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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

Allen failed his own command, risking the glance over his shoulder at the witch.

Lilac was watching his retreat, her bottom lip pinched between her teeth. When their eyes met, hers widened like those of a spooked doe as a flush bloomed on her cheeks. Then she was busying herself with rearranging a few things, purposefully ignoring him.

His wolf howled with delight.

Oh shut up, Allen told him, but he couldn’t help grinning himself. His surprise had gone over better than he’d intended. Much better. She might just trust him now. While that hadn’t been his objective, if that was a consequence, he wouldn’t complain. He’d done it because it was the right thing to do . . . and a small part of him, which was growing every day, just wanted to see her happy. To change the fate of that sad girl in the photograph.

When Allen collided full-on into a booth—thankfully the vendor was just selling knitted scarves and hats and nothing breakable—he chastised himself to get his head in the game. To remember his mission.

Protect the Hawthornes. Not cozy up to one of them.

His wolf huffed.

With Rose having gallivanted off into the crowd with that hard-looking man he recognized from the pub—he recognized everyone from the village, actually—it was up to Allen to man the refreshment table. He had sight lines on both Lilac in her booth and Boar at the door, and his nose told him Rose hadn’t left the building. If or when she did, he would excuse himself and reel her back in with some excuse.

In the meantime, he had cookies and baked goods to sell. He wasn’t alone at the table. Sam Barley had sent up half a dozen servers, including Talia, with a bunch of appetizers to keep everyone happy. Like she had at the pub, Talia spent all of her time gazing wistfully in Boar’s direction. He was surrounded by other handsome men, really chumming it up, so she could’ve been pining after anyone, though Allen doubted it.

Poor girl’s got it bad.

So bad, in fact, Allen had been called from his post twice to clean up spills from where she’d run straight into a booth, another time into a cluster of people. A senior server harshly told her that another misstep— whatever it was—would get her fired. Sniffling to hold back her tears, Talia returned to the table to restock her tray with little cocktail sausages. At least these wouldn’t break like the punch cups.

“Hey, Talia, thanks again for your help yesterday,” he told her, feeling the need to reach out. He hated to see women cry, and he could empathize with how she was feeling. Like a loner.

“My what?” she asked, the tongs slipping from her hand.

“Your help. With Prue Stonewell? I’m sorry she took out her anger on you.”

“Oh.” The young woman’s shoulders drooped. “Yeah. The closest I’ll get to magic again at the lodge is maintaining the library of three spell books. Yippee.”

“I’m sure the Hawthornes can put a good word in for you, especially since you tried to help them.”

“The Hawthornes?” Talia shook her head. “Most of them are nice, like Mistress Lilac, but they’re coven witches. They only take care of their own. They don’t bother with ‘silly little practitioners’ like myself.” Her shoulders straightened, and she stabbed at the cocktail sausages with more vehemence than necessary, splattering sauce everywhere. “I don’t need them. Or Prue and the Cailleach Lodge. I’ve got other prospects.”

Allen gave her an encouraging smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”

When he was finished helping his next spurt of customers, either selling them baked goods or refilling their punch cups, he checked in with the Hawthornes again. Rose was finally back in sight, checking out some outdoor camping gear, Boar was still schmoozing with the villagers, and Lilac . . .

Unlike Talia, the poor witch didn’t seem to have any prospects at all. It had been over an hour and she hadn’t sold a single thing. In fact, the only ones coming to her booth were the most persistent of her suitors, each of them with punch or snacks or flowers.

His wolf was a roiling mess of emotions, whining as a result of Lilac’s unhappiness and snarling at the men who wouldn’t leave her alone.

“Hey, Talia? I need to check on something. If you swing back through here, mind letting anyone who stops by know I’ll be right back?”

“Sure thing!”

Allen waded into the bustling crowd, ignoring the cries for him to buy a festive quilt for his holiday sweetheart or some custom jewelry or a pretty winter painting. The suitors recognized him from before, realized the look on his face was more than a little predatory, and reluctantly shuffled off. It allowed those truly curious to come forward and inquire after the various bottles and jars.

“So, these aren’t made by your mother? Mistress Peony?” a woman asked, quickly replacing the bar she’d picked up as if were a live toad instead of soap. Another woman hastily retracted her interest in an herbal shampoo.

“That’s correct,” Lilac replied, straining for patience. No doubt she’d given the same explanation over a hundred times already. “But I can assure you—”

“Mistress Lilac, thank goodness you’re here,” Allen said, rushing forward. “Please, please tell me you have more of that hair stuff!”

The women clustered around the booth immediately lifted their gaze to his head of thick blond hair.

“T-the Follicular Elixir?” she asked, unsure.

“ Yes .” Allen added a crazed glint to his golden-brown eyes. “That’s the one. Completely changed my life, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

The prospective customers certainly were.

