Chapter 28
A large, stout wisteria had taken over for the double-delight, proving a less thorny but no-less effective binding for Garden’s prisoner.
It had her secured by each hand and each foot and spread out between two tall, thin ash trees.
She still bore the evidence of her battle with the rose, nasty cuts over every inch of skin.
Her clothing hung in tatters, her stockings dangling in shreds from her suspended legs.
It was quite a gruesome sight. Nigel hissed through his teeth as he approached, shocked by the cruelty of it.
He’d known Garden to be vicious toward him upon occasion, but he’d never thought it capable of something so savage.
Then again, after what happened with the Shadowbane Lady, Nigel couldn’t blame Garden for being a little extra cautious right about now.
“Is she dead?” Nigel asked as he stood beneath the suspended figure of his enemy.
As though in answer, Calista’s eyes flew open. She stared down at him for a moment before she began struggling. She tried to speak, to scream, but too many vines and leaves wrapped her mouth, stifling any sound she made to little more than a whimper.
“All right,” Nigel said, breathing out a sigh of relief. While it would certainly make his life easier if Calista Anguish were no longer in it, he didn’t like the idea of Garden taking a turn for the murderous, however justified. “Lower her down.”
Garden resisted. The wisteria vines tightened around her wrists and ankles, and Calista shook her head, her eyes wide and desperate.
All her careful makeup was smeared, and her hair hung in ragged strands.
She looked much older like this. As though those fifteen years had counted for more than she liked to let on.
“Now,” Nigel said, infusing the word with authority. He’d never taken a tone like this with Garden before and wondered, very briefly, if he would be obeyed. He was not his father, after all. A fact which neither he nor Garden ever forgot.
Finally, with a blustering breeze of a sigh, Garden relented.
Slowly, the vines lowered the prisoner to the ground, allowing her bare feet to find balance, even as they kept her wrists restrained.
Nigel stepped forward and looked into her eyes.
She shook her head, terrified, and it would be all too easy to forget what she had done to him last night.
Not to mention what she had intended to do. To him. To Garden.
To Luna.
“I ought to kill you,” Nigel said, his voice a low growl.
Her nostrils flared with a sharp intake of breath. A thin whimper escaped through the leaves and vines over her mouth.
“If I let you go,” he continued, “you will bring death and destruction back with you. I know this. You know this. There is no releasing you now. Not while this secret lies in your head.”
She swallowed hard. Tears ran down her face, trailing the last few streaks of her black mascara in gothic rivulets.
“I ought to kill you,” Nigel repeated. “But I won’t. Because she wouldn’t like it.”
Calista blinked. Then understanding seemed to fill her eyes, and she drew herself up a little straighter, a little prouder.
“No!” Nigel growled, taking a short step toward her, so that she winced away from him.
“I know what you’re thinking. But no. Not Jastira.
After your failure of last night, I don’t think the Shadowbane Lady would give a damn if Garden tore you limb from limb.
” He drew his face close to hers, his teeth clenched, his lips rolled back in a snarl.
“Your savior’s name is Luna Talbot. My shop assistant.
My Sovereign Lady. The woman whom I have chosen to serve for as long as I have life and breath in me.
” He stretched out his hand then, pressed his palm to her forehead.
“The woman whose name you will forget from this moment on.”
The sudden influx of summoned Dire was so sharp, so powerful, it flared in the atmosphere. Calista’s eyes widened with terror, and she tried once more to scream, to struggle. But it was useless.
Nigel’s hard mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I may not be the sorcerer I once was,” he admitted, “but neither have I forgotten everything I ever learned.”
The energy transference was profound, draining patches of Garden’s lawn all around them. But Garden wanted this done as quickly as he did, and gave of its essence to fuel the spell. It grew in strength under Nigel’s fingers, under his command.
“It will go easier for you, Calista,” he said, “if you do not resist me.”
