Too Hexed to Handle

Chapter 1

There’s a hole in my roof.

I wish I could say this was an unusual occurrence. Water splats on my boots as I stare at a pile of crates, trying to decide if the contents are salvageable. Trying to decide if my roof is salvageable. Rain spews through a gap large enough for my fist, saturating the wooden beams with damp.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, like hearing the words out loud will make them true. ‘It’s just wood. We live by a forest. This is fixable.’

I really, really need this to be fixable. Ideally for free. Another drop of rain hits my forehead and dribbles down my face like the tear I can’t afford to cry. Crying would imply I’m distressed about this, which I am not.

‘It’s fixable,’ I repeat. ‘It is.’

I pull a pile of soggy triangular bunting from the nearest crate. The string binding them together resembles a bedraggled worm, and the pink fabric is covered in dark splotches.

‘Shit.’ The Laevothe festival starts in a few days, and having to purchase replacements is the last thing I need.

A slow smile curves up my cheek. Unless, of course, I pretend I couldn’t find replacements.

Perhaps they’ve sold out. My smile splits into an out-and-out grin while I squeeze liquid from the mushy garlands.

Actually, this is perfect. I will take all the holey roofs in the world if they give me a legitimate excuse not to decorate for the festival this year.

Celebrating the night that ruined my life isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities.

The large chest to the side of the crates, though .

. . that is a priority, despite how much I usually avoid it.

I inherited the chest, and its contents, with the inn itself, and when I push it into a corner of the barn that should remain dry, the diaries inside jostle around.

I’ve never counted how many there are, I just know my great-great-granduncle Howard was quite the wordsmith.

A few pages of his topmost diary was enough for me to decide I didn’t want to read further, but I can’t bring myself to throw them away either.

If three generations of the Flowers clan decided they were worth keeping – despite the damning contents – I, out of all of us, cannot be the one to see them lost.

Satisfied I’ve protected them the best I can, I next make a vague attempt at patching the hole with wet garlands (shockingly, this doesn’t work, but at least I can tell Astin I tried), before clambering down the ladder and imparting Basil, my donkey, with a quick pet on the nose before braving the storm.

Instantly, I’m soaked. Wind whips strands of straw-coloured hair in front of my vision. I dip my head and race across the courtyard, nearly skidding on slick stone while giving the chicken coop a wide berth. The sign saying Honeysuckle Inn sways violently when I duck underneath.

I’m shivering by the time I’m safely inside the porch, slamming the door shut and resting my trembling hands on it for a moment.

The wood rattles beneath my palms. One of the window panes is loose, threatening to pop free any second; something else to add to my list of Things That Need Fixing right beside the moth-eaten curtains and the broken tiles on the kitchen floor.

It’s a list that could also be entitled Things Daisy Can’t Afford.

Ignoring the anxious knot tightening in my stomach, I wring my hair before entering the main building.

The roar of flames in the hearth is as welcome as a hot cocoa on a cold night; a reminder that good things exist even on the gloomiest of days, just like guests can appear in the darkest of locations.

Wolf Forest may not be a vacation destination, but what the woods lack in charm, they make up for in passing trade. The forest path, a few yards from the inn, is the sole route in and out of Shiverholde, my hometown.

Today, though, the sitting area is deserted, the flames warming two empty armchairs and a table littered with old copies of the Shiverholde Gazette.

The dining area on the far side is similarly vacant, with no one to appreciate my efforts in matching the chair covers to the exact same shade of pink as the flowers placed on every lace-draped table.

A flash of lightning through the bay window illuminates cream walls with streaked, fading paint.

Ugh. I make a mental note to hang more paintings, and head to the bar where a stack of letters I’ve been avoiding await me, tucked behind the chalkboard menu.

My fingers hover over them, contemplating opening one at last, when a bell tinkles overhead.

Stifling a squeak, I shove the stack back in its hiding place, only to find it’s not Astin catching me in the act, but a man and woman. They enter in a swirl of mist and cold air, water dripping from their sodden cloaks.

Customers. I beam. Wet, unhappy customers. These are my favourite kind of guest, because it makes it all the more satisfying when I return the smile to their faces.

