Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
VICTORIA
After waking alone, bathing, and dressing, I went out into the sitting room.
Feral had had breakfast delivered again.
The tea was still warm, as were the pastries bursting with bangleberry jam. I ate, savoring how tasty everything was.
My gaze drifted to the flowers in the urn.
They’d wilted, the silverbell drooping to one side. I realized the problem right away. He’d arranged them with care but hadn’t added water.
I tried to picture my big, burly wolf shifter husband picking them but couldn’t, not without smiling. His large hands selecting each bloom, bringing them back to the suite and trying to make them look presentable.
I took the urn to the bathing chamber, filled it with water, and brought it back to the table. The flowers perked up when I adjusted them, the purple ones catching the light.
I leaned down to smell them.
The witch lingers at the blooms, Acorn said from where he perched on the back of the sofa, munching on a pastry. She breathes their scent and thinks of wolves.
I straightened fast. “I was just tidying them.”
His tail swished. Of course.
“I was.”
He finished stuffing the pastry into his cheeks, all innocence.
I left the flowers and took the tray to the laboratory, determined to eat while focusing on work instead of analyzing why my husband had picked flowers for me and forgotten the most basic requirement for keeping them alive.
The samples from the northern tributary sat arranged on my worktable exactly as I’d left them. I’d already run preliminary tests, established baselines, and documented findings. Everything pointed to contamination from broken pack-sealing magic.
Except for the duskburst.
The plant kept circling back through my thoughts, an anomaly that didn’t fit the pattern. Duskburst preferred dry soil, southern exposure, and elevation. It had no business growing near the northern creek.
I pulled out my notes, reviewing the observations I’d recorded. One specimen. Purple and white flowering herb. Common. Harmless.
But why was it there? The question kept spinning around in my mind.
I needed another sample. Multiple samples, if possible. I also needed to map the distribution pattern and determine if this was random or deliberate placement.
Which meant I should go back to the creek.
I closed my notebook and headed downstairs.
The clearing bustled with morning activity. Warriors sparred near the tree line. Pack members hauled supplies and tended to gardens. I spotted Kirk near the tree with the main hall and walked over to join him.
“Lady Victoria.” He dipped his head.
“Victoria, please. Do you know where Feral is?”
“He left for the southern territories, and he won’t be back until evening.”
“Thank you.”
I headed to the kitchens, finding Helen standing at the central preparation table kneading dough.
“Lady Victoria.” She dusted flour from her hands. “What can I do for you?”
“I need a broom.”
Her eyebrow rose. “A broom?”
“Yes. The kind used for sweeping.”
“Perhaps ask your staff to clean up whatever needs cleaning?”
“Oh, it’s not for cleaning.”
Her frown deepened, but she shrugged. “We keep them in the hall closet.”
“Thank you.”
I found the closet. Three mops leaned against the back wall, the cloth on the ends dingy from use. No broom.
Well, a witch would do what a witch must do.
I selected the sturdiest mop and carried it back to the suite.
Acorn watched from the windowsill as I laid the mop on my worktable and began pulling spell components from my shelves.
Cleaning, are you?
“Why does everyone think I’m cleaning?” I asked him, not looking up.
Mop.
“Yes, it’s a mop.”
He sighed.
Flying broom enchantments were a staple of basic witchcraft. I’d learned the theory as a child, though I hadn’t actually cast this kind of spell in years. The formula was straightforward, however. Levitation base, directional control, and stability anchors.
Surely the same spell would work equally well on a mop.
I mixed the components, speaking the incantation carefully. The mop lifted an inch off the table, wobbled, and dropped.
I adjusted the ratio and tried again.
This time it hovered steady, responding to small gestures with my hand.
“See?” I said. “Not a problem.”
Acorn chittered from where he now watched on the edge of my table, another pastry in his hands.
“What?”
Those dangling strands and sopping tail were fashioned more for grime than gale.
“That’s silly.” I stuffed tools, spelled collection containers, and my notebook and pen into a tote, shouldering it and carrying it and the mop to the balcony.
Morning sunlight warmed the wood, releasing a sweet smell.
The forest spread out around me, all sorts of green peppered with the orange glow of bioluminescent fungi.
I climbed onto the mop, settling my weight carefully.
Acorn sighed from the doorway. Someone should accompany you for protection.
