Page 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Huddled in the bay window of the attic overlooking the pond, Lilac clutched Edith’s letter to her chest. Unwilling to socialize, she’d come to hide beyond the maze of boxes in the attic and read more of Forgotten Lore of the Arcane —she’d just finished the section on green sparks and was on to the witch’s knot. But first, the little bookseller’s letter, and now her heartbeat was as erratic as a hummingbird evading a persistent cat. What she had first thought was a commiserative missive had in truth filled her with joy.

Dearest Lilac,

I have done something terribly wicked.

I stole your totes.

Yes, I am the thief who took all those bottles and jars with the smudged labels before your brother could find them, spirited them away to my bookshop, painstakingly relabeled them (I now have arthritis in my right hand, thank you very much), and set them up for sale in the window under a “Potions by Lilac” sign.

Can we still be friends?

Perhaps the enclosed cash earned by the sales (you’ve sold out, by the way) and a waitlist of interested (and very impatient) buyers can persuade you to forgive me?

Yours truly,

Edith

She read the sassy little letter once more, hardly daring to believe that its words were true.

“Oh my Green Mother,” she whispered, “I’ve done it. I’ve finally done it!”

Her heart swelled. Despite everything, she had succeeded. She had the validation from the villagers. She had the support of her dear friend. And, most importantly of all, she was now truly convinced of her talent. Not only of its profitability, but of its truth. She was worthy of this.

But would her family agree when they found out? Would Grandmother accept the new role she had chosen for herself? Would she, if met with their opposition, bend to her matriarch’s iron will like a blade of grass before a wind, or stand tall like an oak tree unfazed by the storm?

The joy in her heart wouldn’t let her wallow. It wanted to relish this moment. And share it.

With . . . Allen.

He had been the one to find the loophole in Boar’s command and rescue her potions, to set up her booth and encourage others to take a chance on her goods. To believe in her when her own siblings didn’t .

Her gaze drifted to the scene beyond the attic window, to where the caretaker was chucking more wood into the little bonfire beside the pond. Just that morning, the Hawthornes had reset the ice and grown a deck and bleachers that curved halfway around the pond. In one corner by the ice, a string quartet all bundled up in matching pea coats and striped scarves reminiscent of candy canes played “Greensleeves.”

Garlands and string lights hung from the poles they’d grown from poplar seeds, and those villagers who weren’t ice skating in an endless loop along the pond’s perimeter lounged on the deck and bleachers out of the snow or roasted marshmallows by the fire Allen fed. Boar stood on the platform overlooking the pond like Caesar above a gladiatorial pit, monitoring the skaters’ safety, and Rose and her mountain man Darren skated amongst the crowd. When they weren’t making out under the bleachers.

Her eyes drifted back to the caretaker, watched as he finished feeding the bonfire and stacked the leftover wood neatly nearby so people could add it at will. Every movement was efficient, no energy wasted. And he had so little left. Rose had told her this morning that he’d been working since late last night to extend the wards to the edge of the forest at great personal cost.

To protect them. To protect her.

The caretaker had saved her . . . in more ways than one. She still felt the phantom touch of his hands on her waist as he’d shoved her out of the water. The strength of his arms as he’d cradled her to his chest. How, even as she slipped away into unconsciousness, she’d felt safe with him. That feeling was the very reason she’d been avoiding him.

She was here to seize her future and validate her worth as a potions master, not fall for the caretaker. He obeyed her family. And if the Hawthorne matriarch decided not to endorse Lilac’s new life, he would be a grindstone around her neck. Because he was tied to the Hall, he could never leave Annesley Valley. Which meant she would always be in her family’s shadow, within their clutches. And now that Lilac had had a taste of freedom, she could never go back to that life if they meant to pigeonhole her into the role she had not chosen for herself.

And yet, she’d never met a man so unfailingly kind. Who didn’t look at her as something to be possessed for his own gain. Who cared for her with no thought for himself. If she was being truthful with herself, something she was adamant about doing in this new life she was carving out, she wanted a man like that. But not just any man. Green Mother help her, she wanted Allen Sharpe.

