Page 14

Eleven

B riar watched Wick’s face, wishing she didn’t care so much about his stupid reaction.

“See?” she said. “Waterfall. Surprise!”

“Surprise,” Wick agreed in a tone that made her think that sometimes he just repeated her words when he didn’t know what to say. It should have annoyed her. Instead, she was just annoyed at herself for how fond it made her.

Wick stared up at the waterfall with an unreadable expression. His whole body was still, no tail twitching or wings fidgeting. Just a complete, utter stillness that Briar had never known. It made her nervous. It made her jealous. It made her really pissed off that he could smell her damn emotions.

She pulled up a smile and tried to force the nerves out of her chest. “Pretty, right?”

“Pretty,” Wick echoed. Then his tail flicked, and he was back to normal. “Your witch picked a good place to live.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Briar glanced back at Marigold’s cottage, which was just as cozy and charming as the last time she was here, recovering from a gut wound.

The cottage was a round, quaint thing with wisteria dripping around the thinning roof and smoke piping merrily from the wonky brick chimney.

It was worn down and in need of repair, but it was also one of the sweetest things Briar had ever seen.

Like something from a story book. The kind of place where danger never touched you and you could sleep deeply every night, knowing all was right with your little world.

The kind of place, in other words, Briar could never stay. But she liked to visit from time to time.

One of the crooked cottage windows swung open, revealing Marigold wearing an apron and waving wildly.

“Are you two coming?” she called. “The tea’s ready!”

“Coming,” Briar yelled back.

She and Wick set off toward the cottage.

Wick leaned down to Briar. “What is ‘tea?’”

“Hot, gross, brown water,” Briar said. “Just force it down.”

“Oh.” Wick twisted back to look at the waterfall again. Briar marveled at him. How much nature had he seen in his endless Skullstalker years, and a waterfall could still make him go still like that?

“Why do you get like that?” she asked before she could stop herself. “First the mountains, now a waterfall. You go all quiet behind the eyes.”

“I just like waterfalls,” Wick replied. “The mountains are different.”

“Different? How?”

Wick cocked his head. “I don’t know.”

He stopped, his gaze rising toward the mountains looming in the distance. For a moment, the stillness came over him again, strange and somehow less tranquil than the effect the waterfall had on him.

Then he shuddered all the way to his wingtips.

“Come,” he said, turning back toward the cottage. “We have foul water to drink.”

It was a short trip from the front door to the living room. And yet Wick managed to knock over a chair (tail), shatter a vase (wings), and swipe a painting off its hook (an unlucky elbow).

“I am sorry,” he said as he sank into the lumpy couch. “I have never been inside a house before.”

Briar giggled and sat down beside him. The couch was supposed to be big enough for four people, but Briar could barely wedge herself into the small space left beside Wick’s bulk.

“Happens to the best of us,” said Marigold cheerily. She set out a tray of tea on the table and sat down in an armchair across from them.

Briar nudged a table leg with her boot. It had several books stacked underneath it, just like when she had visited last time.

“So,” Briar said. “Still no apothecary attached to this place.”

Marigold sighed, balancing a teacup on a saucer.

“I’m working on it! I just need one big job, and then I can finally hire some builders.

And carpenters. And buy the starter supplies.

And… oh, you know.” Marigold smoothed out her skirt, which was always some kind of wrinkled.

“So! We’re friends with Skullstalkers now. Or… more than friends, I guess.”

She gave Wick a judgy look. Which was better than rage and disgust, Briar reminded herself. Marigold wasn’t a very judgy person, but Briar would have also been giving Wick the side-eye if their roles were reversed.

“He’s different,” Briar assured her. She patted Wick’s wings, which were tucked in tightly behind his back. “He doesn’t want to hurt anybody. That’s actually one reason we want to talk to you.”

Marigold’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re here for him ?”

“No, obviously I’m here for me. For us,” Briar said hurriedly. “We’re cursed.”

Marigold hummed into her teacup. “Another rocky misadventure with Briar Copperwood. What’s the curse?”

Briar ground her teeth. “Remember Salaros? Wears special boots that make him tall, stinks like perfume?—”

“Awful mustache,” Marigold agreed. “I remember him. He died recently! That wasn’t you, was it?”

“It was, actually. But only because he cursed me.” Briar adjusted her shirt laces, which were stiff with sweat in a way that reminded her she needed to wash her clothes in that waterfall before bed.

