Chapter 16
Mr. Grimm suggested that she stay at the door, just in case Mrs. Goddard arrived while he was gone and was able to let her through. This plan Luna immediately snubbed.
“No, thank you,” she declared firmly. “I’d prefer not to sit alone, freezing my bum off, wondering what you’re up to. Let’s stick together, shall we?”
He agreed without too much protest, and the two of them set out marching into the snow.
Luna hoped he knew where he was going. Without Garden consciously shifting the paths for her, she felt completely lost. She’d become so used to magical accommodation, and her sense of direction and understanding of fixed landmarks was sadly skewed as a result.
It didn’t help that everything looked so different under a blanket of snow.
Mr. Grimm strode with confidence, however.
She didn’t have much choice but to trust him.
It was difficult. Seeing him like this. Swarming in anti-glitter.
And when she looked down at her own body .
. . ugh. That was worse somehow. She found herself wondering what he had killed to source all that energy.
Because it had to be exchanged from somewhere.
There were plenty of options to choose from in Garden.
Did some tree or bush sacrifice its life so that she might not freeze to death?
Green Mother save her, but she hated sorcery!
Everything to do with sorcery. For a while there, she had begun to think she hated all sorcerers as well, even bumbling old Sorcerer Biddercombe.
He had not proven a true friend in the end, had he?
When the authorities arrived in Greater Snoring to mark him with the heptagram, he had told them about her.
Where he had come by the information that she was born to a sorcerous family, she didn’t know.
The aunties had been so careful to quash any rumors circulating about their little niece.
And they’d grilled a fabricated backstory into her head so hard, from such a young age, Luna could rattle off the details of it with more confidence than any of the real truths of her history.
Despite their best efforts, something must have slipped.
Perhaps Biddercombe simply noticed her unusual affinity for sorcery—her easy perception of things he thought well-hidden, things no one other than a fellow sorcerer should have spied.
Luna had tried to keep her abilities hidden, but over the years, too many little slips must have added up.
In the end, the authorities had made their way up to Tealeaf Cottage.
No amount of protesting from Auntie Aurora, no amount of vapors from Auntie Arabella, and no amount of imperious threatening from Auntie Apolonia had proven effective.
They’d tested Luna. Found her to indeed possess all the traits of a born and bred sorceress, despite her utter ignorance of the craft.
The tattoo was administered. And for the first time in nearly two decades, the name Luna Talbot was a matter of public record.
It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her real name. It was enough.
Not long after, the phantoms had begun to appear.
Luna tucked her head into her shoulders, trying not to look at Mr. Grimm. She concentrated on her feet instead. It was becoming more difficult to walk by the moment. Snow piled up, and her boots, though sturdy, struggled to make headway. She lost her footing and stumbled heavily.
Mr. Grimm’s hand grasped her elbow. “Here we go,” he murmured, helping her back upright.
He didn’t release his hold on her, but continued to support her as they progressed.
And that simple gesture ignited war in her heart.
Because she liked it. Too much. She liked that feeling of support and caretaking, even as she was fully conscious of the sorcerous power emanating from this man.
Even as she was fully conscious of the fear he should, by rights, inspire in her veins.
What was she meant to do with such impossible dichotomy?
“There,” Mr. Grimm said at last, pointing ahead. “The Heart of Garden.”
Luna blinked, snowflakes heavy on her eyelashes, and peered through the obscuring veil of blizzard.
At first, she could see nothing. Then, as though manifesting out of the gloom, she became aware that she stood before an absolutely enormous tree.
The trunk was so thick around, it would take at least seven of her, standing fingertip-to-fingertip to span it, and the branches, heavy with snow, stretched as though to heaven itself.
“It’s an apple tree,” Mr. Grimm said in answer to an unasked question.
Luna turned to him, eyebrows rising. “You’re kidding. That?”
He shook his head. “A Ruby Delight. It was the first thing Dad planted when he established Garden. My mother, apparently, wanted a whole orchard of Ruby Delights, but he never grew more than the one tree.”
“I don’t see that he’d need an orchard when the one he’s got is that size.” Luna craned her neck, trying to see the topmost branches, but they disappeared into the clouds. “Are the apples any good?”