“I’ll take two bottles now, but I’ll come around at the end of the Faire to clean you out if haven’t sold out already. ’Tis the season not to be greedy an’ all that.” He picked up the bar of soap the woman had discarded and exclaimed, “My cousin loves this stuff. Cleared her rash right up. Better get her another one, though, just in case. This weather is horrible on the skin. What else you got?”

Lilac was quick to catch on, eagerly explaining all her different products. Her face brightened, her eyes sparkling.

His wolf wiggled in delight, tail slashing left and right as the pretty witch spoke to them with such enthusiasm. It was like a light had been turned on inside her, her joy for her work overflowing into the excitement in her voice, the dance of her fingers as she gestured to each product, and, spirits above, her smile. It wasn’t that demure fake one she wore for the masses. This one . . . not even the sun shone so radiantly.

“So?” she asked, wetting her lips nervously.

Allen realized he’d just been staring at her without truly listening, his gaze riveted on her mouth. How her lips would feel like warm satin—

“Fantastic,” he blurted. “I’ll take one of everything.”

“Y-you will?” the first woman sputtered. “You do know these were made by her and not her mother, right?”

Allen gave her a withering look. “And I know it’s Mistress Lilac’s Follicular Elixir that put the hair back on my head for my lovers to pull on in bed and her Wound Salve that heals the fingernail scratches they leave on my back.”

The woman turned a mortified red as the others clustered around her tittered.

“Your bag, sir,” Lilac said lightly, slipping the loops of a brown-paper tote into his hand. “Thank you for being a loyal repeat customer.”

“Thank you , mistress,” he said, jovial once more. Then he smiled at the rest of the assembled woman. “If not for you, ladies, get it for your men.”

When he turned to Lilac to hand her a wad of cash, he caught the witch suppressing a smile. He fought the urge to smile himself and bustled off into the crowd, making a full circuit to confirm Rose was still shirking her duties and Boar was occupied at the other end of the fair. He snuck around behind Lilac’s booth on his way back to the refreshment table and slid the brown tote across the floor so it shored up against her feet and she could sell it all for real.

Back at his post, he sold baked goods, made change, distributed punch, and did it all over again. The process required a fraction of his brain power, allowing him to mull .

He wasn’t so far into his own head that he didn’t smell her approach, and his golden-brown eyes lost their characteristic warmth.

Acrid woodsmoke, old parchment, and blackberry, those were the scents of Prue Stonewell.

“Cookies, cakes, sweet buns, or punch?” Allen said without any inflection.

The hedge witch waggled an empty punch cup. “I came by for some earlier. When you were shilling for Lilac.”

“Cookies, cakes, or sweet buns?” Allen repeated flatly. “And that’s ‘Mistress Lilac,’ by the way.”

“She doesn’t deserve the title. None of them do.”

“I’d consider your next words very carefully, Ms. Stonewell.” Behind him, the flames in the grand fireplace flared with heat.

At any other time, Allen would’ve turned around in wonder or even glanced down at the opal ring, but his attention never wavered from the hedge witch.

Prue sniffed, gaze flicking from the flames to their caretaker. “The Hall is truly obeying your commands now. Or at least your mood. I suppose it’s safe to say that you’re well and truly cursed now.”

“Cursed?” Allen kept his alarm in check—he’d had his moment of panic last night. Now he was focused on action instead of speculation. He flicked an invisible mote of dust off the fancy vest that had appeared in his closet. “Never heard of curses providing perks before.”

“The Hall ruins every good man and woman who comes in contact with it. It infects—”

“Ethan and Zofia?”

Prue’s eyes blazed. “Zofia became nothing more than an indentured servant, and Ethan—”

“More punch?” Allen said flatly, holding up a fresh cup.

The flint in his eyes must’ve convinced her that the rest of her accusations would fall on deaf ears. She snatched the cup from him and gave it a large gulp, most likely so she could spew it in his face.

But she didn’t, her anger transforming into something more like alarm. It had been his job to read people—the better to manipulate them—and he could find no other word to describe the way her eyes had widened.

Without another word, and before he could stay her, the hedge witch twisted away and wormed back into the crowd, nudging people out of her way with her besom like a shepherd herds sheep with his staff.

On edge, Allen watched her disappear and wondered if it was a mistake to let her go. Frowning, he checked in with the Hawthornes. Boar and Lilac hadn’t left his field of vision, and a deep whiff told him Rose was by a leatherworker. There was no stink of fear on any of the three—Boar was a little nervous because he was desperate to impress; Rose was enjoying herself; Lilac had the anxious/happy jitters. Even the Hall seemed at ease—which Allen was startled to realize he could sense—the fire popping merrily at his back, the magical barrier shimmering easily as it detected nothing nefarious coming or going.

So far, everything had been easy. Textbook. While Prue Stonewell obviously had some grudges against the Hawthornes, she wasn’t the underhanded, malicious type. His intel convinced him that she only had the best interests of the village and the safety of her beloved Cailleach Lodge at heart. Other than Zofia, there had been no true attacks, so what had the Coalition been worried about?

Then, the screaming began.