Little Bean’s energy tumbles under my fingers like she agrees, although I don’t know with which part. Her power branches out inside me, reassuring me. I don’t know how Hoi Polloi mothers can stand not knowing what’s going on in there, at least on some level. At this point, they probably wouldn’t feel much of anything, and maybe even think the occasional flutter low in their belly was just digestion—or rather,indigestion.
For my part, I’m so increasingly aware of the budding magic in Little Bean’s blood that it’s almost as though I can talk to her. I know when she sleeps. I know when she wakes up. I know she’s interested every time Griffin puts his warm hand over her or speaks close enough for her to hear. I know she likes riding Panotii, especially at a trot, because the bouncier the better, it seems. And I know she’s completely tuned into me as well, thumping me with her life force when I’m nervous and relaxing when I’m not.
We could communicate even more, I know. Mother obviously did.
I immediately trample the thought. Little Bean doesn’t need me in her head, even if it’s only to tell her that I love her. She already knows that. She needs me around her, protecting her, simply being her mother.
“Auntie Bella?” Griffin looks like that’s going to take some serious getting used to. I completely agree.
He dips and picks me up. Funny how he does that. He knows I can walk.
“Aren’t you cold?” I ask, looping my arms around his neck.
“Freezing. My balls are about to fall off.”
I laugh. Then scowl. “That’s not funny.”
“For either of us,” he mutters.
He strides uphill but bypasses the barn, heading toward the smoldering house instead. At the outer wall he puts me down and picks up our discarded gear. Luckily, everything was far enough from the house to be safe from the flames. He throws my cloak around my shoulders, pulling it closed. The magical threads heat, and I groan like I just took a bite out of a freshly baked spice cake.
“That good?” Griffin asks, a smile tugging at his mouth.
“Better,” I answer, reveling in the warmth.
He puts his own cloak on, takes my hand, and then leads me back across the meadow. His grip is firm, as if a part of him is still afraid of letting me go.
He gathers up my pants, boots, and belt, although he only gives me the latter. I buckle it low on my waist inside my cloak so that the pearls sit right in front of Little Bean again.
“Ianthe knew what that did,” Griffin says, glancing at the pearls. “That’s why she didn’t get the circlet back from you. She wanted you to have it.”
I nod, a pang bumping hard against my ribs.Selfless Ianthe.She gave me her best protection against Mother. I don’t think my heart can take another sister turning herself into a shield for me, or sacrificing her life for mine.
Griffin steers us into the barn. It’s warm from the animals. It smells like them, too. A pungent mix of beast, hay, must, and manure. He takes flint to steel and lights two of the lanterns that are hanging on the wall, handing one to me. I hold out the light, careful of where I’m stepping in my bare feet, but the straw is fresh cut, relatively clean, and not too prickly. Mother must have eliminated the real hermit only shortly before we got here. The farm is in good shape. Dinner was still bubbling over the fire. Without that wrong turn I took, I wonder if we could have saved the witch of Frostfire.
We climb a ladder to a loft filled with sacks of grain, drying hay, and a huge supply of fragrant medicinal herbs that significantly dampens the odor of goat.
“Your mother won’t come back?” Griffin asks, suddenly looking tense again.
I shake my head. “Two Gods showed up, and they weren’t on her side. She’s long gone. She’s adept at many things, and one of them is living to fight another day. She’ll need to get her shoulder healed. Plus, did you see how fast that mare was moving? She’s probably halfway to Castle Fisa by now.”
Griffin nods, but concern lingers in his eyes. Not about Mother coming back today, I think, but about the future, and whatever new nightmare our next encounter with her might bring.
He leaves me upstairs in the barn to warm up and then comes back with our saddlebags after seeing to the horses. As soon as he reappears, he tosses a pair of wooly socks at me.
I catch them but then set them down beside me. “My feet aren’t cold.”
“How is that possible?” he asks, not even trying to repress a shiver. His lips are dark, like they’re tinged with blue.
It’s possible because I’ve been all tucked up under my cloak for a good twenty minutes when I probably should have been helping Griffin with the horses and getting him out of his wet clothes.
“Eternal Fires of the Underworld. Come.” I hold out my hand. “I’ll warm you up.”
Heat flares in his eyes. Smiling, I pat the hay next to me, feeling even warmer myself.
Griffin sits, propping his cloak-covered back against the wide, rough-hewn planks of the deeply shadowed loft. I get in front of him and pull off his boots. It’s hard work, considering they’re soaked through. I set them aside to dry and then peel his pants down his legs—hard work as well, but definitely worth it when I get the visual confirmation that his balls have in no way, shape, or form fallen off.
I lay his pants out to dry next to his boots and then kneel between his legs, making sure my smoldering cloak covers his bare and frozen feet. The garment does little to hide my nakedness, and Griffin’s concentrated gaze heats me up so much that the fiery cloth dims.
