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Chapter Eighteen

Ethan Swansea did not murder her.

That was her first thought when she bolted awake. She could not say if it was because he had definitively decided not to, or had simply not gotten around to it.

Her second thought was that he had already gone, and she felt unaccountably cross about it.

She had slept better last night than any night in her recent memory. And her not-so-recent memory. If the scariest thing in the room decided not to murder you, what fear was there for anyone else? But then she had opened her eyes and she was alone with the knitted blanket and the tray of teacups she kept forgetting to bring back downstairs.

Her peevish mood did not improve upon having to stumble to the kitchen half awake, to get the baking started. Sorcha brought the bread and the festival rolls, but Briar was the one who made the petit fours and the profiteroles and the custard tarts. It was her least favorite chore. She always preferred to be in the garden.

She wanted to see how the jasmine clippings were faring, how the plum trees in the orchard were doing now that she had filled their roots with rock crystals. If the slugs had been well and truly convinced to abandon the lettuce. The cabbages and the leeks and the carrots would do so much better in a proper greenhouse, even with the added benefit of her magic. Slugs did not seem to care if you were a witch or not.

But first: petit fours and cake in the shape of roses and hearts and mermaids.

Midsummer Festival was no time to go lax in the baking department. Especially as the visitors were now quite literally trapped here and everyone wanted a pastry when things turned strange. Chamomile tea might soothe frayed nerves, but sweets worked miracles.

She carefully measured flour into bowls, not wasting even a pinch. Salt, honey. Dried currants for the iced buns, orange slices for the cakes. Frosting colored pink with the help of beet juice for the roses she piped onto anything that could do with a bit more decoration. Her mother had used them for love-spell cakes, but they had become tradition even without her magic.

Briar’s mood was further sabotaged when there was a hesitant knock at the door. It was too early for customers this far up the hill. They tended to take their breakfast in the hotels or the coffeehouse that served coffee, and chocolate pots out on their white-painted docks. Briar wiped her hands on a towel. “Come in.”

A very tall, stoop-shouldered man ducked inside. Briar’s heart sank.

Mr. Crane, her solicitor.

He smiled as he took off his hat. His bald head gleamed. “Miss Foxglove.”

“Good morning, Mr. Crane. Would you care for some tea?”

He shook his head. “I’ve come for your mother’s debt, you see.”

“It’s not due for another two weeks, Mr. Crane. I promise you that they shall have every penny.” Even if she had to sell every spoon, every flower petal. Or make a thousand marzipan doves.

He bobbed his head this time, twisting the brim of his hat. “I’m afraid I don’t think it will be enough. I cannot represent you.”

Briar shut her eyes briefly. “My mother hired you for her will.”

“Yes, and I’ve seen to my duties. I was not party to the debt agreement. I would have encouraged your mother toward better terms.”

“I know.”

“But it’s out of my hands, I’m afraid.”

The mint on the windowsill wilted. “I see.”

“Don’t blame your mother. I too have a debt to pay,” he replied. “And the terms have changed.”

His debt was to Mrs. Aster and Charles, she would bet her hollyhocks on it. He was all apologies. And perspiration. He was not an unkind man, merely disinclined to fight the current in any way. And the Asters were not just a current—they were a deadly undertow.

Briar wanted to wilt like the mint. She forced herself not to. Also, not to scream. Shriek. Screech. Break something into a hundred pieces. She curled her fists, breathed in the smell of the fire, the dough, the sugared violets. Tea steeping in a pot. Rosemary from a clay pot by the door.

“I see,” she said again, finally. There were no other solicitors on Lyonesse whose services she could afford. No way to fight her mother’s debt. She had borrowed an ungodly sum and promised to return it within the year, using the cottage as leverage.

Briar would never make enough money to cover it in such a short time. She knew it. He knew it. The Asters knew it.

“I am sorry, Miss Foxglove,” he said before taking his leave. If the lilac bushes poked a branch into the back of his head, it had nothing to do with her.

She refused to cry. It would solve nothing. They had lived here for nearly twenty years, when her mother had finally saved enough to move them to a fine cottage on the hill where she would not have to sell love charms furtively at the back door. They had lived in a cramped gatehouse before then, on the edge of the moors, at the crossroads to the main way into Haven. Briar had not minded. Her mother had minded very much. Petal would have lived in a hole if it meant people stopped staring at her face.