Chapter 13 #2
“No.” She shook her head. “I won’t put it off any longer.
I know it’s been quiet these last few months, but .
. . that’s just the thing that worries me.
” For so long, she’d had to be so hyper-aware of the phantom figures haunting the edges of her existence.
Now, having grown so comfortable with her life in Ballycastle, with her days spent at The Arcane Bouquet, Luna couldn’t remember the last time she even thought about those phantoms.
But they weren’t gone. They couldn’t be.
They were coming for her, and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.
Her fate had been written long ago; the only question was how long she could forestall it.
Oh, sure, sometimes she tried to imagine that she might escape it entirely, but .
. . she’d been a tea witch far too long to believe such nonsense.
Destiny was not something one could reshape to one’s liking all willy-nilly.
But that didn’t mean she had to accept it without a fight.
Luna gazed down at the violet once, her face set in determined lines. “Just three more days,” she whispered. “Two now, really.” She snorted then and rolled her eyes. “He’ll probably spend most of that time out in Garden any—”
A shadow flickered across her line of vision.
Swallowing her voice, Luna glanced up briefly to see a hunched figure step under the trolley shelter with her.
A slender man, who walked with a limp, supported on a walking stick, clad in a raggedy coat.
Luna’s heart jumped with surprise at this sudden intrusion on her privacy.
Which, granted, was unfair. This was a public trolley, after all.
Nevertheless, she hastily wrapped a hand around the violet to protect it from view.
The stranger did not seem to notice either her or her flowers.
He simply took a seat on the bench across from her, breathed out a heavy sigh, and stretched his legs in front of him.
His shoes, Luna noted, were of fine quality and must have been expensive back at the time of their purchase.
Now they were old and battered, the soles in need of repair.
The cuffs of his trousers were frayed as well.
Everything about this man spoke of an affluent life fallen upon hard times.
Luna let her gaze slide surreptitiously up those long legs to the hands folded atop the walking stick’s head. His skin was papery white and looked oddly frail. Though his fingers remained quite still, there was a tension in that stillness, as though the man himself was on edge.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Luna turned away again.
There was no reason to take any interest in random strangers waiting at the trolley stop.
Any number of folks rode the trolley line every day.
Still, she’d learned over the years not to ignore the subtle vibrations which prickled on the edges of conscious thought.
It was a tea witch thing, that awareness of auras.
And something about this man’s aura bothered her.
Luna looked down at her violet again. Where was that blasted trolley? It was always running a little behind schedule, but this seemed ridiculous—
“That’s a pretty piece of spellwork you’ve got there.”
A dart of surprise shot through her chest. Luna looked up, met the stranger’s eye.
Her blood went cold.
His face.
His face.
Half his face was melted. Raw red skin, sagging from the bone, the eye quite collapsed in on itself, the mouth stretched in a grotesque leer. The other half was normal, dignified, even handsome in its way. But this somehow only offset the strangeness, the shock. The horror.
Luna looked away again quickly. Her heart pounded wildly against her breastbone.
But this was unfair. After all, a man couldn’t help having a face like that, now could he?
He might be a war veteran, scarred in some terrible conflict overseas.
He certainly didn’t deserve to be reacted to like this.
It was unkind. She drew a steadying breath and forced herself to look at him again, to offer a smile.
His one good eye fixed upon her, strangely intense. He smiled back with the side of his mouth capable of movement. Jutting his chin slightly, he indicated the violet in her hands. “Is it Green Magic?”
He could perceive the violet. The reality filters did not work on him. Which meant, whatever else he was, this man had some degree of magical acumen.
Realizing an answer was required, Luna forced herself to give a little nod.
“Very nice.” He spoke with a smooth, polished accent, which reminded her starkly of Mr. Grimm’s. Very posh, a contrast with the shabbiness of his attire. “I’ve always been an admirer of Green Magic.”
Luna dropped her gaze again. Guilt knotted in her throat. Would he attribute her unfriendliness to revulsion? No doubt he met with prejudice all the time, and she hated to contribute in any way to what must be an ongoing pain.
But there was something else. Something beyond the outward, physical shock.
