“Not a chance. You’re stuck with me, Harrow.” His smile crooked.
Maude chewed, skeptical. “Sleepy villages come with slow-town gossip. Everyone knows everyone’s business. You’ll be watched twice as hard as you were ignored in Tarrowfast.”
“I’m starting to realize that.” He shrugged. “But even with the gossip, it feels more like a home than anything I’ve ever experienced.” His smile tilted toward her. “I think I like it better this way.”
Something in her chest gave a foolish little lurch at the certainty in his voice. She shoved a grape tomato into her mouth to cover it. “Family still there?”
“Mm.” He shifted the skewer in his hands. “My little sister, Briony—sharp as a thorn, that one. She makes candles. Half of our house back home smelled like beeswax and lavender. And my father still runs a ferry across the Greywick inlet. Been doing it since before I was born.” His expression softened, distant.
“Do you miss them?”
“All the time. But I write, and I’ll visit in a few months once Sugar High is steady on its feet.”
A hot twist of guilt caught Maude under the ribs. Shescratched her cheek, eyes darting away. “Yeah. Sorry about…y’know. The whole ruining-your-shop thing.”
Wesley chuckled, low and warm. “It’s fine. Honestly, it was a lot of fun. Met more people in those weeks than I would’ve in months otherwise.” He tilted his head, eyes gleaming as they caught hers. “Some more interesting than others.”
Her stomach went traitorously tight. She bit off another piece of meat to give herself something to do instead of reply.
After a moment, he nudged her knee lightly with his. “What about you? What do you do when you’re not out being a naughty witch?”
She snorted. “Naughty?”
“Sabotaging bakeries, building illegal looms?—”
“Illegal-ish.”
“—definitely counts.”
She rolled her eyes. “I garden.”
“You garden.”
“Specifically poisonous things.”
“Of course you do.”
“I also paint. Badly. Mostly skulls.” She ticked off another finger. “And taxidermy.”
He nearly choked. “You—taxidermy?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s a hobby. Better than knitting.”
“I don’t know,” he said, amusement edging his words. “I think I’d like to knit.”
The image of Wesley, flour-dusted and ridiculous, holding knitting needles almost made her snort. “I think you’d stab yourself before you managed a square.”
“I’m a fast learner.”
“I’ll believe that when you’re not singeing your eyebrows off with sugar fires.”
He snorted, but let the jab pass.
When the last bite was gone, Maude carried a new kind of weight. Full, her limbs loose and heavy, her head a little light—butit wasn’t exhaustion. It was something warmer, softer, curling through her.
They bought spiced apple cider from the next stall—hot, frothing, laced with cinnamon bark and charred orange. The cups steamed between their palms as they walked the wharf in comfortable silence. Somewhere down the quay, a musician plucked a fiddle, notes skating thin over the lapping tide. Maude blew across the cider, the steam curling into her hair. She took a sip—too hot, scalding her tongue—and muttered a curse into the rim of the cup. Wesley chuckled under his breath.
She wasn’t used to silence being easy. Usually it pressed against her ribs, the kind of quiet that screamedyou’re alone, you’ll always be alone. Tonight it pressed placidly instead, like a shawl draped over her shoulders without asking. Exasperatingly gentle.
