“His shop will make for stiff competition,” Vatii warned.
This failed to temper his enthusiasm. “Could do the opposite,” Briar said. “Maybe people will go to Linden’s and come here because they’re curious. And besides, I’ll be able totalk to him.”
There was always the risk Linden would outshine him, but he refused to entertain the notion. He skipped over it and straight to the most attractive possibility, the one that tickled at the back of his mind the moment he’d woken up to the crowds buzzing outside:
Last night, starved from his adventure in the woods, Briar had heated up Rowan’s soup and basked in the warm smells filling his small flat. He’d wondered about the man with an odd scar and an odder habit of feeding him at any given opportunity. When he’d first arrived in Coill Darragh, he’d thought perhaps Rowan was the “man in a mask” from Niamh’s vision.
Now, he doubted it.
Rowan was quiet, and he had an odd effect on the people of the town, but nothing about him seemed masked or stone-hearted. He was kind, playful with his niece, generous with a complete stranger. He’d probably saved Briar’s life. Moreover, Niamh had described a “deified pillar of the people.” Who else but a celebrity fit that description? Rowan couldn’t be the cold man of Niamh’s vision—if anything, Briar associated him with warmth.
He’d been disappointed. Now, he considered the alternative. What if this man of destiny was Linden? Getting even more carried away, Briar thought of how this man was meant to have a heart of stone that turned golden for Briar. Perhaps it was a metaphor. Perhaps Briar could unlock Linden’s blocked talent, and Linden could cure him of the curse, and—
“We are definitely going to fall in love,” Briar said. “It’s destiny. Niamh said so.”
Vatii clicked her beak. “You’re a pillock if you believe that.”
“What else besides destiny would bring someone like Linden someplace like this?”
“Youshouldbe focusing on how you’re going to make anything that can compete with a world-famous witch.”
She was right, but Briar would have to wait until Sorcha brought his fabric. For now, he had to brew Diarmuid’s elixir.
He prodded a fire to life in the wood-burning stove, setting his cauldron atop it with water to boil. As he arrayed the ingredients and scribbled the recipe on the counter, Gretchen appeared at his elbow in a waft of creeping cold, finger tapping her lower lip. She hadn’t been pleased when Briar’s return to the shop last night dragged her back, the buried fabric rejected. They still hadn’t come up with an alternative, but her inquisitive look implied she’d gotten over it for now. She’d been insufferably smug after his trip into the woods. The spectral embodiment ofI told you so. Briar hesitated while crushing blackberries with his mortar and pestle, eyebrows raised.
“Do you want to help?” he asked.
“Well, you’ll mess it up without me.”
But he could tell she was pleased. Whether because she missed making potions or because she enjoyed bossing Briar around, he didn’t care. He followed her instructions, dropping in the wishbone only when the bubbling froth nearly boiled over, mixing the turmeric into the crushed berries until it made a paste, stirring the brew whenever she reminded him. The liquid in the cauldron looked gray-green and unappetizing at first, but Gretchen said it needed time to simmer.
As he retrieved a bottle to contain the potion, his arm gave a sudden jerk. His fingers seized too, dropping the bottle, glass shattering underfoot.
Vatii said, “Clumsy!”
“It wasn’t me. It was—” Briar cut himself short. Gretchen watched, eyebrows raised. He looked at his arm, at the tithe he’d made to the tree yesterday, and that sharp thing lodged in his chest hurt like he was breathing around it.
His curse had never given him muscle spasms before.
“Is there something the matter with you?” Gretchen asked.
Briar couldn’t help bristling a little. He barely spoke of his curse. Not out of any sense of shame, but because most people didn’t want to know and regretted bringing it up. The notion that he was already experiencing muscle spasms frightened him.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
Gretchen didn’t press him for answers.
Briar poured the cauldron’s contents into a round bottle and wrote a label for it in curling script. He took it downstairs, setting it on the barren shelf behind the counter. It looked lonely.
He sketched garment designs, cut out patterns, preparing what he could for Sorcha’s delivery. She came mid-afternoon with a bolt of blue fabric for Ciara’s cloak and a binder full of sample inventory. An hour flashed by as they nailed down the particulars of their joint venture. Briar went through page after page of fabric squares, touching each, imagining what kind of garments he could create. Assessing the prices was less pleasant, but Sorcha made it easier by scratching twenty percent off the retail price and presenting him with a bag of scraps for free.
He placed his first order with his heart in his throat. It took most of his meager savings, but he needed to fill the store. There were things he couldn’t yet afford. Clothing racks, a dressmaker’s mannequin to make fittings and different sizes easier, hangers and frames for the shop. That didn’t even factor in tithes for enchantments. The fabric was the tip of the iceberg.
It was a start.
Briar spent the following week crouched over his sewing machine, stitching garments. Even before he enchanted them, there was a certain magic to the rhythm of the needle stamping its stitches, the glide of scissors through cloth. He loved embroidery, but his fingers ached from the press of the needle by the time he set his work aside to sleep. His drafty flat couldn’t keep out autumn’s chill, so he warmed himself with many cups of tea and lit fires in the potbelly stove.
Of Ciara’s cloak, he was particularly fond. It matched his own, except tiny. He’d enchanted the embroidered stars to animate and twinkle, and he hoped fervently she’d like it.
