Chapter 19
XIX
Celeste: Congratulations on an amazing opening! If you and Rafe aren’t shacked up in bed all day, can you send him around to mine? There’s a mouse in the larder, and I’d like him gone.
Rafe doesn’t come to the cottage. I toss and turn in my empty bed, feeling the absence of his warm body against my hip, wishing for things that I’ve no right to wish for.
The next day, when I open up the meadery, Rafe’s not there, either. There’s no cat trying to dunk his paws in my cream doughnut or knock all the tools off the counter, no slinky body wrapped around my ankles, no mischievous grin to greet me.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel the loss of a furry menace so greatly.
I tell myself that I just have to give him time, that he’ll come back, especially because he can’t turn into a human unless he’s around me. I wander between the tables, wiping them and wiping them again and rearranging the menus because I don’t know what to do with myself when he’s not here.
He still hasn’t shown up when I flip the open sign.
The meadery fills with customers, and I rush about filling pints and explaining the menu and running tankards to the kitchen and stopping a sword fight from breaking out amongst a bachelor party.
He’s still gone when I kick out the last of the bachelor party and start the evening’s cleaning, but I put on his playlist and try to tell myself that he’s okay, he’s perfectly safe, we’re good, he’s just trying to do the right thing because he may be a thief but he’s more of a gentleman than Warrick ever was—
“Hello, Autumn.”
I don’t recognise the voice.
I jerk up. A man stands in the middle of the room.
Tall, bald, built like a football star crossed with a beer crate, wearing a crinkly leather jacket and an expression of wry amusement.
He has both his hands behind his back. I locked the door, and I didn’t hear him come in.
And I’m aware that I’m all alone, that Celeste and Pax have gone for the night, and the only weapons in the place are the two decorative swords I rescued from the bachelors and hung above the fire on the other side of the room.
“We’re closed, sir. You need to leave.” I shuffle down the counter. My phone is on the end. If I can grab it without him noticing, I can call someone—
“You’re not closed for me.” The man grins, but there’s no mirth in it, only malice. “I’m Stuart. I’m a friend of your husband. Perhaps he’s mentioned me?”
A friend of Warrick?
I think of the forty thousand pounds in our joint bank account, and of Veronika’s panic, and of Hayes’ suggestion about organised crime. Maybe her visit isn’t about finding her lover?
A chill settles across my shoulders.
“He’s never spoken about anyone named Stuart,” I say, moving as slowly as I dared towards my phone. I don’t dare break my gaze from the man, in case he sees what I’m trying to do. “And even if he had, we’re still closed.”
Stuart whips one hand from behind his back.
In it, he holds a bottle of my mead. Not from the stocks we sell in the store, but a bottle from my stash at home with a handwritten label.
Apple and amaranth. How did he get that?
“Your husband sold this to me,” he said.
“It’s an intriguing use of spellwork. I haven’t seen the like before. ”
What?
This man knows about magic?
My gaze flicks over the man again, and this time I notice the signs – the ring on his finger emanating a dark, sickly aura, the way he was able to sneak through a locked door, the strange scent of sulphur clinging to him.
It hadn’t occurred to me because magic is passed through female lines. He’s not a witch, but he’s…something else. He hums with magic. And Warrick was selling him my apple and amaranth mead. After I told him how potent it was, how dangerous.
“He promised me there was more to come,” Stuart continues, sloshing the bottle. “I gave him a generous deposit for a full barrel, but the mead hasn’t eventuated. So I’ve come to collect what’s owed me.”
That’s what Warrick was doing with my mead stores. My mind races through the horrific details as I put it all together. That’s what the money in our account was for. He’s selling my magical mead to this guy without even telling me?
My head spins. After everything Warrick made me give up, after the way he treated my magic like a cute little hobby, he was selling my mead to men like this?
Rafe, I wish you were here right now.
“I’m afraid my husband was mistaken,” I say with more bite than I feel.
“He shouldn’t have sold it. It’s much too strong.
I don’t have any available right now, although I have some other meads to fulfil the order you made.
” I gesture to the wall behind me. “There’s an orange blossom mead for memory, and this blackberry and bramble for protection. ”
“I’m not the one who needs protecting.” Stuart’s smile taints the edges of the world. “I’ll take the mead that your husband sold me.”
Bees slam against the windows, buzzing with agitation. They’re so thick in the glass that I can’t see the pub’s lights outside. Weirdly, none of them has got inside. I usually have them on me all the time.
“I can’t help you, and neither can Warrick. He’s vanished into thin air. I don’t have any more of that mead. I’ll return your money to you, every last cent.” I scramble for my ordering pad. “Just write down your bank account, and I’ll do it right now—”
“That’s not how this works.” Stuart’s voice takes on a gloomy edge.
“I have clients waiting for this stuff. When Warrick didn’t make the delivery, I knew I had to come and make sure my investment was safe.
And what do I find but his little witchy wife in the very same shop where I’ve had dealings before. ”
What’s he saying? That he’s been here when Old Widow Hardcastle was alive? What did he want from her? What might he have done if she refused him?
This is very not good.
Rafe, where are you? If you can hear me, find a way to let the bees in.
I shove the pad aside. My fingers graze the edge of my phone. I pull it towards me, never taking my eyes off him. “What are you going to do?”
Stuart reveals his other hand. It’s empty. He bobs it in the air, fingers splayed, like a puppeteer making his dolls dance. A pale shape rises from the floor at his feet.
No, please no.
My heart turns to ice.
It’s Rafe in his cat form, his paws wheeling in midair, held by an invisible hand.
Unhand me, you vile fiend! Rafe swipes at thin air. I’ll scratch your eyes out! I’ll put teeth marks in your yoga mat—
My eyes are fixed on Rafe as he spins, choking and hissing, through the air, rising higher and higher. The man squeezes his fist, and Rafe’s protests cut off into wheezing gasps. I see his fur tighten around his neck.
“Stop,” I beg. “Please, don’t hurt him.”
Stuart turns his head to the side as he flicks his wrist, making Rafe turn flips in the air. I reach for him, trying to pluck him from the air as a strangled yowl escapes him. My arms freeze over my head. I try to yank them free of whatever spell he’s worked to trap them, but it holds fast.
“Warrick told me all about you, little honey witch, when we were drinking together. He said that you’re a strange woman who cares more about plants and animals than you do about him.
He seemed quite bitter about it, to be honest,” Stuart tsks.
“I know more about you than he does. I can see the magic in your aura. I hear your bees outside. I can see the enchantments you have on those barrels so they refill when your stores are low. I know exactly what you’re capable of.
So I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.
You will work your enchantments to fill a barrel of this mead, and it better be the same recipe, no tricks, and I won’t hurt your cat.
Or, you refuse, and I hurt your cat, and then I go next door and hurt the rather fetching baker, and so on and so on, until you give me the mead. ”
Don’t listen to him. Rafe’s voice breaks through the spell holding him.
His body drops a foot before being caught again by invisible hands.
Outside, more bees hit the windows, their worried drone growing louder.
You have to run, Autumn. I know this man, and he’s dangerous.
He’s doing some kind of magic on me. I can’t shift.
I think the spell is fading, because I can reach your thoughts again, but he could cast it again at any moment and I won’t be able to reach you. He’s got the Widow’s book—
Stuart snaps his fingers. Rafe’s voice cuts off, like the dial on the radio.
My phone tears from my hand and slides across the counter, where Stuart picks it up and slips it into his pocket. He grins at me. “Well, honey witch, what’s it going to be?”