Page 8 of The Pumpkin Bride

Marigold shivered. No, she’d need to hide elsewhere. Aha! She knew just the place.

With hasty strokes of her quill, she explained to Rowan in code that he and Beckett were in danger at Crispin’s hand. Then, she outlined her plan—she’d slip the castle and seek sanctuary at their distant cousin’s hermitage in Mareval. The smallest of the Lunara Peninsula’s five kingdoms, Mareval shared Harvest Hollow’s southern border. It served as the region’s religious seat, and through the Lunaran Treaty, none of the other kingdoms could invade it. She’d need to cross the Shivering Dales to get there, but once through, Rowan could escort her home.

Yes, this was a good strategy.

Her—blech—betrothed would think her likely to bolt directly to Thornwick. She’d avoid main roads and ports, as Crispin would have eyes there. Working most in her favor was how she famously hated the out-of-doors. He’d never anticipate she’d choose a path through heavily wooded landscapes.

Her plan must succeed. For her brothers, herself, and the whole of Thornwick.

Three generations ago, overzealous mining had turned the Marches into a noxious, barren landscape. The frontier dividing Harvest Hollow and Thornwick still had not recovered from the devastation. Her grandfather enacted laws preventing such looting, but Crispin clearly did not care about laws, her people, or the earth itself.

After a sleepless night, she escaped Bess’s company long enough to hire a private messenger to spirit the letter to Rowan. After that, all she could do was bide her time at Brambleton Castle, waiting for an escape.

Luck presented an opportunity three days later. While the attendants Crispin assigned to Marigold smoothed ointments into her skin and brushed her hair until it shone like copper before her slumber, they revealed Crispin had summoned the exchequer for an urgent meeting about the cost of his extensive renovation efforts.

He’d be in counsel for hours.

After the attendants left, she and Bess drank their usual bedtime blackberry-and-mint tisane as they discussed the next day’s itinerary. While her companion ticked things on the list, Marigold feigned interest and might have slipped five drops of her precious poppy sap into Bess’s cup. She regretted drugging her, but with her brothers’ lives on the line, she couldn’t risk tipping her hand to anyone.

Marigold inspected her companion’s features. Was she Crispin’s spy? Either way, the less she knew, the better. A solo escape was Marigold’s only choice.

With an apologetic yawn, Bess disappeared through their adjoining door. Marigold turned the skeleton key, then hurried to her armoire.

First, packing.

Five chaotic minutes later, Fuzzle climbed into her half-filled trunk. Beneath the marmalade cat’s tummy lay three kirtles, her herbal-remedy kit, a brush, a looking glass, ribbons, a week’s worth of undergarments, linen shifts, hose, and a few meals she’d scavenged from the dinner buffets.

“Don’t you fall asleep in there,” she warned the cat.

Next, her disguise.

From their hiding place in the armoire, Marigold shook out a doll-sized homespun dress and cloak. With a snap of her fingers, blue sparks fell toward the garments. As the clothing grew to full size, she shed her fine sleeping gown and slipped into the homespun. Hmm. The apothecary’s wife, with whom she traded a volume of romantic poetry for these clothes, must’ve been a few inches shorter than she was. A scandalous amount of her ankle peeped from under the hem.

Nothing to do about it now.

Her minimancy magic only shrank things or restored them to their natural size. No enlarging. Vera, Thornwick’s cunning woman, taught her how to wield this gift when it first emerged five years ago. She hadn’t dared write of it to Bram, knowing his suspicions of magic.

After securing her sheathed pruning knife and leather bourse to her belt, she circled her gaze around this room for the last time. Her heart skipped a beat when she landed on the book of fairy tales. Had she really almost left it behind?

She traced its embossed leather cover with her fingers.

Parting with these pages was impossible. Her father had given her the book when she’d turned eight, the same year Bram had given her the unicorn charm. Her two greatest treasures, and one was already lost to her forever.

Marigold hugged the volume to her chest.

Grief unspooled inside her, fast and familiar. She wiped a trickle from her face. Tears were good. Better than the sludgy numbness that had wrapped around her when Bram died, which still hadn’t relaxed its grip years later when Crispin offered for her hand. Hence her resigned pragmatism when she accepted the offer for the good of Thornwick.

Marigold’s parents, before accepting on her behalf, asked if she might love Crispin one day, and she shrugged with a noncommittal Perhaps. Truthfully, she wasn’t greedy enough to expect true love to visit her again.

As the time grew nearer to relocate to Harvest Hollow, much to her surprise, her frozen emotions began to thaw. In the kingdom where Bram spent his last days, she could almost make memories with him again as she ate the cider doughnuts, drank the ale, and visited the bookshop he’d described in his letters.

Ooh, his letters.

She’d pack the tidy bundle of those, too. Rescued from their hiding place inside the leg of her riding boots, she tossed them into the trunk, along with the book. Fuzzle, perturbed by the disturbance, hopped out. Alas, she’d need to leave the large portrait of her family behind. Another snap, more sparks, and her trunk reduced to the size of a pot of face cream. She slipped it into her bourse.

“I’m sorry, Fuzz.” She knelt to peep under the bed. “I can’t carry you long distances at this size.”

Yellow eyes blinked at her. She understood the cat’s resistance. Minimizing was easy, but returning to full size caused nausea, fatigue, and a headache. Not unlike befuddlement caused by overindulging in cheap wine, so, best left to emergencies.