Page 23 of Little Witch

Not strictly true, but I let it stand. Watching her climb on behind my brother instead of me felt like exactly the kind of restraint I still owed both of them after everything the last three years had cost. I swung onto mine, and we pulled out of town together, the shop bags secured behind each seat.

The ride out was better than it had any right to be, given the morning. Wind, open road, Amber's laugh occasionally carrying back over the engine whenever Orias said something clearly designed to get exactly that reaction out of her. I rode a length behind them most of the way, close enough to keep them in sight, far enough to give them the space they'd earned without me hovering over every second of it.

We pulled off onto the dirt track that led to the grove by the river and killed the engines in the sudden quiet, birdsong filling the gap the bikes left behind.

Amber climbed off first, pulling the helmet free, cheeks flushed from the ride, eyes wide as she took in the water catching sunlight through the trees. "This is beautiful."

"Rowan's favorite sulking spot," Orias said, already unloading the bags. "He comes here to feel his feelings."

"I have feelings constantly. I just don't inflict them on strangers in public."

"You inflicted several on me this morning before eight a.m."

"You're not a stranger, or someone I need to be kind to." I replied.

Amber laughed, and I let myself enjoy it more than I probably should have.

We spread the blanket near the riverbank and laid everything out — bread torn by hand rather than cut, the cheese, the cider poured into the flasks we'd carried it in. For a while it was easy in a way I hadn't let myself expect, given everything unspoken still sitting between the three of us. Orias kept the conversation moving, easy and teasing, drawing her into some ongoing debate about whether conkers or acorns made better projectiles, and I mostly listened, content to watch her laugh at things that weren't even that funny, purely because she wanted an excuse to.

Eventually Orias wandered off toward the water with the excuse of skimming stones, leaving Amber and me alone at the blanket's edge.

She caught me watching. "You've barely said ten words since we got here."

"I've been listening. To you. Both of you." I turned my cup between my hands. "It's good, actually, hearing you laugh like that. I didn't get to for years."

Her expression softened, careful. "Why'd you leave, Rowan? Really."

I owed her more than I'd given her so far. Not everything yet — not the bond, not what I'd learned standing at our mothers' graves — but more than the clipped half-answer from before.

"Both our mums, gone in the same week." My voice came out rougher than I wanted. "I needed space that wasn't inside this house, inside this town, with everyone watching everyone else try to hold it together in public. I needed somewhere I could actually fall apart without an audience keeping score."

She nodded, but she stared too hard to miss my expression. "That's not all of it, though. Is it."

I met her eyes. "No. There was other stuff. Things I wasn't ready to say to you then, and I'm still not fully ready now. But I will be, soon. I promise you that much."

She studied me a moment, decided not to push. "Okay." A pause, softer. "Are you staying, though? This time?"

"Permanently." No hesitation. "I'm not running again. Not from this town, not from whatever's wrong with the magic here, and not from you."

Something eased across her whole face. "Good. Because I was going to set fire to your bike with a spell. I decide it on the ride down here. I figure a good place to start being a witch is with acts of arson."

Down by the water, Orias skipped another stone and glanced back at us with a grin he didn't bother hiding, like he'd heard every word and approved of exactly how it had gone.

Knowing him he approved of arson too.

When Amber went to join him a few minutes later, I let her go without following. Some things needed room I couldn't give her standing that close, and there was still whatever Orias had dealt with in town sitting at the back of my mind, a low, quiet reminder that we didn't have as much time for picnics as either of them wanted to believe.

I was fairly sure we didn't have much time at all.

Chapter Thirteen

Amber looked better already, an hour into the picnic — less like a girl who'd spent the morning learning her dad had lied to her about everything, more like herself, laughing at something Rowan had said.

Rowan drifted off toward the water not long after, giving us space with the kind of subtlety that fooled absolutely nobody, and I decided to make the most of it.

"Right," I said, standing and offering her a hand up off the blanket. "Time for a real activity."

"Is it dangerous?"