“Relax, Ms. Frost. I started getting gray hair at eighteen.”
The eggshell tension between us cracks just long enough for me to see him fighting a smirk that, hell, might even be a smile.
The silence that follows is a half-and-half mix of comfortable and heavy, an Arnold Palmer of possibility. Neither of us moves to leave. Minutes ago, we were arguing over spoonbread, and now we’re… this. Something has shifted.
I muster some of Momaw’sumphand stumble right out on a skinny little limb. “My mom keeps her illness hidden, so she doesn’t get many visitors.” Deep breath. I’m at my quota for keeping secrets. “Would you like to visit the hospital with me?”
His wish magic can’t cure disease, but maybe the decades ofresearch he’s got on me have unearthed other valuable information. Just maybe, there’s something he’ll see that I can’t.
His eyes darken with indecision.
Then his face disappears into a shadow as he looks away from me. “I don’t leave the Manor, Ms. Frost. You know that.”
The small spark of something delicate and hopeful behind my rib cage pops like an overtaxed light bulb. A silly little wish. “Right.” It was way too brazen a request anyway.
Turning back to the stove, I barely catch the frown on his face. It’s different this time, not angry, but… regretful.
Like it’s the first time he hasn’t enjoyed telling someone no.
Chapter Eighteen
FRIDAY, MAY 13
39 DAYS UNTIL THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
Honey’s Helpful Hint, from
Honey Frost’s Southern Cookbook for Recipes Gone Wrong:
Hands are a cook’s best tools. Keep them busy and they’ll stay out of trouble. Nothing like the bustle of a kitchen to shake off the demons of the mind.
Friday the thirteenth is a lucky day for Farewitches.
After all, a baker’s dozen promises an extra something special. Who’s mad at a bonus bagel, one more cookie?
It takes just thirteen minutes for Marigold Frost to prove me wrong.
From the hospital bed, my mom shakes her head, a bobblehead in one direction. “If he’s been cursed by the Widow Witch, he’s fu—well, you’re shit out of luck.”
“Stellar, Mom. Much appreciated.”
“That’s not an invitation to blame yourself. Curses aren’t easy magic. He’s got a better chance begging her to release him, and he should be prepared to bargain away a testicle or two. Or a treasured family heirloom, maybe his entire estate. Perhaps all three. Or four, as it were.”
I slump back against the stiff pleather of the hospital armchair. “I don’t think reasoning with her is his problem.” I leave out the part aboutthe Witch nearly demolishing the farmhouse. “If appeasing her were an option, he’d have tried.” And the begging type, the Warlock is not.
Still, something has felt odd about the Warlock’s curse since he confessed, and I hoped my mom might be able to help me puzzle out the inkling. No such luck.
She looks me up and down. “I hear the nurses keep asking when Honey Frost’s nextculinary classis.”
A bittersweet feeling settles in my chest. Teaching kids who don’t care if cookies have magic, only if they taste good—turns out, I don’t hate that part. But the problem with being a Farewitch, whether at the Apothakery or Knight Manor, is that there’s never any time or space to think about becoming anything else. I’m stuck in the life but trying to lead multiple lives, like some crumb-coated James Bond. Call me Double-Oh-Flour.
“Carolina said her niece Anna took home three tins of cookies, and you know what, now that girl is going around the hospital selling them for three dollars a pop!”
My mom has always been able to tell when I’m not myself, and bless her, she never fails to cheer me up.
“Entrepreneurial. I like it.”
“You certainly left an impression on the town, girl.”