‘Hello!’ I chirp, hurrying to the other side of the bar and retrieving our bookings diary, as though I’m not already well aware it’s empty.

It’s only when they’ve reached the counter that I realise I’ve forgotten Astin’s constant warning: Check what they are before you let them in.

I grimace. Astin has a lot of opinions for someone who is supposed to be nothing more than my gardener.

He is, for example, very concerned about my profit margins.

For a long while I’ve been in what he refers to as the red, so I switched my quill to a flamboyant pink feather with matching ink, and he shut up at the sight of it.

His right eye twitches whenever I write in the ledger, but he no longer peers over my shoulder to see how many lines I have in the negative column.

Nowadays, he’s more preoccupied by the possibility that our clientele could be of the supernatural variety.

And as painful as it is for me to admit, he might be right to worry.

‘Welcome to Honeysuckle Inn. What can I do for you?’ I scan the limited flesh they have on show. If they were Souleaters – said supernatural creature and Astin’s least favourite thing – they’d have writhing, swirling lines of magic on their body, one to represent each of their recent victims.

Souleaters, despite the name, don’t actually feed on souls – they feed on feelings.

Magic lives in our emotions, but only Souleaters have the ability to be a conduit for that magic, digging their nails into our skin and using whatever innate power they have to amplify the emotion until the magic surges to the surface and into them, where it can be stored inside their body and used at will.

Given the experience is wholly unpleasant for the victim, the only emotions they channel are awful things like fear and panic and hurt, meaning their magic is as dark as the feeling itself. Hence their terrible reputation and Astin’s desire not to let one inside.

Easier said than done. They don’t exactly go around advertising what they are, given the reception they get.

While I can’t see any of those writhing lines indicating these people have got magic inside them, that doesn’t mean much, not when the evidence could be tucked beneath their clothes.

I sniff for good measure, catching a whiff of spiced sugar.

Sugar is good. Sugar is sweetness and light, things that aren’t usually associated with Souleaters, and the spice – well.

I press my lips together to hide my grin.

‘We were hoping for two rooms,’ the man says. ‘We weren’t planning to stop this soon, but the storm hit earlier than expected.’

Two rooms? Please. They exchange a glance and that spicy aroma intensifies, musky and hot, chilli peppers invading my nostrils.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe I’m the only one who can smell these things. They’re so obvious. My mouth waters and sweat beads on my brow. I press my fingers into the counter and take a deep breath, shaking off their scent.

‘Of course. Let me check what we have.’ Rather than opening the empty diary, I nudge a vase of roses to the centre of the counter.

The petals are lightly dusted with lust powder.

I have to be careful lest I succumb to it myself, but a combination of small doses and frequent proximity means I’m unaffected these days, whereas for my patrons .

. . let’s say it loosens their inhibitions.

Just enough to make them more likely to act on something that’s already there – something their scent tells me is definitely there.

The woman gasps.

Oh, shit. I freeze. My arm is outstretched, the cuffs of my blouse rolled up to reveal a black x staining the inside of my wrist. Two tiny lines crossed over the other, no bigger than a coin and smooth to the touch, like ink saturating skin, poisoning me with the curse I’ll be stuck with for the rest of my life.

‘Is that –’

‘Yes.’ I roll down my sleeve in a gesture that I hope says the topic is off limits. ‘It’s a hexmark.’

The woman’s arm hovers in mid-air, as though she’d love to examine the mark more thoroughly, before thinking better of it and dropping her hand to her side. A pity she doesn’t think better of asking questions at all, but alas she continues with, ‘When did –’

‘The Laevothe festival. Two years ago.’ My tone is clipped, which I hate. I’m supposed to be warm and welcoming, but it’s difficult when I’m being reminded of that night.

The woman pales. ‘I was there,’ she whispers.

‘It’s why I like to leave Shiverholde this time of year.

The bonfire brings the memories flooding back.

The screams. The Souleater walking through the park.

That horrid veil covering their face and body.

And those . . . those things, those shadows, they sent after us. ’

I tremble. ‘Wraiths. They’re called wraiths.’

One of the ways a Souleater’s magic can manifest: as wispy, vaguely human-shaped shadows that have the strength to pin people down on their behalf.

To pin me down on their behalf.