Chapter Twelve
The walk into town was quieter than usual, though not in a bad way.
Amber walked close enough that our shoulders brushed every few steps, hands nearly catching more than once.
I kept mine in my pockets and let myself notice things I hadn't let myself notice in years — the way she moved with more confidence than she probably realized, the pink in her hair catching the morning light, the small, unconscious way she hummed under her breath whenever a silence stretched too long for her liking.
"So," she said, glancing sideways at me, "where exactly are you two taking me? Warm, cold, indoors, outdoors, upside down?"
"Ride and a picnic. Spot about twenty minutes out. Quiet. We need to stop for food first."
"You want to lure me somewhere quiet with the promise of snacks." Her mouth curved. "Sounds like exactly the kind of thing a man plots before doing something unforgivable."
"If I wanted to do something unforgivable to you, Amber, I wouldn't need snacks as bait."
She laughed, surprised, like she hadn't expected me to volley back that fast. I hadn't laughed easily in years. Standing next to her again made the effort feel worth it.
"Fine," she said. "But if I go missing, tell the town I died doing something exciting. Not falling in a ditch or something equally embarrassing."
"Noted. I'll make sure the eulogy mentions bravery."
"And pumpkin bread. Mention the pumpkin bread I want left on my grave. I want people to know my priorities were in order right up until the end."
We were still bickering about the wording of her hypothetical eulogy when I felt it — a wrongness threading through the air two streets over, faint but unmistakable, the kind of pressure that settled behind my eyes before I could name what caused it.
My steps slowed half a fraction. Amber didn't notice.
Orias, walking a pace ahead, went rigid enough that I knew he'd caught it too.
He glanced back at me, a question in the look. I gave him the smallest nod.
"Actually," Orias said, stretching like the thought had just occurred to him, "I forgot I need to grab something from the hardware place. I'll catch you both at Jack's in ten."
"You forgot to buy a thing you've never once mentioned," Amber said, unconvinced.
"I'm a mysterious man with many needs." He was already peeling off down a side street before she could argue further, hands shoved in his pockets, the picture of someone with nowhere urgent to be, which meant he was taking it seriously enough not to want her following.
"What's actually going on?" Amber asked me, once he'd rounded the corner. "Is he making us spend time together so we talk? Because that is the kind of thing he always does."
I kept my voice easy, deliberately unbothered. "Orias forgets things constantly. Once left his own birthday party to buy screws for a shelf he never built. You know this, sweetheart."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know." I nudged her gently toward the crossing. "Tell me about the maze. What's the theme this year?"
She narrowed her eyes at me, clearly aware I'd dodged the question, but let it go, either out of trust or because the maze genuinely was a good enough distraction.
"Haunted orchard. There's a scarecrow section that's supposed to be terrifying, apparently, though last year's scarecrows mostly just looked confused. "
"Confused scarecrows. Truly the stuff of nightmares."
"You laugh, but Mrs. Findley took her commitment to costume design very seriously. One of them had genuinely unsettling teeth."
We kept talking the rest of the way to Jack's — the maze, the extra traders, some minor drama involving the cider stall and a feud over recipe ownership that had apparently been simmering since last year — and I let her carry most of it, asking just enough questions to keep her from noticing how often I checked the street behind us.
Whatever Orias had gone to deal with, he handled it quietly enough that nothing followed us into town, and by the time we reached the shop the tight feeling behind my eyes had eased into something more manageable.
The smell of fresh bread hit the second the door swung open. I grabbed a basket.
"You take the baked stuff," I said, handing it over. "You'll know what's good. I'll get the rest."
She took it and headed for the bakery aisle without a second thought, already debating out loud with herself over pumpkin bread versus something called a maple plait I'd never heard of.
I collected meat, cheese, a couple of bottles of cider, half listening to her narrate her decision-making process from two aisles over like it was the most important negotiation of her week.
"I've decided," she announced, reappearing with both loaves clutched against her chest. "We're getting both. This is not up for debate."
"I wasn't going to debate it. You can have whatever you want."
"Good. Because I would have won." She dumped the loaves into the basket with the satisfaction of someone settling an argument no one else had been having. "Do you have a favorite autumn food, or are you one of those people who eats the same thing year-round out of spite?"
"Pumpkin bread," I said. "Hands down."
