Page 29 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hector

Heartsease Remedy

To break two hearts, take one black rose,

Ten petals to each glass,

Fumitory for the will,

Use cohosh for a lass.

For a swain, take moonseed sap

A drop, no more, to join

Sun’s-Own-Son, to ease the grief,

Vitex for the loins.

Pine rosin will relieve their guilt

Hawthorn lends its healing,

Violet soon doth soothe the hearts

Red rose will bring their mending.

Hector gripped his staff tightly as he set off down the muddy main street.

He’d always been proud of this place until Ida called it a dive.

Now the whole town looked dark, dreary, and miserable.

He ought to be proud. It wasn’t every wicked witch who could boast of a whole town full of outlaws—a model city of villainy.

“I am wicked,” he muttered. “I should never be ashamed of it.” But the mantra sounded wrong today, and it felt even more wrong when he reached his favorite poisoner’s shop and was informed by the landlord the man had died of an overdose of amanita mushrooms two days earlier.

“Well, I’d like to purchase his stock,” Hector said.

“Can’t allow it, Your Wickedness,” the landlord whispered through the crack in the door. “Whole thing belongs to the guy who killed him and I don’t want to be next.”

“I’ll give you my protection.”

“You’ll be gone in the morning. What good will that do me?”

It occurred to Hector to hex the man’s nose into a sausage, but his heart wasn’t in it.

He turned away and headed down the alleyway connecting the backstreet to a more unsavory shop, dispatching one would-be-murderer with a sleeping spell and his accomplice with a far more painful crack over the head with his staff.

While he appreciated the treachery, he didn’t have time for backstabbers today.

It took him the better part of three hours to obtain the right ingredients for heartsickness and swamp fever. By then it was raining hard, he was chilled to the bones, tired, and his back hurt. He wished he hadn’t said he’d sleep on the floor. It seemed more like foolishness than chivalry.

***

“Is this all you could find?” Ida sounded disappointed.

“Yes.” He set the herbs down on the table next to the muddy marshmallow roots that had nearly cost Ida an arm and a leg literally.

The flames sputtered unproductively in the room’s fireplace, barely giving off any heat.

The salamander had done their best, but a smoky, miserably cold fire was standard in the hostile hostel business—building code in fact.

“I needed feverfew.”

“There wasn’t any, but I got willow,” he said in a deliberately calm voice. “Where is Tinbit?”

“In the bathroom watching Hari. He was worried that if Hari fainted, he might drown, and I agreed.” She sighed.

Hector nodded. “He’s a good gnome, a sensible man.”

“Yes, he is,” Ida said, sorting through the roots and pulling out the moonseed. She held the plant up, set it down next to the fumitory. “I almost wish we didn’t have to tell them.”

Hector sighed. “So do I. But it will hurt less if it comes from us.”

Ida conjured a knife and a bowl and cut up the marshmallow root while Hector, freezing but unwilling to let Ida ogle him in his underwear, sat at the table with her in saturated robes. She handed him the licorice leaves and the knife.

“It’s for the best,” he said, mincing carefully. “Tinbit would never leave me, and I don’t think Hari would leave you.”

“He wouldn’t,” Ida said, jaw firming as she smashed roots in a stone bowl she must have borrowed from the kitchen. “It’s for the best,” she repeated.

***

Hector helped Tinbit get Hari out of the bath. The young gnome looked as pale as death’s horse, but he seemed more alert. Also aggravated.

“I’m sick and you drop me into ice water?” he asked, shaking as Tinbit wrapped a towel over his shoulders.

“You had a fever,” Hector said.

“It was cold!”

“Well, at least you can talk sense now,” Tinbit retorted. “You’ve been singing the most damned awful ballads for the last hour and a half.”

“I was not! Was I?” Hari let Hector dress him in a clean shirt of Ida’s, well-worn and soft.

“Off-key,” Tinbit said. “I’m going to go see to the horses.”

“Wait a minute, and I’ll go with you. Here, Hari, go lie down on the couch by the fire. Ida and I have made a tonic that should make you well.”

Tinbit stared curiously after Hector as he walked out.

He had every right to be suspicious. Hector and Ida had talked it over while they pulverized roots and leaves and composed the magic to make the Heartsease potion for Hari and Tinbit.

It had been Hector’s decision to mix it in with the fever tonic for Hari, although Ida objected strenuously.

“If he doesn’t know about it, it won’t be as effective.”

“Who said anything about hiding it? You tell Hari; I’ll tell Tinbit. Not that he’ll be accepting. He’s far more attached. Once he takes care of someone…”

Ida glared him into silence. “But I’m not sure how Hari will take it either.

