Chapter Six #3
Bristling, I square my shoulders and look him in the eye. “It helps to know a patient when I begin baking. Consider all inquiries of the most casual kind, Mr. Knight.” I can dance this jig of formality, too. It takes two slices of bread to make a stubborn sandwich.
His frown twists into a scowl. “Just Ms. Zeen. She’s not related by blood, but she’s like family. I maintain the defensive warding outside the Manor, and she keeps the inside from falling apart. When she’s not tutoring Lazlo, that is.”
“Heaven forbid you should try to teach anyone fractions.”
No grin. Shoot. I’ll keep trying.
Obviously Ms. Zeen is more than like family.
A farmhouse as large as this takes managing, but is there some other handshake deal that connects her to the Warlock?
Or are they really just the closest thing to family each of them has?
For that matter, I haven’t a clue what the Warlock does all day in this house when he’s not with Lazlo.
Or gardening. Maybe there’s a network of Warlocks keeping him busy with tasks, some department of correspondence via ominous weather patterns.
Again, I’m struck by how much we Witches don’t know about Warlocks. It makes me wonder what we don’t even know about other Witches, like the Widow Witch. The best source of trustworthy information will be my own research.
“Lazlo doesn’t go to school in town?” I ask.
“No, he’s… a strange child,” he relinquishes.
That’s comforting. “You’re sure he’s not your son?” I ask, mostly joking. Not really.
He expels a breath, deep lines of tension crisscrossing between his brows, almost like talking causes him physical pain. A symptom, pushing to the surface? Then the tension is gone, and he’s his usual glowering self. “He’s a distant relation. His parents suddenly passed and I was next of kin.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” Crap. Stupid of me. This is clearly a sore topic for the now-very-small Knight family. Like my Frost family of two.
“He’s only lived with us here for a year,” he adds. “It’s an adjustment. Change is hard. Especially when sickness is involved.”
“I understand.” I certainly do.
We don’t say anything further and I can feel him pulling away again, the stony planes of his face hardening into a walled fortress.
Before I lose him, I ask, “How did you know I’d be interested in your library?”
He crosses his arms. Dirt smudges his shirt. He’s been in the garden. “A rumor told me you’re often found scouring old recipe books and kitchen grimoires in your free time.”
The gossip highway of Foxe Holler strikes again. “I dabble.”
“Must be difficult to find what you’re looking for without a library in town.”
A rumor told me you flambéed it. “Research is complicated, I’ll admit. It’s tricky to find PDFs online of community cookbooks with print runs no bigger than the size of a congregation. That is, if folks even have the tech to do that.”
The stare he gives me then is so intense, my spine goes rigid. “What are you looking for in all those books?”
I think about the secrets around me, the archived and forgotten information that might be able to save my mom.
Say the answer is hiding here: How would I even go about finding it in a library with more square footage than the state fair?
I might cure the Warlock before I ever scratch the surface of my other research. And then why would he let me stay?
I can’t say the wrong thing and lose it all. Not now.
What am I looking for? More sunrises. More laughs. A happy ending. A second chance. They all have one thing in common.
“Time,” I whisper.
His eyes narrow with pointed curiosity and his voice dips deep, raspy. “Aren’t we all.”
Impossibly, my shoulders shiver and my cheeks heat at the same time. Is this how he felt after I fed him food from his memories? Brutally sliced open and bare for the world to see? I’ve known him for less than a week and he can see right through me. Is that his magic?
A terrible thought occurs to me then. “Is there anyone else who takes care of Lazlo with you besides Ms. Zeen? Another guardian? Extended kin?”
“No. Just me.” He heads for the doors, as if he can walk right out of our conversation.
So if I fail and can’t cure his illness—what happens to Lazlo?
My gut turns over. I can’t face another dead end. Not with an adorable little boy thrown into the recipe. “Mr. Knight, I appreciate your reluctant faith in my abilities, but I don’t think I’m the right person for this job. If this illness is as serious as you suggest—”
“It is.” He stops, turning back to me. “Ms. Frost, I’m dying, and based on the progression of my illness, I have strong reason to believe I shall expire on my upcoming birthday on the summer solstice.”
I choke. “Excuse me?”
“The summer solstice. The solstice during the summer months. Not the December one. The twenty-first of June. Am I being clear?”
My brain misfires. I’ve poisoned myself delirious with bad basil, that’s the only explanation. “That’s in ten weeks!”
“Yes, dreadful,” he sighs. Like he’s simply waiting for me to hike up some skirts and flee. “Best bake quickly.”