“Honey…”
“Just go to sleep, Mr. Knight. Please.”
He takes a heavy breath. “Yes, ma’am.”
Then he does something truly, terribly heinous. As he steps away, cold air claiming the space between us, he brushes my bangs aside and places a single, delicate kiss on my forehead.
And it feels wretched.
It feels exactly like a goodbye.
Chapter Thirty-Five
MONDAY, JUNE 20
1 DAY UNTIL THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
Leave your ego at the door to the kitchen. You might know more than the recipe but you’ll know less than your oven.
Monday arrives like all Mondays before it.
Horribly.
The Warlock wakes before I do, and stops me on my way outside to the outhouse. Judging by his bloodshot eyes, he didn’t sleep at all last night. Even so, he still manages to look at me with an impressive intensity for seven in the morning Witch Standard Time.
He holds up a folded square of paper. With most of his fingers faded into a mere outline, it looks like the paper is floating.
My heart floats with it, unmoored in my chest, like a bad egg. Right. The stupid letter. Just in case.
He tucks the letter into the chest pocket of my apron, then dons a shield of stoicism. My apron used to feel like armor, too, once. Finally, I’ve got his name, resting so close to my heart. So why does he feel further away from me than ever?
Maybe because I feel like I could lose him twice.
Now that I know the truth about Lazlo, I keep looking for the boy in the Warlock’s face. The physical resemblance was always clear,but I just can’t blend them together in my head. Lazlo is Lazlo. Mr. Knight told me I know everything he knows now, but all this still feels like the Swiss cheese of answers. A loose end, but also a loose beginning. It’s like I told him—no Witch can just break physics. Something can’t come from nothing.
And Lazlo is a big, lovable something.
But I don’t have time to dwell on the details, and Farewitch magic depends on sincere intention. So I archive all the feelings in my sternum and get to cooking.
Too short a time later, the Widow Witch returns.
Poised at the kitchen table, she looks exactly as she did before, not a braid out of place. Since manners have gotten us this far, I don’t let her eat alone, and set two extra places across from her. Right where the Warlock kissed me senseless last night.
I hope Hedgewitches can’t read minds.
The Warlock is already sitting, slumped, elbows braced on the table so he doesn’t pitch over. He looks ready for a coffin.
The Witch scrutinizes the bowl of thick stew in front of her. Sniffs it. Prods it with her spoon. I’ve never seen someone stir with derision before. “This is no recipe of mine.”
“It’s Kentucky burgoo. Thick enough to stand a wooden spoon in.” My chest swells with satisfaction as realization simmers on her face. “I’m sure you know the saying:If it walked, crawled, or flew, it goes in burgoo.”
And made in the hands of a Farewitch, great for the flu. But I don’t think the Witch is suffering from something as banal as a stomach bug.
“I know the old adages, child. I spoke them first,” she snarls, pushing her bowl away. “I won’t eat this.”
