But this is Foxe Holler, after all. Like the Widow Witch said, Webb didn’t hate magic; he just wanted to control its influence. His behavior over the last couple months makes sense now: Demonize magic, remove those with it from the Holler, and then he’d be the only one left with any. If his congregation found out he had magic himself… The town has its problems, but hates a high-horse hypocrite.
The Warlock sighs. “Let the Widow Witch and the Eldercraft fight over him. As long as it’s not me.”
In the quiet wake of the commotion last night, I only realized it when everyone was gone—none of the townsfolk asked what happened to the little boy living at the Manor. Or even mentioned Lazlo. Ms. Zeen and I remember him, but that’s it. Almost like someone dug out a small seed of a memory with a powerfully precise spade of magic just for us, so we didn’t have to lose everything about the boy.
My heart clenches, but I remind myself this is a good thing. Lazlo is back where he belongs, and even if the town has forgotten he was ever here, soon they’ll start remembering their Warlock more and more.
“Now you can adddodged the Eldercraftto your résumé,” I say.
“You assume it’s not on there already.” The smirk he gives me falters as his gaze shifts to my suitcase. “Thank you for making Lazlo’s time here special. For… seeing him.”
“Well, my Farewitch affinity is memory magic. I don’t lose memories, I find them.”
Lord, I need to leave before my voice starts shaking. But I can’t seem to get my backside in the truck. There’s one thing I keep thinking about.
“Why did the Witch send youthatmemory of yourself? Why not you at sixteen, when your parents—when everything changed?”
He runs a hand through his hair, making the couch-head worse. “Me at nine, ten—those were purely happy memories. It was beforemy magic manifested, when I only had to be a child. I was a demon as a teenager. Power, but no control. I can’t tell you how often I blew up the gardens, or the number of rooms that needed renovating. Okolona wasn’t wrong. I incurred too many costs without paying anything back, and I needed a mentor.”
A teenage Warlock terrorizing the Manor, the whole Holler? I can picture it.
“Should we be worried we did any irreparable damage to your past?” I ask.
“I’m simply going to choose to believe that the memory of me, the boy we got to know, he was just one chapter of Knight history, already finished a long time ago.”
In other words, it can’t be rewritten and change the here and now.
“And in my experience, it’s best to leave questions of time to Hedgewitches and the Eldercraft. I think they actually have a bureau for that. Though they have a bureau for everything—not important.” A fresh scowl leaks into his expression. “So are you? Leaving?”
My nerves flutter.Why is this so hard?“You’ve lived to see another birthday; your debts are balanced.We won. So yes, my job is complete. This one, at least.”
That just leaves my mom. If it’s not too late to save her.
His glower smooths over. “We can keep looking in the library. There could be something we missed.”
My silly heart leaps at that sneakywe. If the Warlock’s archives didn’t reveal an answer, does the right recipe even exist? I don’t know. But I won’t stop looking. All my time, energy, and ovens belong to Marigold Frost, and I’m due back at her bedside.
I shake my head, and it’s the nail in my heart-shaped coffin. “Back to the cutting board, as the Frosts say. I’ve been away from the Apothakery long enough.”
I’m nowhere near ready for the heat in his eyes. The misery. Hunger. “This is our goodbye, then?”
This isexactlywhy I wanted to slip out before he woke up. Now my stupid eyes are stinging, probably from the stupid pollen and stupid allergies. At the Apothakery, a Farewitch knows everyone only well enough to say hello, and so the goodbyes never hurt.
“We live in the same town. I’m not going off to war.” The laugh I hope comes through isn’t there. “And I can’t stay forever.” I try hard,reallyhard, to smile. But it won’t come.
A part of me wants him to contradict me, the fantasy at my fingertips.Why not?he would offer. If he did, what would I say?
He only crosses his arms. “I never fired you.”
“Then I quit. Keep your severance.”
“You’ve been in my pantry. You’ve seen too much for me to let you leave.”
“Sir.”
“Ms. Frost.”
“Mr. Knight.”
