Chapter Four
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
When frying, work in batches and let the oil return to a high temperature between batches. Do not crowd the frying skillet. Flavor needs space, and even the best-tasting snacks can get soggy and spooked.
You can address me as Mr. Knight.”
He lifts a stool in one hand and brings it to the island. It doesn’t fit the height of the counter, but everything is a little out of place in this farmhouse. Including me.
I can’t tell if he’s pissed or just grumpy. Both. He’s harder to read than Momaw’s Woodford-fueled handwritten recipes. Clearly no one expected me to show up this morning, and I’ve for sure lost this job before getting hired.
He doesn’t wait for any kind of apology for the social blunder. “To be frank with you, I don’t have the luxury of interviews at this point, but Ms. Zeen keeps the Manor running, and she insists on formalities. So, here we are.”
A test recipe. Right. The whole reason I’m here. I give him a subtle once-over, reviewing my usual mental checklist. Eyes, focused. Walk, even. Skin, pale but not deathly sallow. Speech, clear. Situational awareness, solid. Attitude? Needs improvement.
He looks relatively healthy on the outside, although I know that doesn’t mean anything if he’s suffering from a chronic illness of some kind.
There’s a world underneath our skin other people aren’t always privy to, and food can’t fix everything.
But how am I going to even begin to try to heal him if no one will tell me what’s wrong?
Doesn’t matter. I’m here for my mom, and I’m a Frost to my core, made of grit and gristle (which also happens to be the name of the only late-night restaurant in town, the Grit & Gristle).
There aren’t many folks with magic in a town this size, but just because I’ve never healed another magical being as powerful as a Warlock doesn’t mean this is going to be another situation like my mom all over again.
Besides, this is where my unique twist of magic comes in handy.
I move around the island, the last barrier between us, and stop directly in front of his stool. This is likely the only time I’ll ever be taller than him. My hands go out, palms up. “May I hold your hands for a moment?”
That shakes his stern mask for a hot second. “Absolutely not.”
Bothersome, but now we’re getting somewhere.
Could his illness originate on the skin?
An allergic reaction of some kind, or an autoimmune response concentrated in his extremities?
Perhaps direct skin contact with something in his garden is to blame.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and this whole situation is just a bad case of poison ivy.
“I know this is sensitive, Mr. Knight, but I need to touch your skin to even begin a recipe. I always start here. Anything about your health remains confidential with me, I promise.”
He doesn’t look convinced. “Is this what a typical house call from a Farewitch entails?”
“We don’t really do house calls anymore.” So appreciate it, I want to add, but I play nice.
“I didn’t realize this process would be so…”
“Hands-on?” Ha.
His severe indifference slides right back on. Not one for jokes, then. He raises his gloved hands. “These stay on. No exceptions.”
“But I have to touch you—”
“Then you’ll have to touch something else.”
Silence.
His eyes squeeze shut half a second. “That did not come out correctly.”
“No, it didn’t.” I bite my tongue to keep from grinning. “Okay, gloves on. No hands. May I?” My palm hovers by his cheek.
His brow sinks over his eyes. I can see he’s weighing whatever pain he’s in against tolerating my presence. I’ll try not to be offended.
“If we must.” Discomfort hangs on his gruff whisper, and it sends a bolt of nerves right down my spine.
“We must.” My palms go around his cheeks.
He stiffens, his mouth tight. In the way, way back of my mind, I wonder when someone last touched him. His skin is warm, from sun. Slightly scratchy, stubble coming in. I feel the oddest desire to run my thumbs over his sun patches— Focus.
Right. I can’t forget I’m at the mercy of Foxe Holler’s most powerful resident.
Witches practice lower magic, more grounded and practical, and so we craft stable, homegrown networks of community power.
Warlocks, however, practice higher magic, amorphous and capricious spellwork that likes to react to their moods and impulses.
So, more powerful in theory, if only because it’s explosive.
Despite our differences, both Witches and Warlocks draw power from the land.
Someone’s magic is strongest when it’s local and has time to grow roots.
The land can only support so much magical energy, though, so being a small town means Foxe Holler has just a handful of other Witches.
I don’t even know another Farewitch, besides my mom.
With that constraint, and their higher magic that guzzles energy, Warlocks often become solitary travelers, independent yet isolated and restlessly nomadic. Their power easily becomes volatile.
