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CHAPTER ELEVEN

“That’s not Prue Stonewell,” Boar muttered under her breath. “As leader of Cailleach Lodge, she should greet us first, not this faun.”

That was the custom: the strongest supes and Fair Folk greeted the Hawthornes first as a sign of reverence and fealty and to set the example for all the rest. The faun was breaking protocol, but she had good reason.

“Prue’s had long enough to show up,” Lilac hissed. “Edith’s got a business to run, just like the rest of them. Cut her some slack.” She whipped her attention to the faun as she reached the table, Lilac’s irritation evaporating at the sight of her friend. “Miss Edith, so lovely to see you.”

Half woman, half goat, the faun wore a bright red coat that contrasted beautifully with her charcoal-colored skin and silky back fur. Sprigs of holly decorated her horns, and fog clouded her gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Mistress Lilac,” the faun said, curtseying. She was beaming a smile, too, before she remembered she was addressing more Hawthornes than just her. The black faun quickly sobered. “ Master Boar, Mistress Rose, good day. The Fireside Tales Book Shoppe greets you and wishes you a prosperous yuletide.”

She produced a brown-paper package from the wicker basket on her arm and slid it onto the table. Then she turned back to Lilac. “This is for you, mistress. Per your request, of course,” she added hastily.

Of course. And of course she’d made no request. This was a gift masked as a transaction.

The faun bookseller handed her a smaller package, this one wrapped in a little green ribbon. “Let me know what you think,” she whispered.

“The Hawthornes accept your gift,” Boar said, taking the first package and setting it away from the food but still within sight. “May Fireside Tales be evergreen.”

The faun curtseyed once more, flashed a quick smile at Lilac in farewell, and hurried off with little clip-clops of her cloven hooves.

With Edith’s disappearance, it was like the proverbial plug on a tub drain had popped free, and a deluge of visitors flooded to the corner booth to pay the Hawthorne family their respects. Most were other , but there were some humans in the mix, particularly practitioners. They each brought some kind of gift, always wrapped in nondescript brown paper. As head of their little Circle of Three, Boar received them politely and respectfully, always sending them on their way with a reverent, “May name of business be evergreen.”

“Are these . . . tithes?” Allen whispered in one of the lulls between supplicants.

Lilac would’ve replied with something smacking of sass, something about how as the servant he need only bother himself with figuring out how he was going to carry it all to the Hall instead of wondering after their identity, but she couldn’t stop fingering the ribbon on the little book Edith had given her. What treasure had the little faun gifted her this year?

Rose leaned in and whispered to him, “We Hawthornes are kind of a big deal.”

“And so modest too,” he replied, earning him a light jab to the ribs. Chuckling, he turned his attention back to eating the portion of bread bowl and soup he’d ordered on Lilac’s behalf. But his golden-brown eyes marked everyone who approached.

He ceased chewing entirely when Prue Stonewell appeared.

Lilac dropped the packaged book on the leather seat between her and Boar, keeping her hands under the table. Rose stopped chugging her third beer and wiped her mouth with her wrist, never once taking her eyes off the leader of the hedge witches.

Wavy gray hair tumbled loose from an honest-to-gods witch hat made of tanned hide. She wore brown robes, belted at the waist, a half-cloak of autumn orange, and a bandolier of charms, vials, and other witchy bits and bobs strung across her chest. The rowan besom clutched in her hand shed some of its twigs along the floor.

Coven witches and hedge witches didn’t normally get along—a difference in orthodoxy—and the Hawthornes particularly didn’t like how Prue Stonewell preferred to dress in the stereotypical part. It seemed to undermine their legitimacy, that what they were wasn’t much more than a bit of hocus pocus, a penchant for forest things, and a fondness for black cats.

“Prue Stonewell,” Boar said, breaking the established protocol by addressing the supplicant first. Unlike with all the rest, there was no warmth in his tone. “You should’ve been the first to greet us.”

“I had other matters that needed my attention,” came her crisp reply. “By Mab, Boar Hawthorne, contrary to what you might believe, your family does not command the minutes of my day. Here.”

She thrust a poorly wrapped brown-paper package at them. When none of the witches moved, none of them liking her attitude and blatant disregard for protocol, Allen reached up and took it with a mild, “Thank you.”

“Allen Sharpe.” Her hawkish hazel eyes snapped to him. “I thought you had more sense than embroiling yourself with the Hawthornes. Unless, that is, it had been your plan all along.”

“Pardon?”

“I heard what happened to Zofia Hollyoak today. Simply dreadful.” She looked down her long nose at him. “Or convenient.”

Allen Sharpe’s polite demeanor vanished. He stood, his powerful body seeming to expand and take up all the air in the booth. Prue Stonewell craned her head back to look up at him, and while she stood her ground, Lilac noticed the hedge witch tremble.