“I don’t know.” Mr. Grimm’s voice was flat, devoid of expression. “Dad forbade us from trying them. And, for once, both Fabian and I honored his wishes.”
Brow puckering, Luna turned a glance up to her employer. Even through the sheen of anti-glitter, the sorrow etched in every line of his face was unmistakable. She wished there was something she could say, and even parted her lips, thinking perhaps the words would simply appear.
But Mr. Grimm’s grip on her elbow tightened. “Come on,” he said, hurrying her along. Snow stung her eyes, blinding despite the anti-glitter sheen. Luna ducked her head and trusted Mr. Grimm to guide her.
As they drew nearer to the tree, she began to sense a strange sort of wrongness, emanating from its center. The snow seemed to dampen the sensation, but as they stepped within the shade of those vast, overhanging branches, it became unmistakable.
“There’s sorcery here, isn’t there,” she said, stopping short. The pulsing force made her nauseated. She wouldn’t take another step, even if he begged her.
Mr. Grimm shot her a short glance. “You feel it too?”
She nodded. “It feels . . . parasitic.”
“Yes.” Mr. Grimm faced the tree, that hard, stern look back on his face making him look much older and more dangerous. “That’s a good way to describe such magic.”
There was a tremendous amount of pure Green Magic in this place. Luna could feel it, but it was like . . . it was like something had wrapped around it in a stranglehold. “That’s a big spell,” she said, her lip curling. “Not one of yours, I trust?”
He shook his head. “It’s big. But it’s clumsy. Someone with some real power but little experience worked that.”
“What is it for?”
The line of his mouth hardened. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s a detection spell. Someone is trying to get a lock on Garden and relay information back to their own position.”
“Someone’s trying to find Garden?”
His brows rose. “Many someones are trying to find Garden. But mostly they don’t get this close.”
Fear bit down hard in Luna’s chest. She pulled away from Mr. Grimm, no longer feeling comforted by his grip on her elbow. He let her go, his attention still focused on the tree. “Is this why Garden is fluctuating temperatures so dramatically?” she asked.
He nodded. “It’s like fever in the body, trying to burn out the virus.
A natural defense against invasion, but ordinarily it would not require such extremity to work.
This spell is stronger than most. Clinging.
” He narrowed his eyes then, tilting his head to one side.
“It feels familiar somehow. But I can’t place who could have created it. ”
Luna’s fists knotted. Of course, she’d guessed long ago that Mr. Grimm once moved in powerful, sorcerous circles.
She’d hoped she was wrong, that it was merely her imagination taking wild flights of extrapolation, but .
. . no. She couldn’t deceive herself any longer.
He was, after all, an admitted Dark Sorcerer.
There were few enough of those in the world.
And they all knew and hated each other, if the rumors were to be believed.
All that warring and establishing of factions and infighting, all the intrigues of which ordinary folk generally remained oblivious.
Until it spills over onto the rest of us, she thought. Like it did in the days of the Shadowbane Lady.
Shaking off a shudder, Luna drew a sharp breath and pulled back her shoulders. “Can you get rid of it?”
Mr. Grimm looked at her sideways. “Not without sorcery.”
“I understand. I gave you leave to do what you needed to, didn’t I?” She offered a swift wave of one hand. “Go on. Save Garden from this . . . this thing.”
His gaze remained fixed on her for some moments, even as the snow fell between them. Like he was trying to read something in her face. She couldn’t guess what.
Then, turning abruptly and trailing wafts of anti-glitter, he approached the tree.
Luna watched as he placed his hands on the trunk, walking around the huge circumference, murmuring and muttering, either to himself or to Garden, she could not tell.
She felt repeated sick pulses from the tree as the Green Magic fought against the invasive sorcery.
Luna grimaced. How could they have failed to go searching for this mess sooner?
She had distracted Mr. Grimm for hours. If it weren’t for her, surely he would have made his way here long ago and dealt with it, and the situation wouldn’t now verge on disaster.
Suddenly, Mr. Grimm called out in a loud voice: “Wheelbarrow!”
The next instant, Old Mister Grimm’s rust-bucket of a wheelbarrow manifested and creaked up to him, nudging him in the hip. He turned and rooted around inside the barrel.
Luna frowned. “I thought you were performing sorcery, Mr. Grimm,” she called out.