She felt oddly exposed, which was strange.

Marigold had seen her in much worse states than standing rumpled in front of a naked man, like she’d seen in the clearing.

But for some reason, she felt the urge to hide.

“I need to sleep with someone,” Briar continued, her voice forcefully light. “Every day. Or my heart will burn up!”

Marigold made a face. “That’s annoying. I guess you’d have to travel with someone! How did you end up with him?”

“He saved my life.” Briar rubbed Wick’s wing, already halfway through the movement before she noticed what she was doing. Then she realized how warm it sounded and cleared her throat, dropping her hand to her lap.

“We helped each other out,” she corrected. “I told him about my curse, and he told me of his.”

“I do not know if mine is a curse,” Wick said. He was watching Briar’s hand, the one that had been touching his wing. Then he cleared his throat, his head jerking around to Marigold.

“I have an uncontrollable blood frenzy,” he explained.

“Ye-e-es,” Marigold said, balancing a teacup on her knee. “You’re a Skullstalker.”

Briar pushed back another sting of annoyance. You would have thought the same thing last week, she reminded herself.

“It’s not a Skullstalker thing ,” she argued. “Wick says it isn’t normal for them. He can’t control it. The others can.”

“But I have found something that can,” Wick said. He reached over and lifted the amulet around Briar’s neck, his claws brushing Briar’s collarbones. “This. The necklace you gave her. Whenever the blood frenzy starts, your necklace glows and makes it go away.”

“Oh!” Marigold’s smile shrank. Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward to examine the amulet.

Briar waited for her to speak. When the only thing that happened was that Marigold leaned further forward, Briar continued, “What did you make it out of?”

Marigold startled. “Huh? Oh! Well, I’ll have to think about it. It was supposed to be for very basic magical protection…”

She trailed off. Her brows wrinkled, her mouth moving wordlessly as she went deeper and deeper into whatever magical theory she was falling into.

Luckily, Briar had witnessed enough deep dives to know how to snap Marigold out of it.

Briar leaned forward and snapped her fingers. “Marigold!”

Marigold jerked, tea splashing over her rumpled skirt.

“Gods!” Marigold brushed the tea away with a wince, then turned back to them with a lopsided smile.

“Okay! Oooo kay . Salaros sex curse. Blood frenzy. We can assume which methods Salaros used; he always used the same ones for his curses… But a blood frenzy … And it’s affected by the protection amulet… ”

Marigold trailed off again, her mouth moving around complicated magic theory that Briar used to sit through for hours at a time while she tuned her out.

Then she straightened, clicking her saucer and teacup onto the table with such enthusiasm that another tide of tea washed over the side.

“Can I look inside your head?” she asked Wick, wiping her hands clean. “It will only take a moment. I have a theory.”

Wick looked over at Briar, alarmed.

Briar squeezed his knee comfortingly. “Marigold’s a great witch. You don’t have to worry.”

Wick’s tail swished anxiously around his legs. But he gave Marigold a brisk nod, leaning toward her when she beckoned him.

“Just a peek,” Marigold assured him distractedly.

She had that intense look she always got when she was pouring all her attention into her magic.

Her eyes were bright and flinty, her friendly face dropping into a narrow-minded focus that made Briar think back to all those times Marigold’s magic had saved their lives when they were children, mostly by getting them food.

Levitation spells on a pie on a windowsill or a brief invisibility spell to let Briar dart into a butcher’s shop and grab a ham hock, both of which left Marigold stumbling and woozy as they made their escape.

There was no wooziness in Marigold now. Only a single-minded intensity that got more powerful the longer she stared into Wick’s fiery eyes.

“Huh,” Marigold whispered.

Then her eyes went flat white. Wick’s eyes followed suit, and then they both sat up ramrod straight as their minds connected.

Briar shifted uneasily. She hadn’t lied to Wick: Marigold was a great witch. But there was something spooky about watching her do this type of magic. Levitation and invisibility were one thing. Connecting two minds was another.

Especially when it was Wick. For all his sweetness, there was that untamable rage hiding inside of him. She almost expected him and Marigold to leap up with twin roars, their eyes flashing with fire.

But they stayed there, sitting eerily straight with those milky white eyes, just long enough for Briar to start to sweat.

Then they both jerked, their eyes going back to normal as they sagged forward.

Briar touched Wick’s back between his wings. “Wick! Hey, are you alright?”