Page 4 of A Lady’s Guide to Witchcraft

They wore flower crowns for the summer solstice, and they always gathered a crowd. Younger witches approached with blushing cheeks, daring each other to drink of a draught that would send them dreams of their true love. Locals were more cavalier, stopping on the way home from errands to the butcher for a sip that promised fewer wrinkles, shapely calves. More customers.

Briar chose the longer way home through the fields. Was it any wonder that she occasionally craved the company of gulls and foxes who did not care how straight their teeth were—or how crooked her leg was? The sea whispered to her, every shade of blue and green and purple, gilded as the sun set.

But even with the ache thrumming in her right hip, the walk was worth it. She found a patch of pink thrift flowers and bat’s-wool moss. She loved village street and lonely cliffside equally. She considered herself lucky she had unfettered access to both.

The village, it had to be said, did not always feel the same.

She leaned a little heavier on her driftwood cane as the air shifted, cooling and heavy with salt from the ocean that surrounded them on all sides. A circle of salt was a witch’s best protection—a circle of salty seawater worked just as well.

Usually.

Something skittered over her spine.

But as there was nothing but the stars peeking out and the sound of music drifting up from the main pavilion on the beach, Briar put it down to fatigue. The Midsummer Festival required a great deal of work. Besides the assembly rooms, she had been charming gardens for weeks so that they might show at their best. Not to mention making sure the tearoom was well stocked with tea blends and tinctures, especially willow bark tea for headaches and hangovers, rose salve for lips, peppermint and fennel for fresher breath.

When she reached the back garden gate, she noticed Bramble, waiting patiently. She faded into the shadows in her soft gray dress and the preternatural stillness of a girl who often turned into a rabbit. Bramble and her kin left the island even more seldom than Briar and Petal: that was, not at all. Society to a rabbit girl was fields and garden patches and the wind through blackberry hedges.

Petal wanted that society, and Bramble in particular, desperately. “I haven’t seen her today,” Briar said. “Do you want to come inside for…”

Bramble froze for a moment, before melting back into the shadows.

“…a cup of tea?” Briar finished, unsurprised that she was now standing quite alone. “Guess not.”

She followed the stone path up to the tearoom, with the upstairs reserved for family. The cottage had a thatched roof with the traditional gargoyles perched at the corners for protection against baneful magics. And it was painted pink as a peony.

Briar loved every ridiculous inch of it.

Haven witches painted every single thing they could reach in a crisp, bright white, from walls to carriages to lampposts. It was meant to evoke a sense of elegance and calm, of healing. It hid nothing. It was trustworthy. As were the local witches who could heal your gout, your ennui, and that bothersome spot on your chin.

It was also deeply, deeply tiresome after a while.

Sometimes it felt like living inside a sugar cake.

Briar’s mother was desperate to fit in, and so every inch of the shop, including the cramped closet in the family quarters that no one else ever saw, was painted white. The table, the chairs, the teapots. The floor. Every dress, and every ribbon.

Briar missed her mother, but the very first thing she had done once they’d come out of mourning was paint the cottage pink. The neighbors still whispered about it. To be fair, they whispered about everything the Foxglove family did. When your mother’s magic revolved mostly around love potions, everyone was respectful but nobody cared to get too close.

They did make an exception for Petal, of course.

But the Foxgloves didn’t deal in love spells anymore. Briar preferred mint tea with honey from her beehives. Petal preferred to run wild. It was a simple, pleasant life.

Which was how Briar knew the moment she stepped through the back door that something was amiss.

Her swan, whom she had named Snapdragon when she was seven, shot past like a falling star, a warning flurry of feathers and agitated hissing, but it was too late.

Briar had already stepped inside.

She knew she wasn’t alone, even before she saw the teapot smashed into pieces on the floor. She’d liked that teapot. She froze for a moment while her mind screamed at her to run, run, run.

Too late.

The roses pressed at the windows, thorns scratching the glass as they pushed to reach her. The oak tree shivered, branches clawing and scraping. Given enough time she could have convinced the ivy to snake through the cracked windows and strangle the intruder. But she was more accustomed to coaxing slow and steady growth. Her swan bared its vicious teeth, small but shining like knives.

“Come here, you,” a man barked at her.

Not just a man, an Iron Crow. He wore a leather cross-belt bristling with knives as well as amulets and charms and tiny pouches filled with herbs and powdered crystals or ashes from sacred fires. A magical apothecary at the ready. Also, stocked with items illegal for a witch. Magic was simple, but not always kind. Iron Crows were neither.

Worse, he held a dagger.