Page 72 of A Lady’s Guide to Witchcraft

Chapter Twenty-One

Briar stopped only long enough to take her driftwood cane and the basket she usually took to market. It swung from her arm as she hurried down the hill like any other witch looking to buy potatoes for stew or golden bells for solstice charms. The rooftop gargoyles watched her, wearing their flower crowns. Tourists ate lemon ices under the sun. A Pegasus trotted down the center of the road, golden wings gleaming. Children chased after him, hoping for a fallen feather for luck.

Briar stopped at the grocer for cheese she could not afford, and at the charm shop for black salt and an iron nail tipped with a tiny shell. She kept her pace easy and unhurried even as everything inside her screamed, Go, go, go.

She bought a bottle of strawberry cordial even though she preferred dandelion wine.

She traded bundles of rosemary for water from the healing baths in a blue bottle. She tied gold bells on red ribbons around her basket handle. She avoided Aster Apothecary, for obvious reasons.

The shop specializing in grimoires refused to sell to her, sliding panicked glances at Charles outside, bowing to all of the ladies and charming them into trying lotions that would stop sun freckles.

Briar snuck glances at the portal. The red door was still locked, the garland flowers starting to wilt. The daisies had drooped; the Queen Anne’s lace had shed its petals. All but the white roses.

Three Keepers stood at attention, observing the crowd who stared curiously back, whispering, on their way to the beach. There were even more iron charms and red rowanberry necklaces than Briar had seen yesterday. Ethan’s dragon circled above, trailing sparks of light and gathering cries of wonder from below.

While the dragon pulled gaze after gaze, Briar pondered the red door. If Petal had come through the portal, how had she made it up the hill to the cottage garden without being seen? She could not have taken the main road. She would have had to circle behind, either dropping down into the sand dunes or running behind the last row of houses. How had she managed to stay hidden when the Midsummer crowds were everywhere?

Briar cut through the alley between two shops, sending her magic out like vines of ivy, searching, searching.

As it turned out, she did not need witchcraft. Only eyes.

Even the alleys and back gardens of Haven were picturesque, whitewashed and dripping flowers. There were pots of geraniums and rosemary for protection. Red poppies, blue irises, pink sweet peas.

And white roses.

Just there, bursting in a froth of petals and thorns, choking the spaces between the wooden gate and a white-gravel walkway. They spilled from the inn’s stable roof, wound around a nearby water trough, tangled over the stone wall.

Her witch knot tingled, green magic waking.

White roses where Petal had lain in the garden. White roses climbing up the side of the cottage to crawl through her bedroom window. White roses on the cliffside near Ethan’s ship.

White roses here, where a witch might keep to the shadows on her way home.

It could not be a coincidence.

Briar bent over the roses, plucking flowers for her basket in case anyone happened to glance in her direction. A dove cooed from a nearby rooftop, perched on a gargoyle’s head. Her heart thumped in her chest as she peered among the roots, dragging the toe of her shoe through the dirt. Nothing but leaf matter, ants, a surprised worm to whom she apologized. The petals shivered under a breeze off the sea.

She dug deeper, the back of her neck prickling. She waited for someone to jump out of the alley, to shout at her from a window. A Keeper to descend on her with iron chains.

But it was only the roses growing where they shouldn’t be and her tingling witch knot.

And there, just there…

The glint of silver. The sheen of a small seed pearl.

White as bone, white as salt.

White as the moon.

She pulled it from the ground, anticipation racing through her.

The other half of the moon charm.

She tucked it into her stays, down between her breasts, and straightened. Wandering slowly back to the main square, her basket bursting with flowers, was the hardest thing she had ever done. She wanted to run up the hill. But Miss Briar Foxglove galloping up the road with a mad grin would be noticed. And she could not afford that.

Bad enough that Charles Aster noticed her. Again.

The bastard. Why was he suddenly everywhere? He smiled in her direction. She whirled on her heel. Better to be seen running than stay here.