Page 67 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

Saga shrugged with a helpless pained smile. “And yet, there it is in the Sunday Times.”

“I’m rather surprised it still exists, to be honest…and in such great girth.” Avery glanced back at the article. “This says they were sweethearts as children—is that also a lie?”

Saga shook her head. “They broke up in college before we met.”

“Continuing a love affair that’s been on a break for nearly a decade?

I don’t find that too promising. You grow with a person, you cannot rekindle teenage passion and expect a lifetime companionship to come from it.

” Avery tossed the newspaper aside. “I couldn’t help but notice that their great love story neglected to mention the reason for their parting. ”

“Hugh didn’t talk about the breakup much, to be honest. From what I was able to gather, Lana struggled initially with some internal biases when he made his transition.

” Saga noted the confusion in Avery’s face, and she clarified.

“Hugh was born Hannah. The two of them met in secondary school, fell in love, and…” She paused, wanting to find anger, but instead, unexpectedly, found compassion for Lana.

“I think Lana had formed a picture of herself—of who they were as a couple. As much as I’m sure she hated to admit it, Hugh finding himself changed that. Not everyone adapts to change easily.”

“She couldn’t accept him for who he was?”

“No, no, she accepted him and supported him embracing his identity. It’s more that she couldn’t accept herself being with a man, and what that meant for her identity and how she saw herself.”

Avery quirked an eyebrow again.

“I know it probably sounds dumb to someone from your world, but I suppose humans are different? We’re not always able to see the big picture immediately and we’re usually the thing standing in our own way.”

“And she miraculously got out of her own way by the wedding?”

Saga felt her heart sink a little. “With help, I suppose. They started reconnecting after our announcement—which was infinitely smaller than that monstrosity, I might add. She wanted to congratulate us and catch up with him.” She chewed her lower lip, thinking back on it.

“To be honest, I was happy for them. They’d been so close, and it really warmed my heart to see them rekindle that friendship.

” She dropped her face into her hands and growled. “I was such an idiot.”

“Don’t tell me you blame yourself for what he did.”

“No,” came the muffled reply. “Just for not seeing it sooner.”

Avery shifted in her seat. “Saga, you trusted your partner, there’s no shame in that. As I understand it, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Saga looked up from her hands, feeling her eyes sting again. “He made me look like a complete fool in front of all of our friends and family. My mother reminds me of that embarrassment any chance she gets.”

Avery met her gaze, her eyes unreadable. That stare lingered, but it did not feel judgmental. After a moment or so, Saga got the sense that Avery was appraising her.

“What?” Saga asked, feeling self-conscious.

Only with prompting did Avery speak, but she did so thoughtfully as if still trying to determine how to get her point across.

“A man had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to call someone like you his partner. To make a contract with both gods and government that would grant him the privilege to be at your side until death or beyond, depending on your vows…and rather than race to it, he fled from it.” She ran her tongue along the edge of her teeth, and shook her head with a disbelieving laugh.

“If there is any shame to be found in this matter, it isn’t yours, Saga. The man is an addlepated lobcock.”

Saga blinked, not sure if she was struck more by the compliment or the unfamiliar insult.

“Though should we ever meet, I suppose I owe him a debt of gratitude.” Avery poured them both another cup of tea.

“H-how so?”

“Were it not for his historical blunder, you might still be in Oxford,” Avery concluded. “And we never would have met.”

Now there was an unexpected silver lining. “I suppose not.”

Bolstered, Avery continued. “And while it has been brief, I have come to…anticipate the collaborations of our admittedly unlikely partnership with great fondness.”

For the first time that morning, Saga smiled. “Really?”

“I don’t of course mean to presume the nature of our relationship is in any way…” There was a kind of endearing anxiety in the way Avery chose her words. “But while I have had assistance in the past, it’s never quite been like this. We complement each other well, I think.”

“You do?”

“Don’t you?”

Saga’s face felt warm. “No, I do, I just… Well, I mean, I didn’t know if you… Yes, I do, I think we work very well together.”

“I couldn’t wait to tell you about the will and Carys once I heard this morning. What do you think that means?”

Saga’s smile pulled further on the right, giving it a lopsided, albeit playful quality. “Is that a personal or existential question?”

Avery matched her expression. “I don’t know.” She echoed Saga’s words from days before. “Probably both.” She shrugged, her own smile growing. “I wanted to plan our next move, go over what you might think—see if you had come up with anything of your own—”

“Oh!” Saga reached for the newspaper. “Hand me that.”

Avery did as she was asked, but it was with nervous apprehension.

Saga flipped back in the pages. “Lymphedema-distichiasis syndrome—the condition that supposedly caused Eira’s heart problems. It’s an extremely rare genetic mutation, is passed down from parent to child, and commonly presents itself with a second set of eyelashes.

” She held the newspaper back out to Avery. “Eira and her father both had it.”

Avery peered at the picture to confirm for herself. “Does Elis?”

Saga shook her head. “I don’t believe so—he had none of the symptoms, and though Doctor Campbell wasn’t Elis’s physician, he even said Elis was lucky not to have it.”