That aura of his continued to strike her more subtle senses, and now that she’d had a chance to catch her breath, she could discern what it was: anti-glitter.
A faint, almost residual stain, but it clung to him, particularly to the mutilated side of his face.
Unless she was much mistaken, that disfigurement was the direct result of Dire burn.
But was this man a victim? Or was he a sorcerer himself?
As though to confirm her suspicions, the shabby gentleman raised his hand suddenly and pulled back his sleeve to check his watch, flashing the black heptagram tattoo emblazoned on his wrist.
Luna swallowed hard. She ought to leave.
She ought to get up, take her violet, and just walk away, as fast as she could.
Sure, it was a long journey home from here, and the sun was beginning to set, and a chill to set in, reminding the world that it was, indeed, still winter.
But none of that mattered. She should go, now.
Put as much distance between herself and this man as possible.
And yet, she could not move. Because what if he followed her?
What if she found herself darting down the city streets with this man trailing at her heels?
“Have you been long in Ballycastle?” the gentleman asked abruptly. His voice was not too interested. Merely polite. Conversation-making.
Nonetheless, Luna’s hackles raised. “A little while,” she answered through tight lips.
“I’ve only just arrived,” he volunteered.
She grunted and looked down at her violet again.
The man shifted in his seat, adjusting his grip on his walking stick, which clicked smartly against the pavers.
That walking stick was a statement piece all on its own.
The head was a large, ebony stone, shaped in the form of a skull and set with red jewels deep in the black sockets.
One could not more effectively advertise “I am a menacing and dangerous individual” if one tried, but it was the contrasting gentleness of the stranger’s voice that unsettled Luna far more.
“I beg your pardon,” he persisted in those smooth, almost dulcet tones. So soft, so unthreatening. It made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. “I couldn’t help noticing that we share a sort of kinship, you and I.” At Luna’s flashing glance, he pointed. “Your wrist.”
A little hitch in her heart, Luna hastily tugged the cuff of her sleeve, concealing her tattoo. How had he seen it? She was usually so careful!
The ragged gentleman settled back more on the bench. “I’d heard it was easier for former sorcerers to find work in Ballycastle,” he said. “That they aren’t so particular about little things like heptagrams. Have you found this to be the case?”
“Um.” Luna licked her dry lips. “It depends on the, um, establishment.”
“But you have found work, my dear?”
She nodded. Then added, “I was hired on at a laundry.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly. She had been hired on at a laundry a few days after arriving in Ballycastle. She’d also been fired almost immediately when her tattoo was spotted. But she saw no need to volunteer that particular tidbit.
“A laundry?” the gentleman repeated.
“Yes.”
“And is The Arcane Bouquet the name of this laundry?”
Luna flashed him another look. The gentleman nodded mildly, indicating her front, and she remembered all in a rush that she was still wearing her green bib apron with the shop logo embroidered across the front.
Hastily she pulled her coat shut. Curse this lovely Fool’s Spring weather, tempting her not to button-up properly!
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” the gentleman said, the unmelted half of his face creasing in sympathetic lines. “It’s hard for us, isn’t it? Hard to know whom we can trust or where we might meet a friend. I don’t remember the last time I looked into a sympathetic face.”
Well, that was something she could understand, wasn’t it?
Luna glanced up at the man and his terrible disfigurement and .
. . and he couldn’t be all that dangerous, right?
If he was a real sorcerer, a proper sorcerer, surely he would use magic to disguise disfigurement like that.
A vivid image of Fabian Grimm came to mind, Mr. Grimm’s older brother.
He’d worn a disguise of garish spellwork the day she met him.
This gentleman had far more motivation to utilize that sort of sorcery, and yet here he sat, bare-faced.
Maybe he wasn’t a real sorcerer. Maybe he was more like Sorcerer Biddercombe back home, academic and fusty and not all that magically inclined.
Or he might be like Luna herself. Born to a sorcerous family, possessing a bit of magical acumen, but no training.
Or he could be here for the express purpose of hunting her down.
Luna’s fingers tensed around the violet’s stems. The little flowers trembled a little, sensing her fear.