Page 78 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork

“You seem so different now.”

She lowered the menu. “Different how?”

“Well.” He flashed that irritatingly charming and slightly lopsided smile. “Maybe not different entirely—it’s been years since I saw this girl.” He inclined his head toward her. “I like it.”

Saga could see the silver-haired elf spin around slowly on her stool. If someone were to ask how to look simultaneously irritated and utterly unimpressed, Saga would have shown them a picture of Avery’s expression. She turned her own attention back to the menu. “That was not the impression you gave over the past few years.”

“Really?” Hugh asked as if his own behavior had never occurred to him.

“Yeah, you seemed to have a comment on everything I did that didn’t fit into your mold of what I should be.”

“What do you mean?”

Avery raised an eyebrow and took a slow sip of the amber-colored liquid in her tumbler. Whiskey, likely.

Saga set down the menu. “Well, for instance, the nickname Magpie.” His surprise gave her hesitation, but she continued. “I know you mean it as a sweet little nickname, but did you notice how after a while, I stopped going on those walks? You always had a quippy little comment about it. Compared me to a bird known for its hoarding tendencies, joked with your friends that I was preparing for winter like a squirrel…”

“I had no idea you felt that way.” He shrugged. “You know me, I joke around.”

“Yeah, but—”

They were interrupted by the waiter.

“Gin and tonic,” said Hugh.

The waiter hesitated. “Off menu?”

“You have a gin and tonic on your menu,” scoffed Hugh.

It was on the menu, that was true, but it was listed as Sympathy in White Major, a nod to the poet Philip Larkin, and it used lemon, not lime. But it had a name that was silly and not straightforward, and the day a Davenport debased themselves with such a thing was not soon coming.

“He’ll have the Sympathy in White Major, he’s just too embarrassed to say it,” said Saga to the waiter. “And I’d love a Jabberwock Sour.”

“Wow,” said Hugh as the waiter departed. “Too embarrassed to say it.”

“Is that not what that was?” asked Saga, feeling bold. “The way you got snotty about the gin and tonic being on the menu?”

“How was that snotty?” Hugh asked in a hushed incredulous tone. “He asked if I was ordering off menu, I pointed out what their menu says.”

Saga reached forward and tapped the drink listing on the menu. “Their version, which they refer to as ‘Sympathy in White Major,’ is made with lemon, per the poem. A traditional gin and tonic is made with lime. He was trying to clarify if you wanted theirs or a traditional one, because you didn’t say ‘Sympathy in White Major,’ you said ‘gin and tonic.’”

Hugh’s brow furrowed and he exhaled through his nose and shrugged. “Because it is a gin and tonic, Saga.”

“Right.” Saga no longer feared losing her resolve but rather that she might be arrested for strangling him. “What was so important that you came into my work unannounced because you had to talk to me that second?”

He looked like a wounded puppy. “I… I told you, I missed you. I don’t understand why you’re being so hostile.”

Saga sucked her teeth through a forced smile. He was teetering far too close to saying something that was going to get her arrested for assault. “You don’t?”

“I’ve been perfectly polite.”

“Hugh, you left me at the altar.” Even she was surprised she’d just said it. But with that admission her anger abated. “You humiliated me in front of all of our friends and family. You lied to me about your relationship with Lana—”

“I did not lie,” Hugh interjected, dropping the volume of his voice in a manner that suggested he wished she would do the same. “I swear to you, Saga. I was happy she was in my life again, that we were talking, but until that moment, hearing her confess everything? It just happened.”

“You weren’t flirting with the idea when you were going out to meet her leading up to the wedding? Your long talks didn’t include any romance?”

He ran his hands through his hair. “Maybe… Maybe I knew things weren’t right between us, you know? That we were bringing out the worst in each other and not even realizing it. I mean, look at you. You are not the girl I was going to marry that day.”