The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(44)

He turned and lightly smacked his head against the wall three times before someone delicately cleared his throat from behind him.

Slowly, Kellan turned to find his secretary standing in the hall, a bemused expression on his face.

“Problems, Your Majesty?”

“No.” Kellan rubbed his forehead, caught Jacques’s expression, and hastily dropped his hand. “Just a council meeting.”

And a witch. And a betrothal. And shoes to fill.

And Blue.

Stars hang him, Blue.





EIGHTEEN


THE FARMHOUSE NO longer looked like a cozy, welcoming friend when Blue walked up the lane the day after she’d danced with Kellan in a pub and then watched a man die as magic shadow fire ate into his body. Dinah was on her heels, though she’d barely spoken to Blue since the night before when Blue had returned home, escorted by a pair of Evrard guards.

Dinah had spent half the day at the castle for an emergency council meeting and half the day in the Chauveau quarter dealing with the aftermath of the witch’s attack, but on the walk to and from the city, she’d maintained a stony silence unless she was barking an order at Blue.

Pepperell still waited on the porch, though he wouldn’t come to Blue when Dinah was near. The garden still framed the house with wild abandon, just waiting for Blue to walk its paths and let the magic in her blood tell her which things wanted to be harvested. Lanterns were lit in the windows—Halette’s doing, Blue was sure. The younger Chauveau girl rarely spoke to Blue, but she’d started quietly handling a few of the household tasks when her mother wasn’t around.

Dinah wanted a quick meal of the fresh bread, cheese, and plums she’d had Blue get from the market on their way home. Blue didn’t mind making such an easy dinner, but first she had to harvest her garden. It had been too long.

And after she harvested, she had to either find the courage to bring the crop down to the root cellar or figure out somewhere else to safely store it.

Blue’s hands trembled as she reached for the doorknob, Pepperell anxiously winding about her feet, his eye on Dinah as she carefully climbed their old porch steps.

Blue couldn’t go down into the root cellar. It was impossible.

Her stomach clenched, and her breath came in quick, hard gasps at the thought.

She couldn’t be surrounded by those walls, standing on the floor where she’d kneeled in the middle of the spilled wintermint watching Mama die.

Pepperell meowed as Blue crossed the threshold, and she bit her lip as she scooped him into her arms. There was nowhere else to properly store her harvest. Not if she wanted the items to last while they dried. She was going to have to go down that ladder or give up harvesting from her garden.

Her heart beat too loud, and her breath came too fast as she made her decision. She’d find as much comfort as she could in the garden, and then she’d force herself to face the root cellar. Before her panic could blaze out of control, she whirled and nearly ran straight into Dinah, who was already closing the front door behind her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the woman demanded.

Blue snatched up the gathering basket that rested on the bench beside the coatrack. “I have some harvesting to do in the garden before sunset. If you want me to prepare dinner, I’ll do it when I get back in.”

“There’s nothing to prepare. Seventh bell will ring soon. If you aren’t inside for dinner, you don’t eat.” Dinah swept past her, and Blue hurried out of the house.

The door shut firmly behind her. Blue stumbled down the steps, raced along the little path that wound its way around the house and into the garden, and then simply sank to her knees in the dirt beside a clump of dancing ferns.

Pepperell climbed out of her arms and sniffed the ferns, his back twitching.

She smoothed his fur, and then rocked forward over her knees. For long moments, she remained still and silent, feeling the soft brush of the ferns against her skin. Smelling the richness of the dirt, the pungent green scent of the plants around her, and the sea salt that drifted in with the breeze.

Panic skittered through her.

“It’s just a root cellar.” She tried the words on for size, but they refused to fit. It wasn’t just a root cellar. It was the dark, yawning chasm of her nightmares. It was wintermint and broken ladders and Mama dying.

And she was going to have to climb down into it because there was no one else to do it for her now.

Grief closed her throat, and she drew an unsteady breath.

Her home now felt like an unwelcoming stranger to her. She hadn’t seen Grand-mère in almost a week. Papa was gone. Dinah watched Blue’s every word, every movement, both at the shop and at home, and none of it made sense.

None of it.

Dinah should have been too busy running her businesses, managing her quarter, and chasing the betrothal to be bothered with spending her days at the alchemy shop. She should have been unwilling to move herself and her daughters into the little farmhouse when they had a beautiful mansion of their own. And if she was so close to Mama, surely Papa would have mentioned her.

Leaning forward, Blue pressed her bare hands into the dirt at the base of the fern clumps, wiggling her fingers until they disappeared beneath the loamy soil. She closed her eyes and let the magic in her blood settle into her fingertips. Let the grief and confusion settle too.

The soil became alive beneath her skin. Roots, seeds, fruits, herbs—every living thing in a wide circle around Blue strained toward her. She could feel tendrils of dancing fern root curling toward her hands. Sensed the buzz of walla berries ready to harvest from the bush to her left. The hum of wintermint and sage tucked beneath the hanging vines of the garden’s rynoir tree, its frothy pink blossoms brushing the ground as it swayed in the sea breeze.