“I’ll buy everyone a round if Violet can get us out of here,” said Fallon, laughing.
“True,” added Pru. “Beer’s a bit hard to find in this, er, cave of thorns?”
Violet sat up, reaching behind her to squeeze Nathaniel’s knee. “Give me just a second.”
“Take all the time you need,” said Quinn with a smile.
“Did we do it? We stopped Sedgwick?”
“We did.” Quinn’s smile grew.
“And Peri? The rock goblins?”
Pru shook her head. “No idea.”
“What happened there anyway?” Violet asked. “How did you know they’d become a dragon?”
“Well,thatpart was a surprise,” admitted Pru. “But remember the book I found in the castle library? I learned all about them—as much as anyone really knows anyway. They’re formed when beings of immense magical power are turned to stone, and all that magical energy needs to gosomewhereso it kind of animates itself. When a slide gets together, it can re-form into whatever creature it once was. There were so many of them, we knew it would be big. We just didn’t know it would be…that.”
Nathaniel scoffed. “Do you think they knew they were trapping us in here?”
“No idea.” Pru shrugged and threw him a look. “Haven’t gotten to that chapter of the book yet. Plus, Violet kept us safe. That was downright heroic.”
Through the weariness in her bones, Violet’s body heated in a head-to-toe blush.
“But can you get us out of here?” Jerome asked gruffly. “Reckon I’d take some more heroics if it means we don’t die like this.”
She looked at the wall of bramble around them, various bits of stone wall or wooden door frame wound tightly in its grasp. She stood on wobbly legs and closed her eyes, pressing a hand to the thorns.
Thank you, she thought to them, and instead of letting the magic that created them dissipate, Violet drew it back into herbody like a great inhalation. Almost instantly, her headache disappeared, and though nothing else seemed to change, she knew it was working. The magic filled her, pouring back into her vast reserves until even that well felt close to overflowing.
Eyes still closed, Violet began to imagine a garden. She pictured her greenhouse and all the flowers in her shop. Daisies for Daisy and bee balm for Quinn. Hypoallergenic hydrangeas for Jerome, fiery red camellias for Fallon, and fragrant, edible herbs and spices for Guy. Vining plants for Bartleby. She added yellow tulips for the sunshine in Pru’s smile and marsh roses for the twins and the home they’d given her. Snapdragons for Dragon’s Rest.
For Nathaniel, she thought of the clematis that had knocked over his potion the night she’d met him and the mugwort she’d grown for him in a misguided attempt to help. Cherry blossoms for the tree that had nearly crushed them the night they first kissed, and dahlias and freesias and all the flowers of the riotous jungle that had grown from her worktable the night they’d made love for the first time.
The garden of her life grew and blossomed in her mind, full of color and life, but there was one person she was forgetting.
So for herself she added blankets of violets, purple as the cloak she hated and the sails of the ship she hoped she’d be brave enough to look for someday. For the Thornwitch—and for Guy, both of whom would always be part of her—she added a few rosebushes, beautiful and fragrant and, of course, thorny.
Violet took the magic gathered inside her and poured it into that image like a vast waterfall of power. There was no stinging or pain or even thorns beneath her skin. This felt good, yes, but even more, it feltright. The bramble beneath her hands melted away, and when she heard the harsh intake of breath from her companions, she knew she was done.
Violet opened her eyes and saw what she had created.
It was night now, but they no longer stood in a castle, or even the ruins of one. Violet’s magic had destroyed it all as surely as she had once sunk entire towns into bogs, but she hadn’t stopped there. Thick ceiling trusses had been grown into benches, shaped from the dead wood into something curving and elegant. Stones had been hauled by her bramble to form fountains and pools and pathways, and all around were the flowers she had imagined and so many others. They spilled from stone planters and beds that lined the paths, bracketed by hedges and flowering fruit trees, most of them a bit out of season. Under the approving eyes of the moons, everything shone silver.
“It’s beautiful,” whispered Pru, stepping out of their circle onto one of the paths.
Jerome sneezed loudly, pulling a polka-dot handkerchief from his pocket. “Great,” he muttered, setting off down a path to explore. “More flowers.”
Quinn’s bees shot off in all directions as she turned to Violet. “You made all of this?”
Violet drew a staggering breath. “I had some extra energy to burn.”
As her friends discovered the nooks and walkways of the garden, Nathaniel took Violet’s hand and led her in a different direction, awe painted on his features.
“This looks like much more than ‘some extra energy.’ ”
“I pulled my own magic back from those thorns,” Violet explained. “I wasn’t sure it was going to work.”
