Page 67 of Bane Bloom

“Why not simply murder me in my bed, then?”

If I’d hoped for assurances that she wouldn’t carry things that far, I was disappointed. “I wouldn’t assume the idea hasn’t occurred to her. But she has some understanding of how this world affects hers. She would know that such an act would be blamed on me, and that I—”

“Protect the house.”

“Aye.”

My near drowning came back to me then, and a detail I’d all but forgotten. “I felt something bump against the boat just before I went into the lake that day. And I thought I saw a great fish, like the ones from my dream last night.” Our eyes met. “A drowning might be viewed as an accident.”

His brow clouded. “It might. But I think more likely that was meant as a warning, and I took it as such.”

I felt moderately less foolish for my dunking.

As I thought over all he’d told me, another question surfaced. I wasn’t sure I had any business asking it.

“Is she—is Nyv in love with you, then?”

I held my breath as he hesitated, his gaze lowering. “Who can say what the Queen of Elfame feels? Or if she feels.”

This reminded me of what he’d said about fairies and attachments. Perhaps it was the reason he hadn’t accepted her proposal.

And yet . . . “Surely pining for someone for ‘many years’ is a sign at least of constancy.”

His eyes came back to my face. “Or perhaps of wanting a thing because it is not on offer.”

Heat pooled in my belly, my mouth forming an O.

Thomas straightened and took a step back. “I have work to do in the glasshouse, if I won’t be in your way.” Apparently the topic of the fairy queen and her desire to make off with him was now closed.

“Of course,” I said. “I’m coming down, too.”

Looking back, I’m not sure how I did it. Going on with my work as if my entire foundation hadn’t been shaken by the last couple of days. I think it was that I needed the work, because it was the only thing that hadn’t changed.

I cut samples, slowly filling my basket and my glasshouse journal, while my internal voices remained uncharacteristically quiet. So much so that the work would almost have been meditative, if I weren’t so very aware of Thomas’s presence. He worked at some small repairs—loose cobbles, a broken glass pane in the outer door, a problem in the cog system of one of the west-facing windows that prevented it from opening all the way.

Though I couldn’t help being aware of him, I found that I liked working alongside him now that his walls had begun to come down. It wasn’t only that he made me feel safe from his otherworldly “family.” I liked his slow and steady rhythm. Even his silence, though people’s silences in the past had always made me feel anxious.

It wasn’t all tranquility. There were times I felt his eyes on me, and my breaths would shorten as my heartbeats came quicker. I would fumble around with whatever I was doing, hoping he didn’t notice, until he looked away.

As the day wore on toward late afternoon, my back began to ache from bending and stooping. I gathered up my basket and other things and called to Thomas, “I think I’m finished in here for the day.”

Though he’d been working all the time he’d been in the glasshouse, I suspected much of it was pretense for keeping an eye on me—for which I wasn’t about to complain. The idea of the fairy queen viewing me as a rival seemed laughable, but after our meeting in the bluebell glade, I wasn’t fool enough to shrug it off.

“All right,” he replied. “I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

Inside, I laid out my cuttings on the end of the dining table and went to the kitchen. I saw that Thomas had been at work on our Sunday dinner. There were peeled potatoes and chopped wild garlic on the worktable, alongside a still-warm pot of fish in stock. I thought of finishing it for him, but unsure whether he’d actually appreciate that, I added some wood to the stove to heat the teakettle instead.

As I waited for the water to boil, my gaze came to rest on a row of small pots on the sill of the south-facing window. Rosemary, thyme, savory—cooking herbs, perhaps for use in winter and early spring before the kitchen garden had revived.

Now that I thought about it, there were small potted plants in every window of the house, including my bedroom. Even Thomas’s hut had an herb pot in the window. They added to the charm of the place, but I remembered what Thomas had said about setting wards to protect the house from fairy glamour, and I wondered whether I could be looking at them. One thing I had learned about magic since my arrival was that it didn’t have to be complicated.

I had a great curiosity about Prudence’s grimoire and regretted its loss. Though clearly it still existed somewhere. With a page ripped out of it.

I wondered again about her motive for leaving me the entry on winter daphne, as well as for the warning she’d given me. “Careful, Catherine.” Was she aware of the fairy queen’s designs on her son? Whatever her reasons, one thing seemed clear: She was still here, and she was still looking out for him.

How much she must have loved him. I could see it in the way she addressed him in her diary, before he was even born. My bairn. I felt an affection for her for that. She was a proper mother. Regardless of how she’d become one.

The door from the dining room swung open suddenly, startling me.