The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(43)
Elena delicately probed the burned flesh on the back of her neck and decided against the salt.
She had considered relinquishing her magic shortly after Grand-Mère had passed. While in the throes of grief and new love, she’d flirted with the idea of walking the path of the mortal beside Jean-Paul to live a simpler life. But the vines had beckoned her back from the brink of such thoughts, and for that she thanked the All Knowing. Yet now she found herself once again in the midst of a terrible choice: give up the vine or give up Yvette.
Oh, but the girl had transformed. The illumination that had flared briefly when she smiled at herself in the mirror had bloomed into a full corona. The light oozed out of her as soft as moon glow from beneath her skin. Such perfectly smooth, radiant skin. Not a trace of the scar showed, and yet her magic had remained stymied. Yvette still could produce no fire, conjure no wind, nor breathe life into even the simplest incantation. But there was something supernatural residing within her. Celestial almost. Something that had been forced to remain dormant by the étouffer.
Elena crushed a pinch of thyme along with a spoonful of honey, both stolen from the kitchen pantry while the cook was busy preparing his bouillabaisse. She’d also swiped a sprig of lavender from a sideboard vase of dried flowers. She stripped the petals from the stem and crumbled them into her mixture with the thyme and honey. She hadn’t thought to bring any of her own salve in her travel valise, but even this simple recipe should soothe the burn and seal the skin with a protective spell against the wrath of the chastising elementals.
Jean-Paul called for her three times before finding her on the terrace.
“There you are,” he said and eyed the honey mixture she was working on with some skepticism. “And that’s for?”
Her first instinct was always to shield him from her world, though she knew she couldn’t. Or perhaps shouldn’t. He’d asked her to marry him, to share her life with him. The good and the complicated. She’d said yes, of course, but what if this feeling was just naive optimism by a couple too drunk on love to recognize their vast differences? There were mornings she thought he watched her too closely, studying her as if she were one of his specimens under glass. Then he’d hold her and whisper that she was the most exquisite creature he’d ever seen.
She would wonder, on occasion, if it were true.
“It’s only a minor burn.” She pointed to the back of her neck, where the three-inch fire claw had grazed her skin. “Would you mind dabbing a layer of honey over it?”
“Christ, Elena, what happened?”
“A run-in with a southern fire elemental. It was merely a warning.” Though one that could have been so much worse had she been any deeper in the midst of her own confusion.
“Warning? Against what?”
“My own intentions.” She leaned her neck to the side to make it easier for him to work the salve. “Did you find anything useful at the library today?”
Jean-Paul fumed as he applied the mixture, knowing he’d been shut out until she better understood the thing nagging at her intuition. “Nothing that would hold up against the order,” he said. “Not yet.”
The sting on the back of her neck went away almost immediately, once he affixed a piece of gauze over the honey. She let her hair down to cover the injury, then faced Jean-Paul with a smile. “Much better. Thank you.”
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. She allowed it briefly before stepping out of reach so that he might not kiss her. If he did that, she might lose her nerve.
“What is it you’re not telling me?” Jean-Paul glanced toward the french doors leading to the main salon. “Where is—”
“She’s dressing for dinner.”
He led Elena by the arm to the opposite edge of the terrace. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, lowering his voice. “You’ve not been yourself since we arrived in the city. You’re worried about the court order, I know, but you must have faith. Everything will be fine.”
“Will it?” She could barely meet his eye. She’d been brooding in insecurity for days, wondering how a mother she never knew could have brought her so much grief right when she’d been on the verge of reclaiming nearly everything she’d lost from the curse. It wasn’t just that she would lose her position as a vine witch. Something inside her was changing, adapting, as if her magic was metamorphosing to fit the mold of the new title they’d forced upon her. Venefica. The name had tasted of bitter herbs and vinegar when she’d first been told the truth of her bloodline, but for days now it had begun to round out in her mouth, taking on the pleasant bite of a sweet plum, one to sample over and over again. Oh, the things she could do with her instincts!
And yet those ripening instincts also terrified her.
“Durant at the records office may have just been following orders,” she said, “but he was right about one thing. You cannot own the vineyard at Chateau Renard and be married to a registered witch of poisons. No one would ever trust the wine again. If we cannot find relief from the law, how can we marry?”
“Elena, what are you saying? You no longer wish to marry me?”
“Of course I do. But the vineyard—”
“Damn the vineyard. We’ll sell it, if it comes to that. Travel the continent in a covered wagon if we must. I’m not giving you up for all the wine in the world.”