Have you lost your mind? You’re not here for a winter fling , a traitorous voice that sounded oddly like her grandmother hissed at her. You have no business wanting—

I want to make my own choices! she shouted back.

The traitorous voice didn’t reply.

Releasing a huff, she stood and smoothed down her dress. Then she gave her reflection in the frosty window a hard look and started making adjustments. At least she could have some confidence in her appearance when she faced him, for she did owe him a thank-you and an apology. And if that went well, she’d risk telling him everything. Maybe.

“Lilac?”

She yelped as she spun from her primping, finding Allen standing there with a box of decorations in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I didn’t want to startle you, but, um, apparently I failed. I’m just up here grabbing the rest of the ornaments for the Hanging of the Green this afternoon. I only have a few trips left, so I’ll be out of your hair soon. In case you, uh, need to”—he glanced at the window—“think some more. By yourself. So . . . bye.” He turned for a gap in the towers of boxes to retreat through the maze .

“Don’t go!”

He gave her wary glance over his shoulder. “Is that a Hawthorne command? I really need to get this done for Boar.”

“Just, wait.” She wet her lips, suddenly nervous.

Her heart ached at the sight of his tired shoulders slumping as he set the box down and faced her, arms at his sides. Allen had a physical ease with her brother and sister that she suddenly envied. Rose hugged him daily, and he and Boar got into the occasional fraternal shoving match. But he never touched Lilac unless it was necessary. Probably because she’d treated him with frost for most of their relationship, something she was beginning to regret. Perhaps her instincts had been wrong about him; maybe he really had nothing to hide from her except a past he wanted to keep dead. She herself was trying to shed her old image for a new one, so why couldn’t she afford him the same grace he was giving her?

“I’ve been ghastly towards you and I’m sorry,” she said in a rush.

After a beat, he asked patiently, “Why is that, do you think?”

His question made her squirm like a freshly unearthed worm. “Because when you present one face to the world and keep your real one hidden, like I do, you recognize when others are doing it too.”

“I never lied, Lilac. I came here to start over, befriended Zofia without knowing what she was, and then I ended up here as your caretaker. Your . . . friend, after a fashion, I’d think.”

She searched his face, finding nothing but sincerity.

“I had hoped I would’ve proven myself to you already,” he continued, a slight edge of reproach in his tired voice, “especially given yesterday.”

Lilac flushed. “Y-you did. And thank you for that. And this.” She thrust out Edith’s letter. “Here.”

She sucked in her breath and held it as his golden-brown eyes scanned the letter. The weariness drained from the lines in his face, a smile breaking free like the first rays of dawn. She found herself straining forward after the light of that smile like a sunflower.

“Lilac, this is incredible,” he exclaimed.

“You made it happen, Allen.”

He looked up from the letter, his smile vanishing. “Don’t say that. You did the work. I just gave you a helping hand.”

“You saw me when others didn’t,” she said softly. “How did you do that? You must know about me. It’s no secret what service I provide for my family.”

Allen wet his lips, considering. Then: “You’re the honeytrap. Your grandmother uses your beauty as a weapon, whether it’s to sway business deals in her favor or allude to alliances through marriage. Or dig out secrets via pillow talk.”

Lilac snorted lightly. “They wish they’d heard my pillow talk.” Then she sobered. “I’m a femme fatale, but I don’t want to be that anymore. I never chose that for myself. I . . . I—”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me,” he said gently, returning her letter.

She plucked it out of his hand. “But I do, Allen, because you see me. And I feel like I need to tell you—”

In a rare show of external frustration, she clawed her hands through her wavy brown hair. By the Green Mother, this wasn’t going at all like she’d planned. This was supposed to be a simple exchange of gratitude, not her pouring her soul out to him.

“Lilac,” he soothed, reaching for her.