“Don’t ever insinuate such a thing in my presence again, Ms. Stonewell,” Allen growled. “If you know what happened to Zofia this afternoon, then you know what I did to protect her. What I would do for any of my charges. Including the Hawthornes. And yet, I assure you, that was nothing compared to what I’ll do to the next person who threatens her or the Hawthornes, or insults my honor.”

Prue Stonewell’s tongue swiped nervously over her chapped lips, then she straightened her spine and changed tactics. “That girl already has you wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she?” she hissed, pointing at Lilac. “What did I tell you about my poor Ethan? Heartbroken, he was. Completely shattered. And it is all her fault !” she shrieked.

For a second, Lilac was convinced Allen was going to bite that accusing finger clean off the hedge witch’s finger. And for some reason, that idea sent a thrill racing through her.

“That is enough, Ms. Stonewell,” Allen said icily, taking a step to herd the hedge witch away from the booth. Away from her . “I suggest you leave before you say anything else you might regret.”

“You’re too good for her, for this entire place,” Prue rambled on. “I warned you, Allen Sharpe, to leave while you still could, but you didn’t listen. You don’t know what she’ll do to y—”

“I’ll do nothing to him that he doesn’t deserve.” Lilac eased out of the booth like a panther, all fluid, predatory grace. While she was burning inside with rage, she kept her features and tone glacially smooth. “And in regards to your grandson, perhaps you should’ve raised him to respect that when a woman says ‘no,’ she means it. It was only out of regards for you that he can still eat without a feeding tube.”

Prue glared at her, tears brimming in her eyes, jowls quivering as she clenched her jaw. “You went too far, Lilac Hawthorne.”

“Grandmother didn’t think I went far enough. Perhaps you’d like to take it up with her when she returns, especially since she thought this matter settled years ago.”

The hedge witch turned to Allen once more, perhaps to implore him to see reason, but she found no ally there. And she certainly found none in Sam Barley, who had come to the table. Talia, obviously enlisted by Sam to help intercede, looked miserable. At her employer’s prompt, she took a tiny step forward.

“Please, Prue.” The young woman hesitantly reached for the hedge witch. “Let me take you back to the lodge and—”

The hedge witch snatched her elbow out of range of Talia’s hand. “I will not be placated by a base practitioner! And you, pupil, consider your next lessons at the lodge revoked.”

Prue Stonewell spun on her heel and marched for the door .

“Prue Stonewell.” The power in Boar’s voice stayed her and rattled the windows in their frames. If the pub wasn’t silent before, it certainly was now. The hedge witch threw a glare over her shoulder, but she did stop. “The Hawthornes accept your gift. May the Cailleach Lodge be evergreen.”

The hedge witch lifted her chin and stormed out of the pub.

With her exit, the entire pub breathed a sigh of relief. Conversation resumed, the music rediscovered its melody, and every eye purposefully found something else to look at other than the Hawthornes in the corner booth.

But Lilac didn’t return to her seat. Not yet. She stood there watching the door as if the leader of the hedge witches would return on her broomstick and curse them all.

“That was magnanimous of you, brother,” Rose mused, picking up her beer.

“’Tis the season, I suppose. I think Grandmother would’ve wanted leniency rather than punishment.”

“Lilac.” Allen Sharpe’s voice was so soft, so comforting, and for a moment, she forgot she was not supposed to trust him.

“You know what I did to protect her. What I would do for any of my charges. Including the Hawthornes.” By the Green Mother, she’d believed him when he’d said that. The conviction in his words . . . that couldn’t be faked.

“Are you alright?” he murmured.

When she shivered at the warmth and comfort in his voice, her own body betraying her, she whirled an ivy-green glare at him. “I don’t need your protection.” Then she turned her icy fury on her brother. “And you. Grandmother would’ve wanted leniency? Our matriarch would’ve protected her own, something you should’ve done instead of leaving it to the caretaker! By the Green Mother, you’re my brother , Boar. Maybe you should act like it. ”

“Not here,” Boar warned. “We’ll have this discussion in private, Lilac, or not at all.”

“Yes, we wouldn’t want the whole village see how your first day as Master Boar was a colossal—”

“Lilac,” Rose snapped. “Shut your mouth. Right. Now. People are watching.”

Then she let out a merry laugh, wiggling out of the booth and practically skipping to where Sam Barley now stood behind the bar. She paid him some boisterous compliments about the beer, how it was such a delight to come to the Cat & Cauldron every year, and many other loudly spoken accolades that drew the pub’s attention to her and nothing else. Rose had always been something of a hedonistic hurricane—she blew in with good and wild times and blew out just as quickly, on to her next adventure.

Seizing the opportunity of her distraction, Boar thrust Lilac’s beribboned package at her with a look that said if she didn’t high-tail it to the door, he would carry her out over his shoulder. Like Prue Stonewell, Lilac lifted her chin, swirled her cloak over her shoulders, tucked the package under her arm, and left the pub at nothing less than a serene walk. She was still a Hawthorne, after all, even if she was in for the reprimand of a century.