Chapter 4 Margot
4
Margot
“Yael?” Margot chokes on the dregs of her ale, coughing. Some of it splatters the bar in front of her.
Smooth.
Almost as smooth as sitting across from her childhood friend and crush—whom she recognizes immediately, since they haven’t changed all that much in the last ten years—in a stained strawberry-print dress and garden boots.
Margot swears inwardly and gestures for Clementine to refill her tankard. “Yael Clauneck?” Margot repeats, desperate to give herself time to think.
What is Yael gods-be-damned Clauneck doing in Bloomfield, of all places, wearing silver basilisk-skin slip-on shoes with jade buckles, looking like they’ve been quite literally dragged here? Are their horrible parents here too? Oh gods, what will Margot say to—
“In the flesh.” Yael interrupts Margot’s thoughts. They run a hand over their dusty-yet-expensive-looking green silk suit coat (how long has it been since Margot wore something that nice?) and then through their hair. Somehow they manage to floof it even higher as they peer up at Margot.
Self-consciously, Margot mirrors their movement, brushing an errant swath of hair off her forehead. She comes away with a strawberry leaf. Wincing, she shoves the leaf under the full mug of ale Clementine has just placed in front of her.
“What are you—” Margot starts to say.
At the same moment, Yael says, “Do you drink here often?” As if they’re strangers in a gilded bar in Ashaway. As if it’s perfectly normal that the golden child of the Claunecks, someone who probably sips champagne out of crystal goblets at breakfast, has just wandered into Clementine’s Tavern.
“I…yes…of course…” Margot’s words trip out of her. She takes a swig of frothy ale, swallowing hard as she tries to calm her racing heart. Her thoughts are already sluggish from the several drinks before this one, and now they churn around the same baffling truth over and again.
Yael Clauneck is here ? Sitting next to her ? Wearing that smug grin that always made Margot want to smack them, or kiss them, or something in between the two? Impossible. Utterly, entirely, ridiculously impossible.
Fighting against the urge to touch the letter from Yael’s parents in her pocket, Margot sits up taller and wraps both hands around her tankard. “Yes. I come here almost every night. Well, that is, on the nights I can get away. Not that I drink every night; I just come here for company sometimes. Gods, that sounds pathetic. I mean I just come to chat or check in about an order at the greenhouse. Of course, sometimes I just head straight home. Or I fall asleep in the greenhouses, which is what happened tonight, which is why I’m still in my work clothes…”
Stop talking. Please, Margot. Just breathe.
Across the counter, Clementine’s eyebrows are nearly in her hair as she looks between Margot and Yael.
“Friend of yours?” Clementine mouths.
Margot clamps her teeth down over her words. She isn’t twelve years old, showing Yael Clauneck her tower hideaway, the two of them licking jam off the same silver spoon with Margot hoping madly that Yael shared her feelings—or at least that the jam would ease her heartache if they didn’t. And she isn’t seventeen, hoping to invite Yael to the Greenwillows’ masquerade ball, though the two of them were barely friends by then, and she wasn’t sure they could come all the way from their boarding school if she did write to invite them, but still, the thought of Yael in a mask and three-piece suit had made Margot’s teenage insides twist…
No. She is twenty-two. Responsible. The owner of Greenwillow Greenhouses and a credentialed plant witch. Yael is just an old childhood friend somehow passing through Bloomfield. Surely they aren’t here to check up on her?
It seems unlikely given how pleased Yael is looking with themself for running into Margot.
Clementine pulls a bottle of wine and two glasses from below the bar and sets them in front of Yael. “On the house for a friend of Margot’s. Stew’ll be right up, darlin’,” she says with a wink.
Yael replies with some combo of banter and charm that draws a loud, delighted laugh from Clementine.
Margot frowns and looks away to clock how many Bloomfield residents are watching them. Exactly none, which makes her breathe a little easier. If the townspeople don’t know who Yael is, then surely they won’t put together who Yael’s parents are or why that would matter to Bloomfield at all. Margot can’t help herself this time, and her hand flies to her pocket and the Claunecks’ letter.
“This girl’s a good one,” Clementine is saying to Yael while she swats at Margot with her bar rag, dragging Margot back to the moment at hand. “You’re lucky you sat next to her.”
Yael grins. “I assure you, I count myself the luckiest person in all of Harrow to be sitting beside her now.” They turn the power of their charm on Margot, and her cheeks heat.
She finds herself returning their grin.
Ridiculous.
Clementine throws Margot another meaningful look and mouths, “Cute!” as she walks away. Margot rolls her eyes, not missing how Yael’s gaze lingers on Clementine’s retreating form. Not that it matters. Not even a little bit. Yael can look at whomever they want, however they want.