Knowing he’s drinking something to make him forget about his feelings for Tinbit might depress him more than the violet could help, and with him already feeling so bad with swamp fever…

” she bit her lip. “But you’re right. We might as well get it over with.

But you be sure you explain it to Tinbit properly.

Otherwise he’ll be brokenhearted, and I don’t want that any more than you do. ”

“Don’t worry, I will.” Hector touched the vial in his pocket. But he was worried. He’d have to be brutally honest with Tinbit. He didn’t know how Tinbit would take it.

***

Quite badly, as it turned out.

“You want me to drink what?” Tinbit attached the feedbag to Napoleon’s halter.

“No way. This is what you get for traveling with a good witch—she’s totally messing with you.

It’s just her way of making sure she doesn’t lose her…

fucking gnome.” He jerked the bag straight and Napoleon settled in munching his chaff happily, standing comfortably on his injured limb after Hector’s cursory exam—his silver mend had melded properly with the bone.

The horse would make it home easily now.

“That’s not true—”

“Like hell it isn’t.”

“It’s for the best,” Hector said, keeping a tight hold on the vial containing the evil-scented concoction. Tinbit looked ready to throw it at his head if he gave it to him now. “With this love magic running wild, you might have, theoretically, fallen in love with him by accident.”

“I’m not in love with him.” Tinbit looked at him like he sprouted horns. “Anyway, we talked it over, like I said. He’s not leaving her, and I know I can’t leave you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I am not worried about that,” Hector said, feeling annoyed. “But you’re taking care of him, and I know what that does to you.”

“I’m taking care of him because he’s ill.”

“You washed his hair, Tinbit.”

“It was filthy.”

“You were out in the swamp before dawn to pick huckleberries for that clafouti.”

“I happen to like huckleberry clafouti.”

“You gave him a foot rub.”

Tinbit flinched. “So what? I used basil oil—draws the fever out from the feet. That was a strictly therapeutic foot rub.”

“Tinbit—Hari’s going to take the potion.”

Tinbit scowled. “Willingly?”

“Of course. Please.” He stared directly into Tinbit’s eyes.

He couldn’t watch Tinbit drag it out, dying a little more inside with every lovesick sigh.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care so much about you.

You’re such a good man, a kind man, and you deserve happiness.

I wish things were different. I like Hari too.

But it can’t be. And I think, deep down, you know it. You would never ask him to leave Ida.”

Tinbit stared at his booted feet, face stony. “He would for me. I know he would.”

“When he feels the same way about her as you feel about me? What would you tell him if he asked you to leave me? Could you tell him the truth?”

Tinbit let out a painful moan.

Oh, Gods. Ida was right. He was in love . Hector handed Tinbit the flask. “This will help.”

“I don’t want to take it.”

“I know. But do it for him if you can’t do it for yourself.”

Tinbit put it to his lips. Paused. “Hector, if I ever fall in love again, just let me die. I can’t stand this anymore. For Hari.” He drained the flask. Grimaced. “Gods, Hector, is there demon piss in there or something?”

“It’s a bit bitter,” Hector said. “My apologies. They didn’t have any honey in the kitchen.”

“Not half as bitter as I feel,” he said. “Go back and take care of Hari for me. I want to stay out here with the horses for a while, at least until I don’t feel like such a horse’s rear end.”

Hector obeyed. He felt a lot like a horse’s rear end himself.

***

He met Ida in the empty main room of the inn. Belinda was in the kitchen, talking in low tones with her son. He sounded disappointed. Probably they’d not given him a proper share of the loot.

Ida sat by the fire in a low armchair, a cup of strong tea at her elbow. She held Hari’s dirty smock in her lap. “I thought Belinda might have a washtub. But she said she’d wash it. Wouldn’t hear of me lifting a finger.”

“I hope you didn’t argue with her,” he said, taking the other armchair. “Hotel laundry is a lucrative side business.”

“I didn’t argue.”

“Hari is resting?”

“He took his potion and went to sleep,” Ida said. “He…he cried a little.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Yes.” She twisted the smock into a knot. “He didn’t want to believe me.”

“Tinbit didn’t either.” He leaned back, staring up at the smoke-tinged ceiling.

“I feel like shit, Hector. He was so sure it was real, and he almost got me believing he might be right. If I didn’t know better—”

“That makes two of us. If you asked me two days ago about what I believed was better—falling in love or a scarless heart—I wouldn’t have hesitated. A heart, well-protected, safe, happy in its own way, contented, is always preferable, but…”

“It’s a good thing we don’t have them anymore.” She laughed, but it sounded harsh and sad.

“Good thing.”

Ida reached for his hand. He twined his fingers through hers, and together, they watched the fire crackle in silence.