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“Duly noted.”

“He sent me to… Erm…”

“To…erm?” she repeated when he trailed off, looking deeply uncomfortable.

“To keep an eye on you.” He proceeded to flinch with his whole body.

“What are you doing now?” she asked when it looked like he was having some sort of fit.

He opened one eye. “If I told Anais that I was sent to watch her, she would stab me. Repeatedly. Until her arm got tired, and then she would kick me in the stones. A lot.”

“I’m not going to stab you,” Briar said wearily, dropping onto the end of the bench not currently stacked with cooling muffins. “Or kick you. Not before I’ve had my tea, anyway.”

“Your tea!” Matthias scrambled for the kettle, pouring the boiling water into a teapot already filled with leaves. The soothing aroma of tea and bergamot competed with the tart sweetness of strawberry compote bubbling away.

“What is Ethan afraid I’m going to do, exactly?” Briar asked when he slid a cup toward her, along with the honey jar and a dish of cream. She refused to feel any which way about Ethan leaving and setting another Iron Crow in his place. He did not trust her. And he had told her she should not trust him. The things they had done to each other in the darkness did not change that.

“Not you,” Matthias assured her, then paused, rather ruining the effect. “Well, not exactly. He needed to go find some supplies and said there were Keepers about. And Crows. Can’t trust a Crow, you know.”

“So I hear.”

“He didn’t want to leave you unguarded.”

“I see.”

“And he sent me because not only am I handsome”—he winked—“and more handsome than that satyr, don’t let him fool you—but also because Dragon said you don’t care for baking.”

Her teacup froze halfway to her mouth. “He said that?”

“He did. And I’ve always wanted to make petit fours and a croquembouche in an actual kitchen with actual ingredients instead of pickling vegetables and hoping butter will soften the hardtack. It never does. Nothing makes hardtack edible. Believe me.”

“I never told him I don’t enjoy baking,” she said softly. He was quite right, though. Baking was not her favorite, but it was a necessity. Especially as everything Petal baked turned to the consistency of a rock. Or soup. Painfully salty soup. With rocks.

Matthias winced. “Was he wrong? Am I invading your space? I would murder someone if I found them in my kitchen.” He shoved a plate of sugar-dusted madeleines at her as if disarming a bomb. “Try these.”

“He wasn’t wrong, exactly,” she allowed, still wondering what it meant. If anything.

“He said he wanted you to have time in your garden.”

“Oh.” She softened. Unacceptably so. She couldn’t fight Keepers and Iron Crows and Charles bloody Aster if she went soft. She took a hasty bite of the madeleine before she could do something mortifying, like sigh into her teacup. Or blush. Again. More.

“Does he do this sort of thing often?” she asked.

“Like this? Not exactly.”

“It’s rather high-handed.” And surprisingly sweet. Though he would definitely scoff at being called sweet.

Matthias also scoffed. “Are you asking me if the captain of a ship of Iron Crows is likely to ask permission before he does things?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose not.” She took another bite. “Matthias?”

“Yes?

“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Briar hated to admit it, but spending several hours with the sun on her shoulders and her fingers in the dirt was exactly what she had needed. She felt stronger, brighter. Replenished. Magic did not have an inexhaustible supply. Nor did a calm state of being. They had to be cultivated, just like hollyhocks.

There was the ever-present danger of burning out your magic. Briar had never had to worry about it before now. Coddling rosebushes, encouraging plum trees, and bewitching violet petals did not take much from her.