Probably they weren’t ever friends, whatever Margot had hoped. After all, wouldn’t a friend have sent a note after Granny Fern died? Or perhaps a “thinking of you” bouquet after Margot’s parents decimated the Greenwillow fortune and the Claunecks finished the job? Wouldn’t a friend have wondered where Margot was in all those long years after she left Ashaway?
She glances over at Yael, who’s deftly opening the wine bottle with Clementine’s pocketknife, oblivious to Margot’s internal stewing. Clementine was right: Yael is cute. Margot remembers the way their eyebrows come together when they’re concentrating, as they’re doing now, and the way they chew on their lower lip.
Not that it matters. Margot is absolutely not thinking about nibbling on their lush lower lip.
That’s just the ale talking.
Steadying herself, Margot glugs half her tankard in three gulps.
Yael pours the dark-maroon wine into two glasses. “Cheers,” they say, sliding a full-to-the-brim glass toward Margot. “To old friends and to getting lucky.”
Margot can’t help the snort that escapes her. Yael is bold as always and charming enough to pull it off, unfortunately. Good thing they’re not friends.
And since they’re not friends, maybe that means Margot wouldn’t be breaking her own rule, if…
No.
Not thinking about that.
Still, it has been so incredibly long since she’s gotten lucky.
“To luck,” she grinds out, raising her glass.
They both drink. A lot. Margot nearly empties her wineglass as a long, meaningful silence stretches between them.
“So, Bloomfield is…” Yael begins after a few excruciating moments. They look around the tavern. “Quaint.”
In that one word, Margot hears her parents’ disdain for the town Granny Fern loved. She remembers Yael’s parents talking about how quaint Bloomfield was; they’d said it like the worst of slurs during their visit to Greenwillow Manor. She hears the way her classmates in primary school sneered when she’d read an essay on her summer vacation. She’d written all about Granny Fern and the wonderful summer they’d spent together far away from the city. Meanwhile, her classmates had spent the summer on the coast, or traveling across the Serpentine Sea to Perpignan, or the Jade Sea to Locronan. Only Yael hadn’t laughed at Margot as she’d stumbled through four paragraphs about berry picking and jam making.
Not that Yael’s kindness mattered. Not then, not after they left Margot behind in Ashaway—and especially not now, since they aren’t friends.
“Bloomfield is a wonderful place,” Margot says, the words coming out fierce and protective, if slightly slurred.
“Sure it is, especially if you wish to escape reality.” Yael sounds surprisingly cheerful about the idea.
“This is reality.”
“A better version of it, maybe, miles away from the Copper Court.” Yael fills their wineglass again.
What is that supposed to mean? Margot fixes them with a long look, really taking in the dust caked onto Yael’s expensive shoes. The rip in their perfectly tailored trousers. The way their hands shake, ever so slightly, as they drain their wine.
“What exactly are you doing here, Yael?”
Here it is, the moment of truth. The moment she’ll know whether they have, in fact, been sent to check up on her and her progress on the Natural Caster Potion, or if it’s just a wild coincidence that they’re sitting across from her now, candlelight snagged by the flecks of gold in their brown eyes.
Yael refills Margot’s glass, once again to the brim. “Well, I was passing through. And I remembered your family lived in Bloomfield, and I longed to see you again. Whatever happened to you? Last I knew, I left for boarding school the summer after our visit to Bloomfield, and when I came back to Ashaway for university, you were gone. None of us at Auximia ever heard from you again!”
Margot takes another long sip of her wine, swirling it around her mouth, savoring the dark berry sweetness and the tart notes. The grapes in Bloomfield’s vineyard are of the non-enchanted variety, but they are delicious. She lets the taste linger as she considers her answer.
Maybe Yael really hasn’t heard about the Greenwillows’ fall, but how could they not know? Suddenly, Margot looks at Yael with new eyes, wariness settling over her. Yael—with their easy, wine-stained smile—doesn’t appear to be a financial mastermind intent on ruining Margot’s life further. In fact, as they take off their silk jacket and roll up their sleeves, they look as they always did. Carefree, confident, the life of every party.
And ridiculously hot, if Margot is being honest. Which shows just how off her judgment is after all the drinking. She really should go home now. Or soon, after a few more minutes with Yael.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Yael says, leaning toward Margot, forearms resting on the bar. Their casual posture is disarming, and Margot can’t help but lean in just a little closer.
“What’s your secret, Yael?” Her voice comes out huskier than intended. If they’re only passing through, what’s the harm in flirting a little bit?
“I’m on the run.”
Margot fakes a dramatic gasp. “You’re a fugitive!”
