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Chapter Twenty-Five

Matthias met them behind the inn and they ducked into the fields, the long grasses and shadows keeping them hidden. All eyes, now that they could see again, were directed at the fire.

“Keepers already got their mates out,” Matthias told them, sounding harder than he looked.

Briar only nodded toward the path where it curved away, leading down the craggy steps toward Ethan’s ship. The moon caught the metal of a cannon, the white of a rolled-up and secured sail. His brow lowered as he followed her, hand hovering by his dagger. Her head pounded and her throat was sore from screaming, but she couldn’t stop. Not now. The Keepers would come for her again, as soon as they could. The fire would not distract them forever.

The steps were uneven and not particularly safe to maneuver over in the dark, but they couldn’t very well use the village stairs, made of white marble and edged with columns. Ethan stayed close and she felt the coiled tension in him, ready to reach out if she slipped or her hip gave out. White roses choked the cliff, clinging tenaciously to sandy ground where they had no business thriving. Their perfume rivaled the salt breezes. Petals scattered like stars underfoot.

The sand was warm and welcoming, the docks painted with sigils that had not been there before. Anais waited at the railing. “Captain,” she said.

“Any trouble?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, get ready. It’s coming.”

“He didn’t get to any real memories,” Briar said. “Nothing about the ship or the charm. Just flashes of the cottage, the fireflies I chased as a girl. Our cat before he ran away. They’re fuzzy now, as if they belong to someone else. Is that normal?”

“Truth spell from the Order,” Ethan explained tightly to Anais. She swore.

“Unsanctioned,” Briar pointed out. “Bear did not know.”

“Oliver and his friend will pay the price.”

She was too tired to talk him out of murder again.

She crossed the gangplank. The witch glass rang. Magic swirled, so close to the locked shields, flashes of light, curls of mist that were not quite natural. Eyes where there should be no eyes. She knew better than to look back. She ducked her head and hurried down the stairs below deck where her sister waited. Ethan was a grim, watchful shadow at her back. The crew melted out of her way.

Matthias had not exaggerated when he said the crew had taken to Petal. She lay in a bower of white roses clearly picked from the nearby cliffside. They were scattered over her blanket, caught in her hair, piled in the hall outside the room. Briar felt some of them growing vines even without earth or water to sustain them. Their magic called to hers, making her momentarily dizzy. Ethan’s hand pressed to her lower back.

Bramble stood when Briar kicked the roses out of her way. “Has it always been like this?” she asked.

“Always,” Briar replied. Sometimes people brought Petal candy or butterflies in jars—which Briar always released—pearls they stole, more poems than any one person should have to suffer, pressed-tin medallions in every style of heart, and once, memorably, a donkey. And a pie filled with blueberries and pearls. Which the donkey ate. But usually, it was flowers.

Petal, despite her name and her green witch sister, did not particularly care for flowers. She preferred lemons and solitude and rabbit girls.

Bramble’s nose twitched. “What is it? What happened to you?”

“The Order happened to her,” Ethan said, his voice odd. “And I will be happening to the Order.”

“They don’t know Petal is here,” Briar assured them both.

“This isn’t about Petal,” he bit out, sounding even angrier.

“It doesn’t matter,” Briar whispered as Ethan shut the door. “I know where the moonstone is and they do not.”

Anais stayed in the hall, barking orders. “Not one more fucking flower. I swear to God, I cannot sneeze anymore. There’s more pollen than seawater on this blasted ship. Get to your posts. Now.”

Hurrying footsteps echoed on the other side of the wall as Briar approached her sister. Please let me be right. She had been so sure before the Keepers came for her. “You searched her for the amulet?”

“Of course,” Bramble replied. “Her pockets, even her shoes. And my sisters sent rabbits to your garden but found nothing.”

Briar had already found that piece, she reckoned, under Lord Coventry’s nose.

But her sister did like to hide things.

“Check under her tongue.”