“Simply give me permission to save you by whatever means necessary.”
This seemed a bit too broad for comfort. “I give you permission to save me,” Luna said, choosing her words with care, “by whatever meansare within reason.”
He gave her a look. Then, with a sigh: “Close enough.”
In two quick strides, he closed the distance between them. Luna had just time enough to catch a frozen breath before his arms wrapped around her and pulled her against his chest. His bare chest. Her heart performed a wild backflip, lost its balance, and tumbled straight to her gut. Her bare palm was pressed into that heptagram tattoo, and her mouth and chin bumped against his shoulder.
“Mr. Grimm!” she squeaked, her voice muffled. “What are you doing?”
“Quiet,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. His breath was cold, but sent a streak of heat straight through her brain nonetheless. “Let me concentrate.”
Luna held perfectly still. She was hardly aware of anything except the profound strangeness of this moment. Mr. Grimm had held her in his arms before, of course. On Green Yule morning, when she woke from her battle with pneumonia. In Lord Bruxley’s undercroft, when she struggled to breathe with panic. And on that painfully beautiful night behind the counter, when they lay together on a stack of quilts, and she’d nestledagainst his shoulder and studied his face by the stove light and worked up the nerve to press her lips to his jaw. But in all those instances, he had been fully clothed.
Now she found not even a stitch of fabric separating her palms from his bare flesh, from the hardness of his muscle, from the excruciating awareness of his masculinity.
An energy built up between them. At first, she could not distinguish it from the charged energy of her own attraction . . . but no. This was something else. Something outside. A transference from one realm to another. Mr. Grimm, she realized, was summoning power from beyond the Veil. Dark motes of anti-glitter surrounded them in a cloud.
Luna shivered. She hated it. Hated this weirdly sparking power, which haunted her every nightmare. Sometimes, even all these years later, she could still smell the stink of anti-glitter in her nostrils, just as she had that night when she was seven years old, crouched in a bolt hole under the living room floor.
Closing her eyes, she tucked in a little closer to Mr. Grimm. Warmth surrounded her. Not merely the warmth of his arms, but also a coating on her skin. A layer of anti-glitter, protection against the cold. It was surprisingly effective, actually. And comfortable.
Finally, Mr. Grimm released a long-held breath and stepped back. Luna resisted the urge to cling to him. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself instead and peered up into his eyes. They were onyx shards. With a shudder, she turned away and looked down at herself. At the shimmering layer of anti-glitter, coating her body from head to toe.
“That should do it,” Mr. Grimm said. He too wore an anti-glitter coat, though it didn’t offer anything by way of modesty. Luna hastily shrugged out of his jacket and offered it to him. This time, he did not resist. “Now,” he said, sliding his arms intothe garment, “we’ve got to figure out what’s wrong with Garden. And fix it. Fast.”
Luna nodded, casting around the landscape. Snow was beginning to fall harder now, covering the lawn in a thin layer of white. “Where do we start?”
Mr. Grimm’s brow was stern and tight. He looked older once more, all the youthful freshness she’d glimpsed down at the pool banished behind the pulsating glow of sorcery. “I believe I must venture to the Heart of Garden.”
Mr. Grimm suggested that she stay at the door, just in case Mrs. Goddard arrived while he was gone and was able to let her through. This plan Luna immediately snubbed.
“No, thank you,” she declared firmly. “I’d prefer not to sit alone, freezing my bum off, wondering what you’re up to. Let’s stick together, shall we?”
He agreed without too much protest, and the two of them set out marching into the snow. Luna hoped he knew where he was going. Without Garden consciously shifting the paths for her, she felt completely lost. She’d become so used to magical accommodation, and her sense of direction and understanding of fixed landmarks was sadly skewed as a result. It didn’t help that everything looked so different under a blanket of snow. Mr. Grimm strode with confidence, however. She didn’t have much choice but to trust him.
It was difficult. Seeing him like this. Swarming in anti-glitter. And when she looked down at her own body . . .ugh.That was worse somehow. She found herself wondering what he had killed to source all that energy. Because it had to be exchangedfrom somewhere. There were plenty of options to choose from in Garden. Did some tree or bush sacrifice its life so that she might not freeze to death?
Green Mother save her, but shehated sorcery! Everything to do with sorcery. For a while there, she had begun to think she hated all sorcerers as well, even bumbling old Sorcerer Biddercombe. He had not proven a true friend in the end, had he? When the authorities arrived in Greater Snoring to mark him with the heptagram, he had told them about her. Where he had come by the information that she was born to a sorcerous family, she didn’t know. The aunties had been so careful to quash any rumors circulating about their little niece. And they’d grilled a fabricated backstory into her head so hard, from such a young age, Luna could rattle off the details of it with more confidence than any of the real truths of her history.
Despite their best efforts, something must have slipped. Perhaps Biddercombe simply noticed her unusual affinity for sorcery—her easy perception of things he thought well-hidden, things no one other than a fellow sorcerer should have spied. Luna had tried to keep her abilities hidden, but over the years, too many little slips must have added up.
In the end, the authorities had made their way up to Tealeaf Cottage. No amount of protesting from Auntie Aurora, no amount of vapors from Auntie Arabella, and no amount of imperious threatening from Auntie Apolonia had proven effective. They’d tested Luna. Found her to indeed possess all the traits of a born and bred sorceress, despite her utter ignorance of the craft. The tattoo was administered. And for the first time in nearly two decades, the nameLuna Talbotwas a matter of public record.
It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her real name. It was enough.
Not long after, the phantoms had begun to appear.
Luna tucked her head into her shoulders, trying not to look at Mr. Grimm. She concentrated on her feet instead. It was becoming more difficult to walk by the moment. Snow piled up, and her boots, though sturdy, struggled to make headway. She lost her footing and stumbled heavily.
Mr. Grimm’s hand grasped her elbow. “Here we go,” he murmured, helping her back upright. He didn’t release his hold on her, but continued to support her as they progressed. And that simple gesture ignited war in her heart. Because she liked it. Too much. She liked that feeling of support and caretaking, even as she was fully conscious of the sorcerous power emanating from this man. Even as she was fully conscious of the fear he should, by rights, inspire in her veins.
What was she meant to do with such impossible dichotomy?
“There,” Mr. Grimm said at last, pointing ahead. “The Heart of Garden.”
Luna blinked, snowflakes heavy on her eyelashes, and peered through the obscuring veil of blizzard. At first, she could see nothing. Then, as though manifesting out of the gloom, she became aware that she stood before an absolutely enormous tree. The trunk was so thick around, it would take at least seven of her, standing fingertip-to-fingertip to span it, and the branches, heavy with snow, stretched as though to heaven itself.
“It’s an apple tree,” Mr. Grimm said in answer to an unasked question.
