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“Being Torvin’s descendant doesn’t automatically make her evil. You turned out all right,” Bretwalda said kindly, patting Delora’s wrinkly hand.

Well, that answeredthatquestion.

Though ... Kiva didn’t understand why she’d associated Torvin with evil. He’d spent his life healing people. They’d loved him so much that Sarana had grown jealous enough to try and kill him — her ownhusband— forcing him to abandon the throne and flee to safety. If anyone was evil, it was Sarana, not Torvin.

“Iturned out all right because I put all that behind me,” Delora told her friends. “Sheis related to the she-devil who wants only one thing.”

The present tense pulled at Kiva’s heart, reminding her that she still had to tell her grandmother that Tilda was dead.

“But she’snother,” Yinn said, transferring the leftover scones into her fabric bag. “All she wants is help controlling her magic, not using it to hurt people.”

“So she says,” Delora said gruffly, spearing an angry look at Kiva. “But she wouldn’t be the first Corentine to lie. We’ve made an art out of it.”

“I swear,” Kiva jumped in to defend herself. “That’s all I came here for. Nothing else.”

Delora waved a disbelieving hand. “Bah.”

Kiva opened her mouth to argue again, but at that moment, Bretwalda stood and swung her purse around, the solid weight of it smacking into Merrilee’s face, splitting her cheek open and sending her tumbling back into her chair.

At the sight of gushing blood, Kiva moved to inspect the cut. But her magic, simmering all day along with her impatience, had finally had enough of being stifled. It exploded out of her, stronger and brighter than ever before, and this time she didn’t try to repress it. These women already knew her secret, so she might as well help the stunned Merrilee, even if it would leave her feeling drained for her ride home.

Focusing on the power at her fingertips, Kiva urged her magic to seal the wound, gently coaxing it as she’d started to learn as a child.

Magic is your friend,her father had shared when her mother refused to teach her.Treat it kindly, and it will return the favor.

Kiva hadn’t been treating her magic kindly, stuffing it away for so long. No wonder it was angry.

Silence fell in the cottage when Kiva stepped back, the cut gone as if it had never existed.

“Did you mean to heal her? Was that deliberate?” Delora demanded after Merrilee whispered her quiet gratitude.

Kiva shook her head.

Her grandmother sighed and scrubbed her weathered face, before she set her features and turned to her friends. “Take care on the path. Mr. Chomps likes to poke about on land after a storm. And you know he startles easily.”

An image of the large creature that had ducked beneath the water returned to Kiva’s mind, and she shuddered all over again.

“That beastie’s already taken a chunk out of me,” Clovis said, pulling up her skirt to reveal an aged scar. “He’s not getting another taste.”

“He’s friendly enough if you leave him alone,” Delora said without sympathy. “Now, go home before it starts raining again.”

Kiva didn’t know what alarmed her more: that fourvery oldwomen, one who had a walker, were about to make their way through the swamp in the dark while there was a carnivorous beast “poking about,” or that she herself would be making the same trek soon. The four friends, however, were unconcerned, and merely said their goodbyes, disappearing into the night.

Delora turned to Kiva and loosed a long, resigned breath, before approaching the nearest bookcase and pulling out a black-spined book entitled1,001 Pies and Pastries.The cover opened to reveal a hollowed middle, inside which rested a single dagger. Aside from the clear gemstone embedded into the hilt, it was unremarkable, and yet Delora watched Kiva with intense focus as she removed the weapon from its hiding place.

Kiva could only assume the blade was Torvin’s famed dagger, the family heirloom Tilda had tried to retrieve without success. Since Kiva didn’t want the door slammed inherface, she was careful to act as if she didn’t know what it was and simply asked, “Are you planning on stabbing me? Because that’s what it’s going to take to get me to leave without your help.”

The tension left Delora’s shoulders, as if she’d feared Kiva would leap forward and wrest the blade from her. But the dagger held no value to Kiva, and she was careful to keep from looking at it for too long lest Delora think any differently.

“Come with me,” the old woman ordered, hobbling from the room.

Warily, Kiva followed her grandmother into her cramped kitchen. Splashes of flour dusted the bench from her last baking attempt, but Delora ignored the mess and shuffled toward a set of mounted shelves that contained an array of rare plant cuttings, including fresh specimens in jars of water.

Struggling not to ask questions, Kiva watched Delora pull leaves, stems, and flowers from her collection, laying them out on a chopping board before lining up the dagger’s edge. Just before she made her first cut, she slitted her eyes at Kiva and demanded, “Turn around.”

Kiva balked, not wanting her back toward someone holding a lethal weapon. “Sorry?”

“Turn around,” Delora repeated, making a circling motion with the blade. “It’s a secret recipe.”