After a while, I hear the back door. When I peek down through the loft’s open spiral staircase, I see the Warlock carrying an armful of odd metal tools that look less for gardening and more for torture.
He peers up at me from below. “Good news. The Witch’s garden might be dying, but it’s coughed up a few wilted herbs you might be able to use.”
“And the bad news?”
“The garden is more dangerous than the hounds. Don’t go outside without me. The Witch has amassed an impressively nasty collection of anthropophagous plants.”
“You mean carnivorous?”
“I do not.”
Right. No midnight pee trips to the outhouse, then.
“Care to tell me how you plan on finding the recipe that will cure whatever’s eating away at her wretched soul, in less than two days?”
“I already know what recipe I need,” I call down. “I just have to findhercopy of it.”
“Of course you do.”
“I’ll try not to be insulted by the lack of faith.”
“How—” He lets out anAh. “You saw her memories when you shook her hand.”
“Manners.”
“Like I said, too clever for your own good.” The words are low and deep in his chest.
Not going to lie, that voice has my breath shallow.
The satisfaction doesn’t last long.
Using my magic to peek at someone’s innermost headspacewithout asking makes me feel as slimy as whatever’s living in the icebox. The Witch’s memory was old, dark, and out of focus, but it appeared for me without prompting. Like it was waiting to be discovered.
“If you know the end product, can’t you simply deduce the ingredients?” he asks.
I snort. Oh, my naïve little Warlock. “It has to be the exact ingredients and amounts from her own dish.A recipe is only as good as its ingredients.” Another Momaw-ism.
My chest seizes. Momaw would know where an old Witch keeps something important and personal. The closest thing I have to an old Witch is… an old Warlock.
I peek over the loft so I can see him fully. “Innocent question: Where would an ancient magical being hide a precious memento? Something priceless?”
He frowns back up at me. “Not every Warlock hoards valuable treasure or gold. Common misconception.”
I roll my eyes. “I saidpriceless, notvaluable.”
“Is this a riddle?”
“Not all Witches like riddles. Common stereotype. Shame on you.”
“When someone saysinnocent questionbefore a question, it’s usually not innocent.”
Ridiculous man, I think he’sstalling. “Don’t make me come down there.”
His eyes travel across my face in a slow way I’m not prepared for. Definitely stalling.
“I wouldn’t hide it,” he finally answers. “I’d keep it where I could see it every day.”
I shuffle back into the loft before he can see the heat in my cheeks. This man would barely look at me when I first moved into the Manor, and now I wish he’d stop. Who gave him the right to have such good focus.
