“Yes, but my family’s pulled a few strings.”
“And you’re going to Pentawynn,” Briar concluded. Celyn hadn’t come to make amends. He’d come to gloat.
From his pocket, Celyn produced a train ticket with gold-embossed letters. The destination, in a curling font, was Pentawynn.
Briar willed his locked jaw to open. “The accommodation won’t be covered—” He cut himself short. “But I suppose your parents can help you there as well. Must be nice.”
It was a cheap shot to throw his mother’s death in Celyn’s face. They’d started sleeping together not long after she’d passed away. Celyn had known, but Briar didn’t speak about her often, nor about the curse that took her. He didn’t want to be bedded or befriended out of pity. Looking back, his desperate loneliness was obvious.
Celyn said, “It’s not as if I didn’t work hard to earn it.”
And just like that, Briar’s blood pounded. Sure, Celyn had worked hard. But while Briar filled his every hour in Wishbrooke working odd jobs to pay for rent, books, and tithes, Celyn went on beachside holidays. Even if Briar’s motherhadbeen alive, she’d never have been able to rearrange Briar’s future to suit their whim. There was such indignity in his toil. Time wasted. He could have spent that time with his mother while she was alive. He’d lost her, the only one who’d believed in him. He’d fitted apprentice work and jobs in between outpourings of grief that threatened to drown him, in between missing her so bitterly that loneliness pushed him into the arms of a man who disdained him, though he’d been too blind and desperate to see it.
He pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“What? Why are you so angry? I only came to—”
“You came to lord it over me, and now you have. Well done. It must be sosatisfyingto have the power to bend everything to your will with some money and a few phone calls.”
“That’s hardly—”
Briar was shoving him toward the door. “Some of us don’t have that luxury. But do you know what? Sod it. I don’t need it. I don’twantit.”
Blustering, Celyn said, “Christ, you’re such a diva lately.”
“I’ll see you in Pentawynn, Celyn, but I’ll get there with actual hard work. I’llearnit. And I’ll do iton my own.”
He slammed the door in Celyn’s face.
CHAPTER 3
That summer, Briar worked three jobs. One at a clothing chain, the second stocking shelves at a tithe shop, the third at an ice cream parlor—his favorite. They charmed each flavor with the sort of mundane magic he liked. Pistachio helped you tell funny jokes. Chocolate gave you the fuzzy feeling of a hug.
It was enough to pay his rent in Wishbrooke and buy back his cloak from Odell. In his meager spare time, Briar scribbled ideas for his shop in Coill Darragh. With his remaining money, he squirrelled away tithes and materials. After work one September evening, Briar returned to his cramped, smelly flat and found an envelope on the floor. Inside was a letter and a folded paper plane with runes inked on the wings. A waxy coating prevented it from dissolving in the rain.
They were from the Coill Darragh alderman. The letter read:
Briar Wyngrave,
The paper plane is charmed to lead you to Coill Darragh. Tell it “show me the way” when it’s time to go. Be sure to wait at the border, where I’ll meet you at noon. Don’t pass through the wards.
Signed, Rowan O’Shea
Briar checked on his broom. It stood in a pot of growth elixir—he had fished frogspawn out of a stream for the brew. The fractures he’d healed with bandages and salve. It took all summer, but the branch had grown a few buds on the twiggy end. It would be strong enough to fly.
Brooms were fashioned from the branch of a hanged man’s tree. Since hangings were outlawed, the trees still standing were protected and pruned judiciously. This elm broom had been passed through generations of his family, even to ancestors who’d been non-magical. In spite of hard times, they’d always resisted the urge to sell it.
It had served his mother well, and now it would carry him to his destiny. Much as he dreaded going to Coill Darragh, bittersweet as it would be to leave Wishbrooke behind, he would have to make the best of it.
The sun shone clear on the cool September morning as Briar prepared for his journey. He stood outside his flat with three pieces of luggage containing everything he owned. Ropes bound the luggage together. Vatii perched atop it all, flicking her tail.
“I still think we should have bought badger fangs to fit everything in one suitcase,” she said.
“Too expensive. Your feathers will do.” Briar kept them whenever she molted. He had enough to last the journey to Coill Darragh. Lots of floating luggage was better than one item that weighed a ton and broke his broom. He took several feathers from his belt of tithes and pressed them against the luggage, dredging magic up from the churning well within him. One by one, the cases rose and hovered above the pavement.
He unfolded the wings of the paper plane from the Coill Darragh alderman.
“Show me the way,” he whispered.