Then he plunged into her mind, even as he had done to Lord Bruxley three days ago, and to Tobias Goddard yesterday evening. He was getting quite practiced with this whole memory-removal business, wasn’t he?
Calista’s mind was not like either Bruxley’s or Tobias’s, however.
It was a mind made up of sharp, razor edges.
If he was not careful, he’d cut himself on her thoughts, her fears, her hatreds, her longings.
But Nigel pressed on, deeper and deeper.
He knew what it was he sought. First, he took hold of the memory of last night—their encounter on the street, their conversation, all that followed.
Then he followed the strands of that memory back into farther reaches of her mind.
Searching out every little piece of Calista that was associated with Garden, with Luna.
He found a memory that caught his eye particularly.
In it, Calista sat at a desk, going through files, idly checking the listings of names, locations, ages, and other pertinent details.
He saw her flip a file open, and there was Luna’s face—her picture, captured in black and white film, paperclipped to the top of an official-looking document.
Nigel recognized what that document was: a heptagram listing.
Luna had been catalogued along with the tattoo emblazoned on her wrist, and all her documentation sent back for official filing.
Filing that was processed by members of the l’mauvas.
So this was how Luna was found. This was how all the careful protections her aunties had used to shelter her through the years came undone.
It must have been not long after this moment that Calista’s simulacrums began stalking Tealeaf Cottage, eventually driving Luna to flee.
And all because she happened to be the right age, the right look.
All because she might be the person the Brotherhood sought.
Nigel took hold of that memory and yanked it.
Hard. He felt Calista resisting, pushing back, struggling to hold on.
But it was useless. Yes, she was talented.
Yes, she could have been great, brilliant even, one of the best. But she chose a different path.
And in the madness of her devotion to the Shadowbane Lady, she gave up everything that might have been.
Which, Nigel suspected, may have been part of Jastira’s intention when she chose the girl to become her servant.
Jastira never did like female competition. She was quite petty that way.
With a final twist and wrench, Nigel ripped the memories out, little caring for the ragged tatters left behind. Calista uttered a terrible shriek, muffled in the physical world by vines, but echoing through every corner of her mind. Her body tensed; her muscles spasmed.
Then she sagged, head hanging heavily in front of her.
Nigel stepped back, panting hard. He still held the memories, roiling with Dire Matter in his fist. He squeezed his fingers tight, crushing them in little poofs of anti-glitter, which disintegrated and floated away into Garden’s atmosphere.
“Let her down now,” he said.
Garden obeyed, relaxing the grip of the wisteria vine.
Calista fell to her knees then collapsed to her side, lying still, her eyes open and staring into nothing.
Nigel stood over her, remembering suddenly the beautiful girl she once was, collapsed at his feet in Scrying 101, struggling to breathe.
He remembered how desperately he’d fought to save her, and in that memory, felt a momentary stab of compassion, despite everything.
He shook his head. “I should kill her,” he murmured.
But he wouldn’t. Because he really wasn’t that man anymore. And this fact alone might ultimately spell disaster for everything and everyone he cared about. But he couldn’t do it anyway.
Calista moaned softly, her body twitching.
She would come fully conscious again soon.
Nigel needed to move fast—no point in erasing those memories only for her to get an eyeful of Garden all over again.
Kneeling, he pulled her arm around his shoulder, then scooped her up like a child in his arms. She was quite light, despite her tallness.
Even so, he staggered a little as he carried her across the green grounds, grateful when Garden reshaped its paths to lead swiftly to the boiler room door.
Leaving behind the warmth and sunlight and fresh greenness, Nigel stepped back into the cold shop, shutting the door fast behind him.
Then he carried Calista behind the counter and set her in the cane chair.
She moaned softly, staring blankly at the stove.
Nigel set to work at once, making a cup of tea.
It was the most natural thing in the world—of course, there must be tea.
There always must be tea. Not that Calista Anguish deserved it.
But she would have it even so, and then he would send her on her way.
