The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(89)

Dressing in one of her plain gardening shirts and pants, she wrapped a blue headscarf over her twists and crept out of the bedroom. Halette turned over as Blue crossed the threshold into the hall, but the girl remained asleep.

Pepperell meowed, twining around her legs, and she hushed him. Scooping him up, she hurried down the hall, careful to miss the boards that creaked. When she got to Papa’s office, the room Dinah had claimed as her own, she froze.

The door was already open. The blankets Dinah used as she slept on Papa’s sofa were tossed carelessly onto the floor. Dinah was already up.

Blue’s shoulders slumped, and she pressed her face against Pepperell’s fluff as her plans to escape early and spend the morning with Grand-mère discussing the wraith, her magic, and Kellan dissolved into a weary resignation.

Pepperell purred, digging his claws into her shoulder as he kneaded happily.

“Watch yourself, you great lug,” she said as she moved down the stairs. There was no point in avoiding the creaking boards now. Dinah would be waiting in the kitchen for her breakfast or pacing the little parlor with a list of tasks in her hand. Not tasks for her or her daughters, of course. Just for Blue.

For what felt like the thousandth time, Blue wondered what Mama had been thinking. How had she ever been close to a woman like Dinah? Had Dinah changed that much in the sixteen years since the guardianship agreement was signed, or had she simply fooled Mama into thinking she would be the motherly sort?

They were useless questions. Mama wasn’t here to ask, and Blue had to either find her own way out of this or endure it until her next birthday. She’d thought Dinah would be satisfied with the spell she’d given her. Dinah had said she’d leave Blue alone once she had what she wanted, but it had been several days, and Dinah showed no signs of leaving yet.

Resolved to ask Dinah about her plans to move herself and her daughters out of the farmhouse, Blue rounded the bottom of the stairs and peeked into the parlor. Empty.

She sighed. That meant Dinah not only had a list of tasks, but she also wanted breakfast. Blue trudged into the kitchen, Pepperell hanging over her shoulder like a sack of bolla roots, and then stopped. It was empty too.

Slowly turning in a circle, Blue held her breath and strained to hear anything. The house was quiet. Was Dinah in the garden? On the porch? The root cellar? Blue eyed the door that led to the cellar and then backed out of the kitchen.

If Dinah wasn’t present to force Blue into doing her grunt work for her, Blue certainly wasn’t going to seek her out. Grabbing her gathering basket, she hurried outside.

No Dinah on the porch, in the yard, or in the garden. Blue didn’t wait for her luck to change. Hurrying through the garden, ignoring the buzzing of magic in her veins as the plants reached for her, she moved into the orchard.

Yesterday’s trip west was at the center of Blue’s thoughts, a sharp-edged knife worrying at her seams. She’d found Ana, though now she wished she hadn’t. She’d seen the horrifying proof that someone was feeding the wraith. She’d nearly kissed the crown prince and still wished she had, though she knew it would break her heart.

And somehow her magic—her small, plant-loving magic—had turned into a firestorm that had her reaching for the wraith, who would devour her without hesitation.

If Kellan hadn’t been there . . . She shuddered and steered her thoughts away from the horrible images that played out in her head.

If Kellan hadn’t been there, she’d be dead. One more body collapsed at the gate, a sacrifice to a monster who preyed on the innocent. And somehow, Blue was sure, Grand-mère had suspected that might happen.

The sky was the pale blue of shirella fruit, and the rhythmic shush of the waves rolling in soothed Blue as she reached the little grove that hid Grand-mère’s cottage. This time the older woman wasn’t waiting on the porch, but by the time Blue and Pepperell reached the steps, she’d opened the front door.

“Are you alone?” She squinted past Blue.

“Pepperell counts.” Blue climbed the steps, plopped Pepperell onto the porch, and set her gathering basket down. She’d forgotten to empty it out the last time she’d harvested because the second she’d gone indoors, Dinah had forced her down into the root cellar.

“Of course Pepperell counts, the handsome boy. I was wondering if the other handsome boy was with you again.”

“Kellan?” Blue ordered herself not to blush. “Why would he be with me?”

“Because my granddaughter is up at the crack of dawn, and that takes either a very handsome prince—”

“Grand-mère!”

“Or an emergency.” Grand-mère’s mouth tightened. “Is this an emergency? Has that snake of a woman done something? I’ll get my wand.”

“No emergency!” Blue pulled her grandmother into a tight hug. “I thought I’d get up early enough to get out of the house to see you before Dinah woke up and told me I couldn’t go.”

“That was smart of you.” Grand-mère reached a hand up to stroke Blue’s hair. “We’ll need to redo these curls soon. You’ve been swimming, haven’t you?”

Swimming. Rolling in the dirt outside the wraith’s gate. Riding home on horseback, pressed close to Kellan’s warmth. Blue had been up to any number of things, only one of which she wanted to share with Grand-mère.