“For what I said earlier. And, I don’t know, you seem down about it.”
“I’m not—I mean, I am, but it isn’t your fault, and anyway, I’m just—”
She scrambled for the words. “Pissed off! I remember things in bits and pieces, and IknewÉibhear. He mentored me. He saw how good I was with potions and encouraged me to make my own. It doesn’t make sense, what he did. Because if it’s all what we think, that means he murderedme. And countless other people besides.”
“And the whole town celebrates him for it,” Briar added.
“Right? If I could just remember what the conflict was about, where I was during the ward spell…”
Briar, unthinking, put a hand on her shoulder to quell her. His fingers passed through her, and a shot of embarrassment went through him in turn. She didn’t shy away, so he kept his hand there, even as her chilly influence numbed his fingers.
“We’ll figure it out. I’ll ask Rowan. Okay?”
She sagged with relief. “Thanks.”
Gretchen lingered while he finished washing dishes. He couldn’t tell if his chills came from her or the notion of speaking to Rowan about what they’d seen. Rowan had never mentioned the dark history behind the wards’ creation, nor anything about his father. His father, who tithed himself to the same forest that cursed Briar’s mother.
He needed to know more. Flipping open his phone, he tapped out a quick message to Rowan, asking if he could come by. It didn’t take long to hear back, his phone trilling like a wind chime.
>>You’re welcome anytime. I’m up Old Mill Road. Mine’s the cottage with the chickens.
Briar looked at his vision board, the colorful swatches like mermaid scales in the dark, and his focus zeroed in on his most pressing list of objectives. Some he’d accomplished already, but the fifth—making a gift for Rowan to thank him for his help—had not been. Perhaps that would help to smooth his jagged feelings around their upcoming interaction.
Or at least bribe his way into Rowan’s good graces in the event he was secretly a maniac.
A few more messages to arrange a time, and it was settled. He’d visit Rowan tomorrow, on Saturday.
So, up in the wee hours of the morning, Briar knitted a scarf. There was something meditative about the process. The gift needed to express Briar’s appreciation for Rowan’s help, and looping every individual stitch by hand felt appropriate.
“You know about the sweater curse?” Vatii said as he counted stitches.
“I don’t want to talk about curses, Vatii.” His hands had started shaking chronically of late, and he didn’t know if it was from overworking himself or Bowen’s Wane.
“It’s said that if you gift a hand-knit sweater to a lover, the lover will end the relationship. Or end it before the sweater is complete.”
He rolled his eyes. “Tragically, Rowan and I aren’t in a relationship.”
“Yet.”
“And this isn’t a sweater! Besides… I don’t know how I should feel about him now. Not after—all that business with Éibhear is really ruining my beauty rest, let’s just put it that way.”
“Well, good. Fancying him was a recipe for disaster, if Linden is your prophetic lover.”
In the morning, after very little sleep, Briar set out with directions toRowan’s house. Winter’s chill invaded autumn, some of the bright fire in Coill Darragh’s canopy had gone a sullen brown.
How to broach the topic of Éibhear?Hi, Rowan. Lovely place you’ve got. Thanks so much for feeding me, rescuing me, just generally being a stellar human being. By the way, did you know your dad died in a horrific magical bargain with a forest to create the wards, which protect the town but also murdered every foreigner within its borders? The hell was that about? My poltergeist roommate is figuratively dying to know.
Bringing it up at all seemed about as tactful as a claw hammer to the face, but he needed to find out. For Gretchen’s sake and his own.
The directions led him up country lanes, fields of sheep watching his passage with balefulbaaaahs. He knew Rowan’s house when it came into view. In the shade of a poplar tree stood a thatched cottage with its door and shutters painted blue. A few chickens clucked around the dirt path. One such chicken, butterscotch colored and alarmingly large, took one look at Briar and decided it didn’t like him. It charged. Briar had only a few seconds to backstep before the chicken was upon him. It leapt and flapped its wings in such a furor it rose to eye level.
Vatii, the coward, took flight. “Watch out! I think it’s hungry.”
Briar did what any sensible man would and screamed. He tried to run but tripped on his fashionable-but-not-functional boot laces. He landed in the dirt. When he raised his arms to defend himself, the chicken seized its opportunity and landed on his elbow, clucking furiously.
Rowan emerged from the cottage, drawn by the noise, to find Briar curled up in the fetal position, his poultry nemesis stalking around him in furtive circles.
To Briar’s shame, Rowan laughed. “Ah, Maude won’t hurt you.”