She didn’t deserve his comfort, not until he knew what he saw in her wasn’t a lie. Lilac stepped back, shoring up against the reading seat of the bay window. “You know us Hawthornes, the whole extended family, live in the manor, right? That’s forty-something people. We do everything together from growing our own food to homeschooling to combat training. I love my family, but it can be suffocating. We’re all fighting for our individuality, but we’re all cogs in the same clock. We each have a purpose, something we’re good at. And I’m good at looking beautiful.”

Lilac wrung her hands. “When I was sixteen, I was ordered to use that beauty against my own cousin. Meadow. She was—is—as close to me as my own sister. But then Grandmother . . .” She sucked in a deep breath, unable to look at Allen any longer. “I heard whispers of a prophecy about the fae. About Meadow. It’s why we’re forbidden from socializing with shifters—they are half beast, and Grandmother’s convinced they’re more easily swayed by the fae, who are the commanders of the natural world.

“Meadow was never to fall in love until after the prophecy expired. Grandmother was afraid she would be seduced by a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and that seduction would inevitably doom us all. She learned that Meadow had a crush on a human boy—Jeremy Rook. And she sent me to lead him astray.”

“To steal him.”

Lilac winced. “To prove to Meadow that I could take any boy I wished, that no boy would ever prefer her to me, to make her give up on the idea that she could find love outside what the family could provide for her. And . . . I did it.” Her throat constricted as tears flooded her eyes, but she held them back.

“What could I do?” she whispered. “I was sixteen, still very much a child, and of course I was a little jealous of Meadow. Everyone saw her talents; she’s Grandmother’s own protégé. But mine? No one looked past my face. And my coven matriarch is the Iris Hawthorne, so there was no way I could disobey. I trusted her when she said this was for the good of the family. But . . . it crushed Meadow. You must know what it’s like, your first heartbreak? Except it’s a hundred times worse when your own cousin steals away your boyfriend to turn into her plaything and then throw him away when she tires of him. ”

“If he was so easily stolen, he never was hers to begin with,” Allen observed gently.

“We can say that as adults, sure, but as children, that kind of act leaves a mark. It nearly destroyed us, our relationship. I’ve been fighting for the last twelve years to make it right, but I don’t know if I ever will.”

Lilac lifted the letter. “It’s why I seized this chance. With Grandmother and the coven away, I had a chance to choose the life I wanted for myself, to prove to Meadow that I’d never do such a thing again. That I never want to do that again. That I just . . . want to be me.”

“And you can, Lilac. You’re already doing it.” Allen stepped close enough that she could smell his cologne. It was a wild scent that reminded her of wide-open spaces and the sensation of wind blowing through her hair. “You don’t need me to give validation to your life.”

“Yes, I do,” she whispered, finally daring a look at his face.

By the Green Mother, he was so handsome. Golden hair, flushed skin, those golden-brown eyes that looked into the heart of her and didn’t run away. The waffle knit of his Henley lay snug against the firm muscles of his chest and shoulders, and all Lilac wanted was to feel those strong arms enveloping her, feel those wide hands splaying over her body. She wanted to be accepted. Reassured. Cherished.

And Allen Sharpe was as genuine and loyal as he was handsome. Whoever won his devotion would be the luckiest person on Earth.

“Because,” she tried again, “because if you do, maybe s-someone like you could accept me and . . . fall for me. L-like I’m falling for him.”

The caretaker went rigid. “What?” he asked, his voice oddly strangled.

Her breath rushed out of her chest as if her lungs had just collapsed, her heart shriveling. Oh Green Mother, had she read him wrong? Had she—

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, a crimson flush flooding from the roots of her hair all the way down to her toes. “I-I misjudged— Please, excuse me.”

As she rushed by him, Allen’s hand shot out. His fingers closed around her hand for only an instant before a green spark flashed between them with a startling bloom of heat. They flew apart, Lilac cradling her hand to her chest.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, her mortification replaced by awe.

“What was that?” Allen demanded.