“I am indeed! I’ve stolen a horse, in fact.” Yael’s face lights up—eager, conspiratorial, stunning.
Giddiness rolls through Margot. Maybe it’s the ale, or the wine, or the way Yael’s eyes have strayed to the strawberry-embroidered neckline of Margot’s dress. She shifts in her chair so her knees brush against Yael’s calf. “Yael Clauneck, you rogue. I never thought you had it in you.”
Yael shifts on their barstool, spreading their legs slightly farther apart, the gesture both intimate and playful. An invitation. A dare. “Then you never really knew me.”
Margot’s heart trips in her chest.
Good thing we aren’t friends.
“Of course I know you. You’re easier to read than that sign over the bar.”
Yael glances up at the hand-chalked sign that spells out the tavern’s weekly dishes and ales. “There’s all manner of things you’d never guess about me, Margot Greenwillow.”
“Like what? What depths are you hiding beneath this absurd waistcoat—” Here, Margot leans closer so her right knee is caged between Yael’s thighs. She runs a hand along one of Yael’s lapels, not missing how they shiver beneath her touch.
Hunger flares low in her belly. She’s absolutely starving for things she shouldn’t want.
“?‘Absurd waistcoat’!” Yael smirks, collecting themself—with effort, it seems. “I’ll have you know this coat is bespoke and made by Rastanaya herself.”
“Ooooh, so fancy,” Margot says, laughing. “Any other secrets to reveal?” She shifts on her stool, the heat of Yael’s thighs warming her leg. Now they’re so close, Margot glimpses the tiniest of freckles nearly hidden under Yael’s lower lip. How had she forgotten about that freckle?
“That I’m a proficient kisser,” Yael says matter-of-factly as they lean a little closer.
Margot goes very still. Are they really talking about how good a kisser Yael is? Like two teenagers? Ridiculous.
Yael’s hand rests lightly, ever so very lightly, on Margot’s knee. She nearly faints.
Reaching out, she grabs for her wineglass. “I might have heard rumors of your talents,” she says, wishing she would’ve just gone home the minute she recognized Yael Clauneck. “But then, I’ve also heard you once were caught with Sedgewick Wayanette on the boarding school lawn beside a fountain you’d dared him to turn from water to mead.”
A laugh bursts out of Yael at that. “All lies, I assure you. Except the kissing part. That’s entirely true.”
Margot wouldn’t doubt it. Yael’s, ahem, reputation had followed them from the time they were almost teenagers all the way through school. Rumors even floated across the narrow strait from Perpignan to Harrow while they were away.
Before Margot can say more, Clementine appears with Yael’s stew, and Margot immediately untangles herself from Yael. The stew is a gloopy brown mix of meat and vegetables, delicious but humbler than they must be used to in Ashaway. Still, Yael cheers as Clementine sets it down.
“I brought you one too,” she says, setting a bowl in front of Margot. “Because I’m sure you forgot dinner again, yes?”
Gratefully, Margot accepts the stew, and she and Yael eat in silence for a few moments. When Yael’s done, they turn back to Margot, eyes once again full of candlelight and danger.
“Well, now that I’m fed, do you know anywhere I can stay the night?” Yael asks.
The question is laced with so many unspoken ones that Margot has to let out a slow, steadying breath.
It’s not that she’s given no thought to her love life, or even her sex life, in the last few years, but something about concocting a potion that sends your parents into comas shortly after they’ve gambled away the entire family fortune on bad investments, combined with the pressure of needing to come up with a potion that saves the village and her greenhouses, does put a damper on things. That, and living full-time in Bloomfield, where the average age of the residents hovers above fifty, give or take a few people who took over their homes and businesses from their parents—like Clementine, whom Margot has known since she was a toddler.
There were a few nights of fun in college, of course—just casual encounters from when Margot and Sage would go to the alehouses in Olde Post. And there was the long-distance thing with Zella, Margot’s on-and-mostly-off-again girlfriend during the last year of college, whom she communicated with via sending stones once they graduated. But that hadn’t lasted after Zella took a job in Perpignan. There’d also been a tinkerer who came through Bloomfield at the start of last autumn, his wagon full of wares and soft furs. That was a fun evening, but it had been nearly six months since then.
Gods. Six months. Actually, six months and thirteen days exactly, but who was counting?
How has it been six months since Margot touched another person beyond hugging Sage or handing someone a plant?
She looks again at Yael.
Do you know anywhere I can stay the night?
She does indeed.
Good thing they aren’t friends. Such a wonderful, delightful, deliciously good thing, because tonight, Margot’s loneliness is an abyss.
“I have a place in mind,” she says, finishing up both her wine and the ale, for courage’s sake.