“I can handle that.” I lifted my finger and created a spark spell, sending a tiny bolt to the floor. It hissed and a tuft of smoke curled into the air before it went out. “You’re welcome to stay here.”
He launched himself at me, landing in my lap with his claws digging into my dress. I’m going.
“I appreciate the company.”
I climbed up onto the railing and tumbled off.
We plunged down toward the ground before the spell caught, jerking us upward with enough force to make my teeth click together. Acorn’s claws went through fabric and into skin.
I adjusted our trajectory, aiming for a path below the canopy. The mop responded sluggishly, drifting left when I wanted right, climbing when I tried to level out.
We’re going to die, Acorn said.
“We’re not going to die.”
The witch said with confidence false, as the mop beneath them starts to waltz.
“Stop narrating.”
We hit a thick tree line too fast. I pulled up, barely clearing the first massive trunk. Branches whipped past on either side. The mop bucked underneath me, fighting my directional commands.
I threaded us through gaps between trees, keeping our altitude low enough that I could see the ground. The northern creek lay roughly half a day’s walk from the compound. By air, assuming I didn’t crash, it would take significantly less time to reach it.
The mop lurched sideways.
Acorn made a sound I’d never heard from him before.
I corrected course, my hands white-knuckled on the handle, and focused on not crashing.
We arrived at the creek, and I brought us down near the bank, touching ground with both feet. When I sat, Acorn peeled himself off my bodice one claw at a time.
Never again.
“Aw, you had fun. Admit it.”
He scowled.
I stood, brushing dirt and bits of grass from my skirt, and surveyed the area. The northern tributary creek burbled over smooth stones, exactly as I remembered. Dense forest pressed close on all sides. Morning light filtered through the canopy in scattered patches.
I pulled sample vials from my tote and got to work.
The first duskburst plant I found grew near the water’s edge, its purple and white flowers bright when compared to the dark soil. I collected a specimen, noting the root structure and placement. Definitely not native. The soil composition felt wrong, the exposure incorrect.
Someone had planted this here.
I moved upstream, searching carefully, finding two more plants within fifty yards, both planted in the same way as the first. I sketched their locations in my notebook, starting to see a pattern I couldn’t quite map from this vantage point.
My enchanted pen hovered beside me, recording observations as I dictated them.
“Multiple specimens, deliberate placement, unknown purpose.” I crouched near another plant, examining the soil. “I’m finding no apparent connection to a contamination source, but geographic correlation suggests—”
Crashes and the snap of sticks rang out from the forest to my right.
I froze.
Acorn went absolutely still beside me.
A bear lumbered out of the woods. Enormous, it would be twice my height when it rose on its rear legs. Dark fur rippled over muscles as it swung its head toward us.
I scooped up Acorn and ran for the mop, grabbing the handle with one hand, Acorn clutched against my chest with the other. Straddling it, I kicked off the ground.
The mop rose a foot or so and stalled.
Behind me, the bear’s footsteps vibrated through the air.
A black shape rocketed from the tree line ahead of me.
Feral hit the ground between me in wolf form. He planted himself with his head lowered, his claws digging into the ground, and every muscle locked into place. A growl ripped up his throat.
The bear skidded to a halt.
They stared at each other.
Silence stretched through the clearing, broken only by Acorn’s panicked breathing against my collarbone.
The bear huffed. It dropped to all fours, turned, and lumbered back into the forest.
I hovered on my mop, clutching my squirrel friend to my chest, my heart thundering against my ribcage.
Acorn peeled himself off me one claw at a time. The wolf arrives like thunder rolling, saves the witch from her own controlling.
“Not helpful.”
Feral shifted back.
He turned to me in human form, bare-chested, fury blazing on his face. This wasn’t the explosive kind of anger that came with shouting, but the quiet, precise kind that made my skin quiver.
“What,” he said in a dangerously level voice, “are you doing here?”
I slid off the mop and set Acorn on the ground, straightening my dress. “Collecting samples.”
“Alone.”
“You had left for the southern territories and weren’t supposed to be back until tonight.”
“I came back early.” His jaw worked. “My wolf sensed something was wrong. He wouldn’t settle. I tracked you from the compound.”
“That seems excessive.”
“Your mop path wasn’t subtle.”
I glanced at the disturbed canopy behind us, where broken branches marked our flight. “Ah.”
“You could’ve been hurt.”
“I wasn’t.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It sort of is.”