Higher magic, higher reward. Higher risk.
Which is why the folks of Foxe Holler trust neighborhood Witches but not Warlocks.
Except—this Warlock is the exception. He’s been here, in this spot, for ages.
Ironically, that might make the town fear him even more.
Unpredictable higher magic is one thing, but a Warlock who stays put and lets his power burrow and calcify?
As I hold his face, his breathing is impressively controlled, even if the tension in his body is screaming. Something haunted hangs in his eyes that I can’t place. I close my own, my thumbs brushing over his jawbone. And then I let my magic do what it does best.
Fragments of old moments in time dance under my eyelids.
The memories begin.
They don’t come through as a best-of highlights replay, or in clear images, but appear in notes of flavor, feelings that come with a taste. But darkness hits me with every cabinet in the kitchen of his mind that I try to pry open. Not empty, but the memories are shadowy. Hidden.
I concentrate, edge closer to him, my eyes pressed as tightly as my fingers on his face.
Finally, I tug a few glimpses into the light.
A summer picnic, out in the yard. A birthday?
The Manor is fuzzy, and looks more like the farmhouse in its original glory before the quirky additions and neglect.
Then a woman, her black hair in a bun, great cheekbones.
A silk scarf around her neck gives her gobs of elegance points.
Chinese jade rests at her throat, green pendant twinkling in the sunlight. She smiles at me—
The Warlock’s gloved hands tug on my forearms, and the memory vanishes, but I let it go. Farewitches only take what we need. My eyelids flutter open.
His breathing comes fast now, no longer controlled. “That’s enough.”
My hands drop and I back up. “Thank you.”
Wide hazel eyes look away, avoiding mine. “What could that possibly have told you that I couldn’t?”
That’s another trick of my memory magic—a patient never knows what I see. They usually just feel tired or hungry after I poke around. “It tells me you shave with a straight razor and need better sunscreen.”
The glare returns. We’re back in business. But I don’t need him to like me. I just need him to like my food.
At last, an idea for a recipe blooms.
So with the Warlock watching my every move, I get to work on my real interview.
I wash the produce I brought and get hot oil going in a skillet. It’s not my skillet, and there’s rust on the bottom, but it’ll do. I know this recipe by heart, but this edgy silence will drive me mad, and my mind needs something to distract me from my nerves.
“Your letter said the situation is advanced and beyond my efforts.”
My back is to him at the stove, but I can see that fixed scowl of his perfectly in my head.
“I don’t look ill on the surface, but I wrote you the truth.
I also said you would be compensated handsomely if I hire you, and part of that payment is for discretion.
The less you or anyone else knows, the better. Do we have an understanding?”
I’m more than familiar with the mental and internal toll of an invisible illness. Momaw kept her decline secret as long as she could. My thoughts always trickle back to her in these anxious moments, when I wish I could hear her voice on the phone.
“I wouldn’t worry,” I say, trying to focus on slicing. “Everyone in the Holler thinks you’re over three hundred.”
“Everyone just assumes all Warlocks are ancient?”
“How far off am I?”
“I’m very well not three centuries old, thank you.”
“Hmm. Disappointing.”
He scoffs. “Like a Witch, I have a regular human lifespan. If Warlocks were immortal, you wouldn’t be here, would you?” Then, lower, an aggravated mutter: “We wouldn’t even be in this mess.”
Good point.
I set out a shallow dish of spiced flour, a bowl of whisked daffodil-yellow eggs, and lastly, cornmeal breadcrumbs I toasted myself out of old cornbread from the Apothakery. “Have you gotten any kind of diagnosis from a medical doctor? What did Dr. Virgil say? You must’ve seen him first.”
“No doctors. It’s not a regular illness. It’s magic in origin.”
At the severity in his voice, my heart stumbles.
My first thought jumps to curse, but curses are Witch territory, our kind of practical magic.
I’m not sure Warlocks can even be cursed.
To them, it might just feel like the sniffles.
Even if a Warlock somehow fell victim to a curse, they could likely just undo it.
And there are better ways to lift curses, usually with a spell, not with a Farewitch and her food.
This is something different.
Even if it means he sends me away, I have to be honest when it involves someone’s health. I look at him, my fingers coated in a hearty combination of gluten and egg. “While I appreciate your interest in my skills, I typically heal common physical ailments. The non-magical kind.”