He fetched the orange llarmi, primed the pot, and even added the dibble-dab. “For luck,” he whispered. They needed all the luck they could get right now.
A short while later, he pressed a warm cup into Calista’s hands. She raised her head, blinking up at him blankly. “Where am I?” she asked in a very soft sort of voice.
“You took a wrong turn on your way home last night,” Nigel answered without answering. “Drink your tea, madame. Then we will get you back to your husband.”
She took an obedient sip. Her red lipstick was gone, and her lips were not so full as Nigel had always believed them to be.
They were very pale and left no stain on the white Whittlewedge cup.
She fluttered her lashes a little as tea slid down her throat, then looked into her cup with some surprise. “This is very good.”
A secret warm flush filled Nigel’s heart. It was the first sincere compliment the beauteous Calista Quick had ever paid him. “Thank you,” he said.
She blinked up at him, her eyes oddly innocent in a face which had shed all traces of innocence a very long time ago. “And who are you?” she asked sweetly.
“I am the man who is going to call you a taxi.” He pointed a finger at her nose. “Wait here.”
With that, he turned and slipped from behind the counter, murmuring to Debbie to keep an eye on their guest as he went.
Then he hastened outside and flagged down an automagic cab on Pembroke Street.
He bade the driver wait on the corner, then returned to the shop.
Calista had finished her tea by then and was wandering up and down the aisles, looking at the flowers.
Just as Nigel stepped through the door, she came upon the double-delight rose and drew back from it with some alarm.
“This one looks rather vicious, doesn’t it? ” she said, turning to Nigel.
“Come on.” Nigel slid an arm around her waist and took hold of her fingers with his other hand. “The cab is waiting. You need to get home and sleep, Mrs. Anguish.”
“Yes,” she answered hollowly. “Yes, sleep. Sleep. Sleep . . .”
She seemed halfway to dreamland already by the time Nigel loaded her into the back of the cab. He spoke to the driver, telling him to deliver his package to The King’s Crown. “And, erm, use the discreet entrance,” he added.
The cabbie lifted a brow. “Right you are, sir,” he said, no doubt suspecting this to be the end of an illicit triste.
The automagic mobile pulled away from the curb, belching thaumaturgical exhaust in its wake, and Nigel watched it go until it disappeared into the busy morning traffic. Then he breathed out a long exhale.
The crisis was averted. No more simulacrums would pursue Miss Talbot.
As for the Brotherhood . . . without Calista Anguish to guide them, they would no doubt soon fall into infighting and backstabbing and all the other regular sorts of sorcerous activities.
It wouldn’t matter how horribly Jastira haunted their dreams. They would never accomplish much on their own.
Sorcerers simply weren’t built for cooperation.
Nigel thrust his hands deep into his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet.
For the first time in a long while, he felt the tiniest bit optimistic.
Perhaps he could protect both Garden and Luna.
And perhaps he could make Luna feel comfortable enough that she would be convinced to stay on.
She must know now, after the events of last night, that he was a safe friend.
That she had no reason to fear any untoward feelings from him.
Perhaps he could make it all right and go on enjoying the goodness of her presence in his life. For a little longer, at least.
This fragile hope unfolding like a flower in his heart, Nigel turned and walked back to The Arcane Bouquet, kicking piles of slushy snow as he went.
DON’T MISS NIGEL GRIMM AND LUNA TALBOT’S ONGOING ADVENTURES
COMPLETE SERIES SCHEDULE FOR RAPID-RELEASE, APRIL-AUGUST, 2026
Enjoy a 15K word Spot of Tea and Sorcery novella, FREE to all newsletter subscribers
This standalone novella takes place between Volumes 1 and 2 of the main series. When Nigel takes Luna out for a picnic lunch, disaster ensues. Can a quick-thinking tea witch save her boss from a terrible fate?
DOWNLOAD TODAY
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM VOLUME 5