"See, now I feel validated in my choices."
We paid, packed everything into two backpacks, and headed out to find Orias already waiting with his bike near the edge of town, arms crossed, looking entirely too pleased with himself given he'd just spent ten minutes taking apart something with claws behind the ironmonger's.
"Get your screws?" Amber asked, deadpan.
"Several. Very satisfying purchase." He winked. "Would you like a screw? They're going cheap."
He caught my eye over her head, gave a short, subtle shake of his head — handled, nothing that needed further explaining right now — and I let the last of the tension in my shoulders go.
"So who's riding with who?" Amber asked, glancing between the two bikes.
"You're with me," Orias said, already holding out the spare helmet. "Rowan hates sharing his bike now. He's become miserable in his absence."
Not strictly true, but I let it stand. Watching her climb on behind my brother instead of me felt like exactly the kind of restraint I still owed both of them after everything the last three years had cost. I swung onto mine, and we pulled out of town together, the shop bags secured behind each seat.
The ride out was better than it had any right to be, given the morning.
Wind, open road, Amber's laugh occasionally carrying back over the engine whenever Orias said something clearly designed to get exactly that reaction out of her.
I rode a length behind them most of the way, close enough to keep them in sight, far enough to give them the space they'd earned without me hovering over every second of it.
We pulled off onto the dirt track that led to the grove by the river and killed the engines in the sudden quiet, birdsong filling the gap the bikes left behind.
Amber climbed off first, pulling the helmet free, cheeks flushed from the ride, eyes wide as she took in the water catching sunlight through the trees. "This is beautiful."
"Rowan's favorite sulking spot," Orias said, already unloading the bags. "He comes here to feel his feelings."
"I have feelings constantly. I just don't inflict them on strangers in public."
"You inflicted several on me this morning before eight a.m."
"You're not a stranger, or someone I need to be kind to." I replied.
Amber laughed, and I let myself enjoy it more than I probably should have.
We spread the blanket near the riverbank and laid everything out — bread torn by hand rather than cut, the cheese, the cider poured into the flasks we'd carried it in.
For a while it was easy in a way I hadn't let myself expect, given everything unspoken still sitting between the three of us.
Orias kept the conversation moving, easy and teasing, drawing her into some ongoing debate about whether conkers or acorns made better projectiles, and I mostly listened, content to watch her laugh at things that weren't even that funny, purely because she wanted an excuse to.
Eventually Orias wandered off toward the water with the excuse of skimming stones, leaving Amber and me alone at the blanket's edge.
She caught me watching. "You've barely said ten words since we got here."
"I've been listening. To you. Both of you." I turned my cup between my hands. "It's good, actually, hearing you laugh like that. I didn't get to for years."
Her expression softened, careful. "Why'd you leave, Rowan? Really."
I owed her more than I'd given her so far. Not everything yet — not the bond, not what I'd learned standing at our mothers' graves — but more than the clipped half-answer from before.
"Both our mums, gone in the same week." My voice came out rougher than I wanted.
"I needed space that wasn't inside this house, inside this town, with everyone watching everyone else try to hold it together in public.
I needed somewhere I could actually fall apart without an audience keeping score. "
She nodded, but she stared too hard to miss my expression. "That's not all of it, though. Is it."
I met her eyes. "No. There was other stuff. Things I wasn't ready to say to you then, and I'm still not fully ready now. But I will be, soon. I promise you that much."
She studied me a moment, decided not to push. "Okay." A pause, softer. "Are you staying, though? This time?"
"Permanently." No hesitation. "I'm not running again. Not from this town, not from whatever's wrong with the magic here, and not from you."
Something eased across her whole face. "Good. Because I was going to set fire to your bike with a spell. I decide it on the ride down here. I figure a good place to start being a witch is with acts of arson."
Down by the water, Orias skipped another stone and glanced back at us with a grin he didn't bother hiding, like he'd heard every word and approved of exactly how it had gone.
Knowing him he approved of arson too.
When Amber went to join him a few minutes later, I let her go without following.
Some things needed room I couldn't give her standing that close, and there was still whatever Orias had dealt with in town sitting at the back of my mind, a low, quiet reminder that we didn't have as much time for picnics as either of them wanted to believe.
I was fairly sure we didn't have much time at all.