Page 175 of A Vicious Love

The house was dark. Marcel’s wing was quiet. Emmie was asleep upstairs, hopefully wrapped around my brother and unaware that two grown Crow men were crouched in her garden conducting a late-night herb heist because none of us could handle her being sad over dead leaves.

We hated Emmie sad.

All of us.

Marcel became homicidal when she cried. Harrison became sharp and pretended he was joking. I became apparently available for illegal landscaping.

Family had become deeply inconvenient.

Harrison reached for the fresh basil. “Hand me the little shovel.”

“I’m not your assistant.”

“You’re literally standing there holding gardening supplies.”

I handed it to him. He smirked. I considered stabbing him with the little shovel.

“This whole operation could be avoided,” I said, “if Emmie would install the watering system.”

“We tried.”

“I know we tried.”

I crouched beside him and started loosening the soil around the thyme. The ground was damp, but unevenly. Emmie watered according to emotion. She insisted they spoke to her. Some days the herbs drowned. Some days they died of thirst while she forgot they existed.

I handled rosemary and thyme. Harrison handled basil. Marcel handled pretending to be shocked by the miraculous recovery of the planter every few weeks. There were worse things men had done for women.

I set the new thyme into place and packed soil around the base. “I’m considering blacklisting her from plant nurseries.”

Harrison paused. “Go on.”

“Every nursery, garden stall in Harlan. Put her name on a quiet refusal list.”

Harrison’s mouth twitched. “What, the next time she gets an idea involving soil, some poor employee tells Marcel Crow’s wife no?”

“Yes.”

“And survives?”

“We can script it.”

“She’ll cry.”

“She won’t cry if they say it’s for ecological reasons.”

“She’ll ask questions.”

I nodded. Good point. I clicked my fingers. “We’ll invent a fungus.”

Harrison stared at me for a long second, then nodded slowly. “A city-wide plant fungus prevention protocol.”

“Exactly.”

“Bans her from herbs?”

“All plants.”

“Indoor too?”