What in the world does a Warlock want with a shopping list?
My heart does a goddamn cartwheel right through my chest, up my throat, and back down to my belly.
Where would an ancient magical being hide a precious memento? Something priceless?
I wouldn’t hide it. I’d keep it where I could see it every day.
The most careful I have ever handled something in my entire life, I return his journal as if I’ve never disturbed it. Definitely not sleeping tonight—of course.
I slip out from the blanket, praying I don’t wake him. Despitetelling me he rarely sleeps well, he’s a sound sleeper tonight. Maybe the Manor keeps him up, where he’s surrounded by memories of his parents. A prison, indeed.
Immediately, I miss the warmth, but thanks to him, I know exactly what I’m looking for now. Or rather, I know where to do the looking.
I tiptoe down the hallway at the back of the cottage to the very last door. Closed, of course, but after three months in Knight Manor, I’ve gotten good at opening doors I’m not supposed to.
The door isn’t locked.
Either the Widow Witch doesn’t think anyone will try to get in—or she doesn’t care what crawls out. Tension pools in my shoulders, begging me to turn and run. But I can’t second-guess myself. This room can’t be worse than a flesh-eating garden. Right?
When I throw the door wide, the smell of decay blankets the Widow Witch’s bedroom.
I don’t want to risk using a lantern and disturbing any… thing that might be hiding in here, so the glow of the fireplace from down the hall will have to do. The firelight splayed across the floorboards is enough to reveal dusty curtains over a single window and a bed with pillows clustered to one side, bookended by two nightstands. A room barely lived in.
As quietly as possible, I rifle through the nightstand on the side with no pillows. Empty. My hope sinks. This spot was my best guess. Ithasto be here—hold on.There.
Shoved at the very back, forgotten like a Bible in a motel.
A thick spell book.
The outline of a Midnight Bloom flower is etched into the leather cover.
Not just any spell book. A gardener’s grimoire. I know the moment I grasp it in my hands, smell the soil in the pages. This is it.
Just as I open the cover, an icy pain seeps into my fingertips and up my arms, into the core of me, an IV of Arctic Ocean. Every breathfeels half frosted, an icicle that’s melting and refreezing inside my lungs. Then the numbness begins, a frigid tingling claiming me one extremity at a time, like I’ve fallen through the frozen surface of a lake, sinking right into the subzero temperatures beneath.
An absurd, savage laugh catches in my throat. I’ll need to revise my headline.
FAREWITCH FROST FOUND FATALLY FROZEN!
I start shaking. My thoughts tremble with me, my uncertainty jostling whatever good sense I’ve got left.
What made me, a dollar store hillbilly Farewitch, think I could stroll into a Warlock’s life and fix a problem I don’t understand? I can’t even cure my own mother, and she couldn’t help hers. By the time I take a break from work, Mom will be gone. And if she’s not here, what’s the point? The Warlock and I aren’t so different after all. He lost the two people who raised him, and I’m almost two for two. We just chose different distractions to keep us too busy to fall apart.
The cold trickling under my skin throbs as my heart tries to manage a few last pumps. It would be easy to let whatever curse is on this grimoire have me. So easy.How funny. I touched another forbidden book, but this time I met frost instead of fire. The Witch defends herself with what she’s suffered, the cold frostbite of grief. The Warlock’s house fought back using the pain he knows: heat and fire.
The Warlock. Right. He’ll be so peeved if I die. He’d probably say something likeNow who’s going to make my apple butter?I miss that scowl. I misshim. And the Manor’s kitchen. It’s not yellow, but it’s the sunniest kitchen I’ve ever had. He called his home a prison, but I missallof it. Every persnickety room. Maybe more than I miss the Apothakery.
My mind slows with my pulse, leaving me with a single memory.
Me, the Warlock. Close together. His gardens. August? He tucksa sprig of thyme behind my ear. I canalmostsmell it. Warmth flushes my cheeks. My real cheeks, I think. But I’m not wearing my apron. Something isn’t right about this memory.
No. Not a memory. This never happened.
But I want it to. Or at least, I want thechanceto make it happen.
Ice kisses my neck. It would be so easy to choose this cold numbness that dulls the worries of the outside world. But I’ve come awfully far to cower at spiteful grimoires, magical tantrums parading as protection. What if I don’t let the Widow Witch and her grimoire win this time? How many more wonderful things would I get to learn about the Warlock, about Foxe Holler and my friends?
How much more would I learn about myself?
