordinary in so long such as; what to have for lunch, the need to fetch water for bathing, or perhaps gather sticks to create more runes.
I couldn’t stay still, that was for sure.
There was no way I could just sit around and wait for the coven to decide what to do with me, especially now that they sent me another girl.
They didn’t know what to do with us. It was a cottage of misfits, a witches’ dwelling of girls with bad magic, as Trinket had labeled it.
Bad magic, bad magic, oh what to do about bad magic.
I knelt to pluck a carrot from the earth, twisting it at its leafy green top and pulling out the orange vegetable.
As I dusted the dirt from its skin, a loud caw pierced the quiet morning air.
My shoulders jolted was surprise, and I reached to my thigh for a dagger.
I’d never went back to strap it on that morning.
I’d made that mistake twice already. A few yards in front of me, a blackbird perched on the knotted handle of an overgrown pumpkin.
Extending its ebony wings, it cawed again, it’s thick throat bobbing at the effort.
My heart pulsed in my throat as I stared down the creature, realizing this wasn’t a common crow.
This was a raven, and the raven had a name. This raven had a keeper.
“Never?” I whispered, afraid to be wrong, afraid to spook the familiar.
His familiar. This familiar belonged to someone who continually pushed into my thoughts, unwelcome.
I fought to ignore him. I struggled to forget the line of his jaw, the darkness of his eyes, the way he looked dressed in all black, the way his shoulder brushed mine as we sat on a tomb in the middle of his maze under the stars.
I tried not to think about his daimon form.
I wished so badly I weren’t intrigued by his horns, his shadow, his hate.
Everything about him was death—bleak, unyielding, hateful, and vile—yet I couldn’t get him out of my mind.
I hated that I couldn’t get him out of my mind.
The raven croaked again, pattering her head up and down.
I suppose I could’ve shooed her away or went back inside, but I didn’t; instead, I walked forward, not knowing what I would do when I reached her and her perch on the large pumpkin, but as it often did, my inquisitiveness got the better of me.
The morning mist had yet to clear, and each step held a new discovery of twisted vines and mysterious out-of-season harvests. Never was stone still, as if knowing I would come towards her, as if waiting for me.
He was so quiet. I didn’t even see him walking forward until his massive dark outline came into view, like a fearcat a hunter didn’t notice until it was too late.
I froze in my tracks as he stepped in front of his familiar, as large, domineering, confident, and brooding as ever.
It had never occurred to me he would come for me, that he would come here, that he even cared enough to do any of those things, but there he was, and I had no idea why he came.
“Rumor,” he greeted lowly.
“Spade,” I answered. “You—you,” I stammered, distracted by the violet glint in his eye and the broad curve of his shoulders.
I then gripped the carrot in my hand as if it were my missing dagger, remembering my rage and the dirt under my fingernails reminding me of what I just had to crawl through because of him.
“You must be lost; the pasture and pigpen are three miles south. You must’ve been coming to check that I was still dead and buried, right?
Well, much to your dismay, I’m sure, I am alive. ”
Spade leaned back on his heels, shoving his hands in the pockets of his long, black coat. “Well, I can’t say I ever expected you to stay put, even in your own shallow grave. I imagine death spat you back out as fed up with you as I am.”
“Such a way with words, daimon.”
“Such a well-fitting dress, witch.”
A flutter of surprise jumped into my throat and warmed my cheeks.
I hated Spade Blackthorne… so why, oh, why did he have to look so devilishly handsome?
It only made me hate him more. Leaning on the pumpkin, near my mother’s old, ivy-covered scrying stone, Spade stroked Never’s wing with his knuckles.
The over-confident lord was content to pretend he wasn’t flirting with me.
As much as I detested him and how he’d just recently abandoned me in the dirt—a small swell of pride bloomed in my chest at every confirmation that he was attracted to me.
Gathering my wits, I crossed my arms. “I bet you hate that you lust for me.”
“I hate most things,” Spade replied without missing a beat, his attention still fixed on his familiar. “But the swing of your hips and the curve of your lower lip are two things not within the forefront of my more loathsome thoughts.”
Again… what the hell was that? His piercing gaze met mine then, rendering me frozen on wobbly knees. Then it occurred to me, he was here, but Riot wasn’t. Why had Spade come? Why hadn’t Riot? Why did I care?
“What do you want?” I asked, steadying my voice. “It’s cold out here, and I have things to do.”
His tone was dark and smooth like velvet, though I couldn’t get a sense for his mood. As always, I could never quite tell if he were angry, disinterested, or simply inherently cold and standoffish. “A full itinerary today, hm? More lives to destroy, dark magic to employ, and monsters to vanquish?”
Spade’s offhand remarks always cut deeper than they should have, deeper than I’d ever admit out loud.
Spade Blackthorne saw me sharper, more enhanced, and in a deeper way that was far from comfortable and not an insight I wanted to dwell on.
All I could focus on was getting away from him…
knowing he’d unfortunately occupy most of my thoughts the second he left.