Twenty-Three
By the time the Samhain fires guttered out, Mistwood Hills had already spun the night into half a dozen contradictory tales.
Depending on whom you asked, Maude Harrow was either the savior of their sleepy village or its favorite villain finally caught mid-curse. The blame shifted: lanterns, magistrates, or—absurdly—flour. (She suspected Wesley planted that rumor just to keep people talking about something edible instead of her.)
Naturally, her brain clawed at her completed spell like a raccoon with a lockbox. Did she do it right? Did she actually? Or had she built the prettiest coffin anyone had ever seen?
She would find out eventually.Maybe. If the town didn’t burn her first.
The veil closed just after midnight. Maude felt it—the moment the world whispered back to itself. Her looms purred under the cobbles, braiding calm into Mistwood’s bones. The air prickled against her skin. And somewhere deep, she swore she heard Bailey’s laugh cut through the dark, brief as a spark. She didn’t look too hard. The veil always took as much as it gave.
Selene, of course, had no patience for existential dread. She’d insisted on buying every dessert they passed on the walk backfrom the square. “For research,” she declared, cramming a honey-glazed fig into her mouth before Maude could point out that research usually didn’t end with vomiting in an alley.
Wesley had kissed Maude’s cheek good-night before vanishing back toward Sugar High. Selene and Oli squealed like children watching their first spell. Maude hexed their shoelaces together, sending them both sprawling across the cobbles, still shrieking with laughter.
Oli—glitter still shedding off him like dandruff—tried to drag her toward his manor afterward, promising “post-festival debauchery.” Maude declined with the sharpest smile she could muster. She broke off from them halfway down the lane, warm cider and too many fried pears heavy in her stomach, her chest heavier still.
She should’ve floated. Instead, she felt like she was wearing a borrowed coat that didn’t fit. Her mind did what it always did when something good happened—her specialty: take a moment that felt almost like happiness, hold it to the light, then chip away until nothing remained but flaws, cracks, and the aftertaste of her own foolishness.
By the time she reached her cottage, she’d convinced herself of four things:
Wesley left early → obviously meant he regretted the kiss.
He’d smiled too much → definitely mocking her.
He’d danced with her → charity, clearly.
He hadn’t come after her → proof, absolute proof, that he wanted nothing to do with her.
By the time Maude crawled into bed, she was convinced she’d hallucinated half of it. By the time she tossed through dawn, she was certain he’d only ever look at her with pity.
Which was why, when sleep gave up on her, she drew a ritual bath for clarity. Rosemary for focus, lavender for calm, mugwort to stir intuition, verbena for protection. The steam rose clean and green, the air thick with midnight and memory.Clarity, she told herself.Orpunishment. She wasn’t sure which she was better at.
By dawn, Maude had scrubbed her emotions raw and padded across the floor in her linen robe, hair dripping onto her collarbone, when the knock came.
Three raps. Not Selene’s impatient fist. Not Oli’s theatrical cadence.
Her stomach went cold anyway.
She opened the door.
And there he was.
Wesley Rivers, leaning on her threshold like he’d argued with himself the whole walk over. His shirt was rumpled, his jaw tense, his eyes—saints, his eyes—lined with exhaustion. He looked like he hadn’t slept either.
Maude’s heart slammed. She braced for impact.
“Sorry for leaving early,” he said, hesitant. “I shouldn’t have?—”
Here it was. The speech. The tidy undoing. The confirmation her mind had gnawed on all night.
She cut him off. “It’s fine.” She stepped back, already closing the door. “You don’t need to explain.”
His hand caught the wood before it shut.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “Whatever that was at the festival—it doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” His voice cut harder than she expected. “It matters.”
