“Who were they? The invaders.”
“We don’t know. The wards left no bodies behind. Strange, because no one came looking.”
That was horrifying, as if the wards had erased those witches from existence. Something else about the story crept under Briar’s skin. Gretchenclaimed the things happening in Coill Darragh—like the thorns ensnaring the hare—were not normal. As if the forest was lashing out again.
“He was meant to teach me all this.” Rowan pointed at the door into the garden, holding aloft his mug of tea-potion. “Sorcha’s the eldest. She didn’t want to be Keeper, so it fell to me, but he never taught me the ways.”
“Didyouwant the position?”
Very quietly, Rowan said, “I think I only wanted my da to pay me mind.”
Whatever clemency Briar might have granted Éibhear before, he couldn’t now. From Gretchen’s telling, the alderman had been an attentive, encouraging mentor. To his own children, however…
The judgment must have been plain on Briar’s face. Rowan shrugged. “Sorcha and I weren’t witches.”
“That’s no reason. Now it’s your responsibility to protect Coill Darragh, but he never taught you how?”
Rowan’s forehead creased. Briar was no empath, but even he could see that a dam held back a well of pain in him. “Sometimes,” Rowan said slowly, “I don’t think I needed teaching. If the time comes when I’m needed, the woods’ll take me.”
The pain in Briar’s head hit a peak. The way Rowan said it, it sounded like Éibhear had passed a curse down to his son, just as Briar had inherited his from his mother. His mind called up images. The unnatural bend of Éibhear’s body. His blood watering the earth. Was Rowan implying the same fate awaited him? Briar drank deeply of his tea. It lessened the ache in his temples, but didn’t erase those images.
“Can I ask you something, Rowan?”
“Mm?”
“Your dad had an apprentice. Did you know her?”
“Not well. Kept to herself, like. Hardly left the house except to go on trips to the forest with my da. Why do you ask?”
Briar saw no reason to hide it. “She’s sort of haunting my flat, so I’m trying to find out why she’s trapped there. Her memory’s a bit spotty.”
Rowan’s bewildered expression revealed plainly that he hadn’t known. “She’s not dangerous, is she?”
“No. Well, she threw some knives, but we get on now. Do you know what happened to her?”
“I’ve no idea. The wards could have…” He trailed off. “Though I can’t imagine Da wouldn’t have warned her. He took a shine to her.”
To her, but not Rowan. The wound that had left was all over his normally impassive features. Briar could imagine him, at nineteen, just having lost his father, scarred and avoided by everyone. It broke his heart. He found he couldn’t blame that version of Rowan for being too confused and overwhelmed to wonder about the girl who went missing amongst the chaos. Briar took his last sip of tea, the throb of his head waning.
“Is it helping?” Rowan asked.
“Yeah.” Briar smiled to himself. “My mum used to always say that the best potion is tea.”
“Used to?”
Briar didn’t talk about her with anyone but Vatii. Yet Rowan had shared so much about his father, so…
“She died of a curse two years ago.” He could say that much. Curses didn’t always pass through generations.
“Ah, Briar. I’m sorry.” He looked it. A soft bowing of his brow. “What sort of curse?”
“The unfair, totally random, inexplicable kind.” Briar bit his lip. “Actually, Coill Darragh—the forest—it kind of… spoke to me? And said, or heavily implied, that it cast the curse on my mum. It said she belonged to it.”
Out loud, it sounded ridiculous. But Rowan had grown up in the shadow of that wood, and he took it seriously. “So it took your mum and my da.”
Briar breathed a mirthless laugh. “Aren’t we a tragic pair?” He had no concrete answers after this conversation, but at least he had more information.
Rowan sat next to him at the breakfast bar. “What was she like? Your mum.”
