Page 45 of Prince of Darkness and Deceit

She snorts. “Not yet.”

I lift a brow. “Is there a reason you’re so surly today?”

She pushes her spectacles up on her nose and narrows her eyes. “Hm. I’m not sure. Perhaps it has something to do with one of my daughters being stolen away by Fae during a town meeting.”

My heart squeezes.

I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around her. “I’m all right, Juni.”

She sniffs, and one of her arthritic hands pats my back. “You’re lucky you came by. I was just about to stomp through that forest to give those males a piece of my mind.”

My chest warms.

Juniper is feisty, loyal, intelligent, and hardworking—everything my sister and I aspired to be when we grew up. Ferria certainly has me beat in the feisty department, but Juniper bestowed strong morals and character within us from an early age—giving us the grit to persevere in this unfair world and earn our places in town.

I owe her everything.

A sharp whistle pierces the air.

“Ah. The tea is ready. Come.” Juniper steps out of my embrace and shuffles into the cottage.

The scent of vanilla and spice fills my nostrils. Memories of reading stories, and later medical texts, in front of a lit fireplace with Ferria experimenting with scraps of metals in the flames float through my mind. My thoughts clear, and the unrelenting anxiety twisting my gut loosens a bit.

I take in the sparsely furnished home, smiling at the drawings nailed to the kitchen wall. Before Ferria found her gift with fire, she fancied herself an artist. She took lessons from one of the widows in town in exchange for helping her clean her home.

The pencil drawings of me, her, and Juniper throughout the years capture us well. She could have made a living drawing portraits for other families, but the magic in her veins had other plans.

“Would you like honey in your tea?” Juniper asks as she hobbles to the kitchen.

“Let me, Juni.” I move to intercept her. “You should rest.”

“I will rest when you offer my body to Velmira on a funeral pyre.” She waves me away.

I bite my lip and pretend I don’t notice the way her hand trembles. Her stubbornness is another characteristic my twin and I may have acquired.

“Sit at the table,” she says. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

I do as she says, lowering myself into the same sturdy wooden chair I’ve sat in my entire life. Juniper’s chair sits across from me with Ferria’s chair situated between us.

I trace my finger over the gouge in the wood where my grip slipped and I stabbed it with my dinner knife when I was nine.

“I’ve been meaning to get that filled in and buffed.” Juniper hobbles over, balancing a teacup and saucer in her hands.

I take them quickly, lowering them onto the table with a chuckle. “You’ve been saying that for years.”

“And I’ve meant it every time,” she counters, heading back to the kitchen. “But you of all people know how busy a healer’s life is. There are never enough hours in a day.”

Tell me about it.

“Why not just ask Elder Whitestone to do it the next time you see him?” I ask as she returns with a second cup and saucer. “Wasn’t he a master carpenter in his day?”

And despite her refusal to marry him, the kindest Elder still pines after my adoptive mother. He’d happily mend her table. He’d do anything for her.

Juniper’s eyes narrow. “Do not start.”

I blink innocently. “Start what?”

“I am not in the mood for your games,” she huffs, setting her tea on the table and lowering herself with a grunt into the chair across from me. “I know your avoidant strategies by heart after all these years.”