Avery’s brow furrowed. “Do you happen to know how lucky he’d have to be to not inherit the condition?”

“It’s about a fifty-fifty chance a child will inherit or not.”

Avery tapped her fingers thoughtfully on the table.

“I have not been able to get through all of Campbell’s notes yet, and he hasn’t dated any of them, but it seems like he has been researching resurrection for years.

I don’t know if that means he was preparing for her condition to take a turn or if her death allowed him an opportunity to put his theories into practice. ”

“Would her fey lineage affect how the condition manifested?” Saga sat up straight in excitement, remembering her earlier question. “Oh, oh! Can you get cancer?”

Avery took a moment, unable to follow the abrupt change of subject. “Are you asking me to?”

“No, I mean can fey contract human disease?” Saga clarified. “And if not, how diluted does the blood have to be for them to be susceptible?”

Avery pondered this. “I admit I don’t know if much data has been collected on that particular study. However, if it’s directly tied to the parents’ genetics, I imagine that would bypass typical immunities our kind is privy to.”

“Good to know, but…” Saga pointed to the note about Mari Goff. “Eira’s mother died from an ongoing battle with cancer.”

Avery’s brows raised. “Which is a very human ailment. Given that magic is still present in Elis Goff’s blood two generations later, it would be more likely that the fey line came from Eira’s father.”

Saga smiled knowingly, admittedly a little proud of her contribution to the case. “Mamó did say Eira’s father never really recovered after his wife’s passing.”

Avery’s expression faltered, and her eyes moved back to the photograph. Her brow furrowed sympathetically. “Watching those around you wither leaves scars.”

Saga reached out, hesitated, then rested her hand on Avery’s wrist to give it a gentle squeeze. “Was there no way to help her, even through magic?”

“A skilled healer might have been able to at least slow the disease—an Archfey may be powerful enough to eliminate it…”

“Why didn’t they then?”

“What do you mean?”

Saga chewed her lower lip. “If the love of my life was dying, and there was even a chance someone in fey society could help—I’d have been asking any fey-blooded person I could to track down a capable healer. Even if it meant approaching strangers at a place like Hygge.”

Avery’s gaze softened and she sat down on the low table so they could be face-to-face, yet she retracted from Saga’s touch and averted her eyes.

“Much like human witches in our ranks, changelings are not fondly looked on by most. Human blood introduces human ailments. It’s seen as infecting the populace.

In my time it was rather common to refer to people like me as hemlock. ”

Saga was taken aback. “Your last name?”

Avery smiled half-heartedly. “An invasive and poisonous plant with no known antidote. I didn’t want to share a name with my father, and I was being called it anyway, so why not choose it? Take the power out of it.”

Saga’s heart ached. “Oh, Avery…” She stopped herself. This had been difficult for Avery to share, and she suspected the last thing her friend wanted was pity. “Are you saying no one would have helped Osian because he was a changeling?”

“I am saying he was a highly visible figure in human society, but held no authority among ours. Given the council’s desperation to remain hidden from mortal eyes and keep us as segregated as possible, I would wager there are few who would risk global exposure to help one human woman.”

“What about some kind of illegal magical aid?”

“Maybe he tried to find one.” Avery dragged her gaze back to the photograph in the paper. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“Mamó said he became a recluse. Stopped going out.”

Avery considered a new angle. “Did he stop or did someone stop him?”

Saga sat with this thought. “You think he got in over his head?”

“I may not agree with all of our laws, Saga, but I have met the sort of creatures who chose to break them. A changeling with Osian Goff’s financial resources pushed to that level of desperation? They would have eaten him alive.”

Saga leaned back in her chair, feeling defeated and heartbroken. “Shame they didn’t know Doctor Campbell back then. Their story might have had a happier ending.”

“But would Doctor Campbell have had a happier ending?” Avery frowned thoughtfully. “Is there anyone connected to this current case who might know the full story of what happened to Osian Goff?”

Saoirse would have known. Whether she would have told them was a different matter entirely, but there was little doubt in Saga’s mind that Saoirse knew far more about the Goff family than she ever shared.

She re-scanned the newspaper article. Eira had been in her mid-twenties when her mother passed. “Possibly Carys, I suppose?”

“The person publicly humiliated in her cousin’s will?”

“The woman is in her seventies: you really think she’s a suspect?”

“I think it would be unwise to dismiss her without asking a few questions.”

“Like what? ‘Are you capable of overpowering a man by stabbing him multiple times with a kitchen knife?’”

“If you’re feeling candid, by all means,” joked Avery. “Personally, I’d like to know how long exactly Alistair Campbell had been a friend of the Goff family.”

61 The FOXC2 gene provides the body with instructions for making a protein that plays a critical role in the formation of many organs and tissues before birth.

Researchers also believe that protein has a role in other developmental processes such as the formation of veins and the development of the lungs, eyes, kidneys, and cardiovascular system.

To be plain, it is a very important gene in the grand scheme of DNA.