Page 20
Story: The Hazelwood Pact
The apothecary smelled like summer now.
Not the choking, too-sweet kind that clings to you like humidity and bee stings, but the kind that crackles with green things growing and sunlight through leaves and the thrum of magic that no longer clawed at Rowan’s skin when it stirred.
She stood behind the counter of Thorn & Blackthorn , because of course Linden had insisted on the double-barreled name, and of course she'd muttered something deeply romantic like, fine, but mine comes last so it sounds like I’m hexing you , and watched her herbs sway slightly on their hooks.
They responded to her now. Not with flares of pain or spite or little explosive tantrums like they used to, but gently. Goldenroot curls to the left when she walks past. Juniper sings under her fingers. The valerian doesn’t bite anymore.
Rowan Blackthorn, once the Hollow’s most volatile magical fire hazard, had a thriving apothecary again. And she didn’t hate it.
“Oi,” came a familiar croak from under the counter. “If you’re done gazing lovingly at dried weeds, I’d like my sunlamp turned on. I’m old. I need heat. Also, you’re glowing again. It’s disgusting.”
Mottle, the world’s most ungrateful familiar, blinked up at her from his stone saucer like she’d just tracked mud over the sacred floor of existence.
Rowan crouched stiffly. Her back had started doing this annoying creak lately, she blamed Linden’s alarmingly vigorous affection and not the thing growing inside her, thank you very much. She flicked the toad’s heat crystal on with a twitch of her fingers. “There. Go bask and judge someone else.”
“Can’t. You’re the closest warm-blooded disaster,” Mottle said, settling smugly into the warmth. His warted belly made an unfortunate plap against the stone. “Also, your tits are bigger.”
“Do you want to be turned into a paperweight?” Rowan deadpanned.
“Just saying. Witch procreation is an abomination and I, for one, will not be babysitting.”
Rowan rolled her eyes, but a grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. Damn it all. She smiled too easily now. It wasn’t natural.
The bell over the door chimed. She felt him enter before the door even swung shut.
“Your parsley’s wilting again, Thornling,” she called without looking. “If it dies a third time this week, I’m going to start charging it rent.”
Linden laughed, low and warm, the kind of sound that settled in her bones and made everything in the room feel… more alive. “It’s just shy,” he said, placing a basket on the counter. “I told you it likes music.”
“You already sang to it,” she said, finally turning to him. “You cradled a potted plant like a colicky infant and sang lullabies in Old Faerean.”
He shrugged, utterly unbothered, barefoot as ever and dressed in a loose moss-green tunic that still had bits of clover clinging to it. He smelled like his garden, rain on loam, crushed rosemary, sun-warmed thyme. “It liked it.”
Rowan tried to scowl. She really did. But then his soft eyes found hers and her mouth betrayed her. Again. She smiled.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she muttered.
“Like what?” he asked, stepping closer.
“Like I hung the moons and your favorite basil patch.”
He cupped her face with one hand, brushing a stray curl behind her ear. “You did,” he said simply.
Gods. He meant it.
Rowan’s knees threatened mutiny. Again.
She let him kiss her, slow and sweet, his thumb grazing her cheek like it was made of something holy. Their magic sparked softly between them, not flaring, just… humming. Warm. Familiar. Home.
When he pulled back, her hand caught his, pressing his palm flat to her stomach.
Linden blinked. Then blinked again. “Rowan?”
She raised her brows, nonchalant. “Well. You remember that little magical implosion we had during the ritual at the Heartroot? All the vines and glowy bits and spiritual fusion and, oh yes, me screaming your name loud enough to make the mushrooms blush?”
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“We’re pregnant,” she said flatly.
Still nothing.
“Oh gods, don’t faint,” she added quickly. “Or do, but not on my rug. It’s new.”
Linden’s eyes, stars bless him, shone . He didn’t scream or panic or faint, though she did see his knees wobble. He dropped to the floor, wrapped his arms around her hips, and pressed a reverent kiss to the small swell of her belly like he was worshipping at a shrine.
Rowan felt something in her chest crack open. Not in the bad way. In the soft way. The terrifying way. The way that meant she might actually be happy.
“A baby,” Linden whispered. “Rowan, love, we’re…”
“...incredibly irresponsible,” she finished, voice dry. “I mean, a magical pregnancy after a ley line ritual? With our trauma? That child’s going to have sarcasm in its blood.”
Linden just laughed, still kneeling, still holding her like she was something sacred and not a cranky witch with commitment issues. “They’ll be perfect.”
“You’re biased,” she said, but her voice shook a little.
“You’re glowing again,” Mottle muttered from his saucer. “Gross.”
Rowan flipped him off without looking away from Linden.
Later, they lay in Linden’s bed. The vines on the headboard pulsed faintly, mimicking the rhythm of their bondmarks. Rowan rested her head on Linden’s chest, fingers splayed over the place where his heart thumped like the roots of the Hollow itself.
“You ever think,” she murmured, “how close we came to losing this?”
“All the time,” he said, kissing the crown of her head.
She shifted, placing a hand over her belly. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But I’ll be here. Always. With you. For them.”
She looked up, eyes gleaming. “You’re too good for me, Thornling.”
He smiled, brushing her hair from her face. “No. We grew for each other.”
Rowan snorted. “That’s disgustingly on-brand. You should embroider it on a tea towel.”
“I will,” he said, utterly serious.
And somehow, she believed him.
Outside the window, the apothecary garden bloomed. Lush and wild, full of life and strange beauty. The ley lines purred beneath them, steady and healed.
And inside, a burnt-out witch and a cinnamon roll fae lay wrapped in each other’s arms, bondmarks glowing soft on their skin, with magic humming between them like a lullaby. Rowan let herself believe not just in magic, but in joy. In roots that held. In love that stayed.
Even if it sometimes sang lullabies to parsley.