Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(15)

“You’re a treasure to me, Eileen.”

Eileen’s face flushed with pleasure. “Ah now, that’s a lovely thing to say.”

“A true one.” She kissed Eileen’s dimpled cheek. “How fortunate are we as we both get to do what we love and are bloody good at, every day? If I had to work the counter and such as I did in the first months I opened, I’d be mad as a hatter. So you’re my treasure.”

“Well, you’re mine in turn, as having an employer who leaves me to my own ways is a gift.”

“Then I’m leaving you to it now, and we’ll both go on with what we love and do bloody well.”

When she and Kathel left, Branna felt refreshed. A trip to her shop tended to lift her mood, and today’s had lifted it higher than most. She drove through the rain on roads as familiar as her own kitchen, then sat a moment outside her cottage.

A good morning, she thought, despite the dreariness of the day. She’d spoken to her cousin, one of the first three, and at her own kitchen table. She would think and think long and hard on the hope and faith needed.

She’d taken good stock into her shop, spent an hour and more with a friend, watched people take away things she’d made with her own hands. Into their homes those things would go, she mused. Or to others as gifts and mementos. Good, useful things, and pretty besides, for she valued the pretty as much as the useful.

And thinking just that, she lifted a hand and had the tree in her front window, the lights around the windows of her shop twinkling on.

“And why not add some pretty and some light to a dreary day?” she asked Kathel. “And now, my boy, we’ve work to do.”

She went straight to her workshop, boosted the fire while Kathel made himself comfortable on the floor in front of it.

She’d told Fin she’d be back by two, knowing she’d planned to return by noon. A bit later than her plan, she noted, but she still had near to two hours of quiet and alone before she had him to deal with.

After donning a white apron, she made ginger biscuits first because it pleased her. While they cooled and their scent filled the air, she gathered what she needed to make the candle sets on the new list Eileen had given her.

It soothed her, this work. She wouldn’t deny she added a touch of magick, but all for the good. All in all it was care, it was art, and science.

On the stove she melted her acid and wax, added the fragrance oils, the coloring she made herself. Now the scents of apple and cinnamon joined the ginger. With a dollop she fixed the wicks in the little glass jars with the fluted edges, held them straight and true with a slim bamboo stick. The pour required patience, stopping to use another stick to poke into the apple-red wax to prevent pockets of air from forming. So she poured, poked until the little jars were filled and set aside for cooling.

A second batch, white and pure and scented with vanilla, and a third to make the scent—for three was a good number—green as the forest and perfumed with pine. Seasonal, she thought, and the season on them, so a half dozen sets should do.

The next she made perhaps she’d bring in spring.

Satisfied with the work, she glanced at the clock, saw it was nearly half-two. So the man was late, but that was fine as she’d had time to finish as she’d wanted.

But she’d be damned if she’d wait for him on the next job of work.

She took off her apron, hung it up, made herself some tea, and took two biscuits from the jar. With them, she sat, opened Sorcha’s book, her own, her notebook, her laptop.

In the quiet alone, she began to study all they’d done before, and how they might do it better.

He came in—fully thirty-five minutes late—and drenched. She barely spared him a glance, and said, firmly, “Don’t track up my floor.”

He muttered something she ignored, dried himself quickly. “There’s no point in being annoyed I’m later than I said. One of the horses took sick and needed tending.”

She often forgot he had work of his own. “How bad?”

“It was bad enough, but she’ll be all right. It’s Maggie, and a sudden stable cough. The medicine might have righted her, but . . . well, I wouldn’t risk it.”

“You wouldn’t, no.” And there, she knew him. His softest spot was for animals, for anything and anyone who needed tending. “And couldn’t.” And it had been bad enough, she could see that now as well in the fatigue in his eyes.

“Sit. You need some tea.”

“I wouldn’t mind it, or a couple of those biscuits I smell. The ginger ones?”

“Sit,” she said again, and went to turn up the heat on the kettle.

But he wandered around, restless.

“You’ve been working, I see. New candles not yet set.”

“I’ve a shop to fill. I can’t spend every moment of my day on bloody Cabhan.”

“You can spend it taking offense from me where none was meant. And as it happens I want some candles for myself.”

“Those just made are for gift sets.”

“I’ll have two of those then, as I’ve gifts to buy, and for more . . .” He wandered over to some shelves. “I like these you have here in the mirror jars. They’d shine in the light.” He lifted one, sniffed at it. “Cranberries. It smells of Yule, so that suits, doesn’t it? I’d have a dozen.”