The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(36)
He looked down at their clasped hands, then squinted at the distant castle. “Do you mean the blue light? It appears to be moving. I watched a demonstration in the Palais de l’électricité at the World Exhibition a few years ago that created a light like that. But they couldn’t possibly have electricity up there? Why would they?”
“No, it’s not electric. Not exactly.” She fumbled for a way to describe it. “It is energy, but the source doesn’t come from any generator. It’s more atmospheric in nature. It’s been glowing above that gate since I was a child.”
“What’s it for?”
She slid her thumb over the back of his hand, thinking about the witch who had cursed her and stolen her warmth. “It was a fort once, and later they kept a few witches there who’d broken the new Covenant Laws. Celestine is the one most people remember.”
“I’ve ridden up there. The whole place is falling apart. There couldn’t be anyone there still.”
“No, not for ages, but I wanted you to see the ruins aglow with spell magic.”
He stared up at the place, eyes focused in morbid fascination, then tucked her hand back in his pocket and patted the outside of his jacket, ready to be rid of the image. “Thank you for showing me.”
She wished she could thank him as well for the magic returning inside her, but how to explain the change when she didn’t understand it herself? She had her suspicions, of course, but she wasn’t yet ready to let those words free. Words carried power, more so for witches, so she closed off the thought. With a sigh, she tipped her face to the evening stars just coming out, mystified at the way the All Knowing sought to bend her life in the one direction she had not thought she’d ever go again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tiny green tendrils explored the canopy with curled fingers, eager to find their anchor point. Humans were not so different, Jean-Paul thought, as he thinned the vines to rid them of excess growth. To find your place and hold on—wasn’t that what everyone wanted? She’d said the terroir anchored her to the vineyard. There were days he felt it slip inside him—the soil in his lungs, the chlorophyll under his fingernails, the atmosphere crackling with the scent of rain—binding him to the place as well. He could build a good life on it. The grapes would give under her care. He could tender a heritage, one he could pass on to a son or daughter when he was too old to walk the vine rows anymore.
But then he thought of that thing lurking somewhere in the unseen ether and shook himself out of his daydreams. He gripped his clippers and cut. The new tendrils always overshot their ambition, clinging too tight to where it was impossible to remain.
A week later the first fruit appeared on the vine, whispering its promise of a new vintage. Elena spent the morning tying protective charms of amethyst crystals to the trellising. If he hadn’t seen what he had that horrible night, he would have put a stop to it. And he never would have let her stir salt into a bowl and chant rhymes to cast out the grotesque thing perched atop the old canes. Instead he went about his light plowing, observing, surmising, and staying out of her way as she walked among the spreading canopy with a bowl and candle held before her. Though ready to jump at the first hint of trouble, he trusted in her ability to flush the gargoyle from the unseen world. And though he would not know with his own eyes if she succeeded, he thought he might feel the difference. Likely the assumption was his mortal ego at work, but there were moments just before dusk he thought he could sense the thing watching him.
After an hour she put aside her tools.
“Will it come back?” he asked.
She lifted her chin to the sky as if listening for a particular sound. “Only if summoned, but I’ll know if he steps foot inside the vineyard again. He’ll run screaming from the salt curse I wove around the perimeter. Gargoyles aren’t so different from slugs.”
Her smile disarmed him, and he forgot again there was anything to fear from the supernatural. “Come, let’s get inside before the rain pelts us.”
“You’re predicting the weather now?”
“Madame warned me this morning there’d be a downpour.”
He walked beside Elena on the path, still uncertain if he should take her hand. It wasn’t only his aversion to the manifestations he’d seen that prevented him from pursuing her, not when the thought of kissing her distracted him daily to the point he could hardly concentrate on anything else. But he couldn’t deny the barrier that stood between them. Love with this woman would be a master class in complication.
And so he slid his hands in his pockets, held back by the restraint of logical thought.
His mind was dead set on the matter, but the constant torment the desire created between his head and his heart had him half believing she’d put a spell on him. He’d seen the love potions the street witches sold on market day. He’d always assumed the vials contained a shot of Vin Mariani or, more mildly, a spritz of lemon verbena oil. Harmless fun when you needed to believe your heart’s desire could be won with a swig and a wish. But that was before he knew the potency of real magic. It was against the covenants, of course. She couldn’t put a spell on him or any man without his consent. But what if he had willed it? There was a brief moment after he first learned the truth that he’d wondered if her powers included the ability to read minds. A damning notion if true.