Page 37 of A Lady’s Guide to Witchcraft

Ollamh’s song drifted off as he lost his magical focus.

Briar breathed a sigh of relief. He could have started singing about Petal. That he might be singing about Briar was bad enough.

Even if Ethan was not her jolly sailor bold. There was nothing jolly about him.

“My heart is pierced by Cupid; I disdain all glittering gold…” Ollamh tried again, then wandered away, frowning.

Briar stayed where she was until Ethan’s gaze found her through the green needles, piercing. Amused.

“I do not disdain all glittering gold,” she announced. Like an absolute turnip.

She emerged from the hedge as though jumping into the bushes to avoid a sea shanty was a perfectly normal thing to do. As if she wasn’t blushing to the roots of her hair for no reason at all. Ethan still had not said a word. She could not decide if that made it better or so much worse.

Groaning, she brushed needles off her sleeve and marched with renewed determination to the village square. White pennants were strung from window to window of the houses lining the cobbles, because Haven was Haven, no matter the festival. Even in the gloom of Samhain, when ghosts were known to join and red was the color of protection, the pennants were white. White as the houses, the carriages, the bathing machine. White as bone, white as salt. White as the moon.

At least some enterprising soul had added yellow ribbons between the pennants, and they fluttered cheerfully in the salt breeze. The locals who considered themselves anyone at all wore white as well. The tourists had on every color, heavy on yellow for the Summer Solstice. Briar wore her usual apron over her dress. It was sewn with dozens of pockets for seeds and cuttings and her silver boline. The curved knife blade was best for cutting sacred plants, such as St. John’s wort, without draining the magic or harming the plant. There was mud on her, and stains of green. Not quite the pristine muslins and silk flowers of Haven ladies. She had not let that bother her in ages. She wouldn’t now. Anyway, no one was looking at her. They were used to green witches and shopkeepers.

They were not used to the Dragon.

He could not have been more incongruous in his open-necked lawn shirt, no cravat to be seen, only chest hair and the edge of a swallow’s-wing tattoo. Wild against the civilized and forced genteelness of Haven. There were scars on his hands, a dagger in his boot. Next to him, the embroidered handkerchief and jeweled shoe buckles were ridiculous. All spun sugar and no substance. Even the Asters’ glamours could not compete.

And how that would infuriate them.

“What are you smiling at?” Ethan asked her.

Briar glanced away from Charles, petulant and jealous when the ladies caught sight of Ethan and stopped listening to Charles’s sales pitches and compliments. Who could blame them?

“There’s the devil in that smile,” Ethan added.

She shrugged because he was very likely correct. And at least no one was singing about Cupid and jolly sailors. “Mr. Swansea,” she said in lieu of a parting, “happy Midsummer.”

His eyes snapped to her, flashing with what looked very much like insult. Outrage, even. “Mr. Swansea?” he repeated, and there was something dangerous in his voice.

She blinked. “It’s your name, isn’t it?” Was he trying to be anonymous? Because there was no pretending he wasn’t an Iron Crow, never mind Dragon, the most infamous Iron Crow of them all.

He muttered something but she did not quite catch it.

Probably for the best.

She left him leaning against the stone wall and glowering, and went to her stall. It was in the corner, under a striped lavender awning. Her locked trunk waited under the table, and she made quick work of setting out her wares, little wreaths made of willow twigs and decorated with wheat stalks, yellow roses. Mint for healing, roses for love, St. John’s wort and lavender for the customary solstice blessings.

The square had been scrubbed to shining brightness, freshly whitewashed, the fountain scoured free of moss and algae. Someone had glamoured the mermaid statues so that their eyes followed you. Stalls lined the edges, selling everything from strawberry wine and potato-leek pasties to witching supplies such as keys and evil-eye beads and crystals, and the ubiquitous rowanberries and iron nails. Ink made with crushed pearls. Mermaid scales that came in with the tide. Unicorn mane strands from the only stable in England. Water gathered from the footprint of a wolf. Fairy fruits only a fool would eat.

The great oak tree stood in the center, majestic branches heavy with leaves. The triple spiral of Lyonesse had been drawn on the trunk in white chalk. It was the oldest tree in the village, aside from the ancient yew in the churchyard. The atmosphere was cheerful and lively, even with the threat of the locked shields. A fiddler played a jaunty drinking song not usually heard in Haven but still welcome under the circumstances.

The smell of roses wafted toward Briar. There was a profusion growing from a row of urns outside the haberdashery, more climbing up the inn’s stable roof. Something about them tickled at her witch knot.

“Have you tried the strawberry-honey mead?” Basil asked from the stall next to hers. He sold bells in brass, silver, and iron, used to summon fairy deer, or to banish pixies who had gotten into the wine cellar. Certain ghosts did not like the sound either. “Best batch yet!”

“John will be happy to hear that.” He brewed the village mead, competing fiercely with his brother, Grant, who made the wine. It was a delicious rivalry for everyone else, if rather more bloodthirsty for the brothers. Three years ago the meadery had been cursed with boggarts. Boggarts caused chaos, enjoying destruction. And the odd spot of murder. They weren’t as dangerous as Redcaps, but they were kissing cousins. Then the vineyards came down with a suspicious case of a mold that made everyone within a league sneeze uncontrollably. After the fire, they were forbidden from setting foot on each other’s land by order of the mayor, the Order of the Iron Nail, and Haven’s beautification council.

“Try some of mine.” Basil tipped some from his bottle into a shell.

The mead was sweet but not heavy on her tongue, and bright with berries. “That is the best one yet.”

“Don’t tell Grant. His strawberry wine isn’t moving as well this year.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”