Soaked to the bone and head stuffed with grim images, Briar returned to his creaky flat. He hung all his sodden clothes next to the wood stove and got a fire going to chase out the chill. He made himself chamomile tea to warm his frozen fingers and bundled up in pajamas.
Normally, Vatii would opt to dry herself by the fire. Instead, she stayed close, slick feathers pressed against Briar’s neck while he steeped his tea. Mug in hand, he dragged a chair to the stove and sat there until sensation burned back into his numb fingers. Gretchen had vanished to replenish her energy and give him space, but his thoughts blurred together. With an idle hand, he rubbed at the swirl on his wrist left by the tree, its image shivering in the flickering light of the fire.
He couldn’t comprehend the conflict which had precipitated the creation of the wards, nor the strange collusion of man and forest that had been its architects.
“What have we stepped in, Vatii?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. One evening, when he was twelve, she’d appeared at his window, pecking until he let her in. Familiars were a strange part of being a witch. His magic called her into being, and she’d been harassing him ever since.
But she was quiet now.
Saor ó Eagla commemorated Éibhear and the creation of the wards. It seemed sadistic in hindsight. Why would anyone celebrate that grisly event? Was the celebration a mix of fear and respect, like the town’sfeelings about the woods? Or maybe, Briar thought with rueful sarcasm, he’d fallen in with a cult.
Harder still to absorb was Rowan’s relation to Éibhear. Generous, soft-hearted Rowan—he was nothing like the ruthless man in those visions. Yet the whole town feared him. Perhaps that wasn’t a tragic side effect of his scar, but of his father’s deeds.
Perhaps Briar should fear him, too.
There was one thing Briar needn’t wonder about any longer: Rowan and Sorcha’s solemnity on the night of the festival. It had been the anniversary of their father’s death.
He took a sip of tea, its heat a soothing thaw.
He had to speak to Rowan, and for the first time, that notion unnerved him.
In the morning, a small group had gathered outside his shop and was waiting as Briar woke up. Composed mostly of teens wearing wardstone bracelets, they peered in the window and stared into the void of their phones.
“You’re Briar,” one girl said as he opened the shop. “From Linden’s Alakagram?”
Still in shock from the visions he had seen with Gretchen yesterday, Briar nodded. The girl bounced, looking between her friends. “We were wondering if we could have a look through your store.”
He recovered his senses. “Of course!”
In minutes, they cleared out the majority of his stock. On top of the cost of the garments themselves, most agreed to pay extra for fittings, thrilled that Briar accommodated for their different shapes. One girl liked a design in Briar’s sketchbook so much, she asked to commission it for an upcoming Christmas party.
They left, chatting animatedly about their purchases. Briar felt a swell of pride. He’d just made more money in a day than he’d ever made in all his years at Wishbrooke covering shifts.
For the rest of the morning, Briar tried to push aside all thoughts of Éibhear and the wards to focus on work, but the memory prickled like a sliver he couldn’t tweeze out from under his skin. He scribbled designs, but nothing felt worthy of Linden. Accomplishing so little left him agitated by day’s end.
As he dumped his dishes in the sudsy sink to wash, Gretchen materialized in the kitchenette, her head bowed, chewing her lip in contemplation.
“There you are,” Briar said. “You know, you could have warned me youwere taking me on the serial killer tour of town. I can’t clear my head of it. I keep seeing those horrible visions, and I know you think death is no big deal, but I’m sensitive! I have work to do! I can’t be distracted, and I haven’t gotten a single good sketch out.”
Gretchen barely looked up. “Oh. Sorry.”
That gave him pause. He’d expected her to retaliate or banter along with him. “You all right?”
She folded her arms across her stomach. “I’ve been thinking. What if the wards—what if they killed me, too?”
Briar hadn’t considered that. For all her protests that death meant little when you’d already died, her face told another story. “What makes you think that?” he asked.
“I’m not Coill Darraghn. Seemed like the wards killed anyone who wasn’t. I don’t have any memory of it, but this is where I would have been when it happened.”
Briar didn’t know what he could possibly say. He understood how discomfiting the visions were. History hoarding the locked parts of her past, the mysteries surrounding her death. His curse could be linked, too.
He couldn’t hug or comfort her. She looked more transparent now than she had last night.
“I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?”
