“I am equally useless,” she snapped.“I am aware.We’ll have a look, and if something can be done, between the two of us, we’ll do it.And if something cannot be done, we will tell her so.It’s the polite thing to try.”
“And fail.”
She growled at him as she grabbed her mantle and swung out the door.
He donned his greatcoat and followed, finding his tinted spectacles in the pocket.Best to hide the very real fact he knew nothing.They found the young woman in question in front of the inn.She wore an old cheap mackintosh that had seen better days and big men’s boots, and she was pacing back and forth in the merciless rain.
The maid introduced her as Mrs.Paisley from the doorway then retreated inside.
“How can we help you?”Sybil asked from just beneath the awning, the frustration gone from her voice.
Apollo stood just behind her, hands in pockets.He liked that she came just up to his shoulders.He could see over her clearly.Convenient, that.But with the woman standing before them, wringing her hands, he didn’t need Sybil to be short.Mrs.Paisley was tall and broad and looked a bit like she could solve whatever problem she’d brought them herself.
“It’s the gate on the southern end of the Earl of Arondale’s land,” Mrs.Paisley said.“Farmer Colton’s sheep got inside and now they can’t get out.The last time Alchemist Paxton was here, he arranged it so that the gate would raise as the sun does and drop as the sun lowers.But it’s been rainy.No sun.”
“Wait till the sun returns,” Sybil said.“Do they have shelter?”
“A thick row of trees.”
“And they have grass,” Sybil said.“I do not understand the problem.”
“Because,” Apollo said, “the sheep do not belong to Lord Arondale.Is that right, Mrs.Paisley?”
She nodded.“They’ve invaded his fields before, and he tends to throw a bit of a fit over it.He’s not noticed yet, thank the heavens, but when he does, he’ll cause Mr.Colton no end of trouble.”
“Did Alchemist Paxton not plan for rain?”Apollo drawled.
The woman’s cheeks flushed.“He did not.I mentioned it, told him Arondale himself might be out walking and suddenly find himself locked out of his own land, but he said there would still be enough light on an overcast day to warm the metal and trigger the mechanism.He didn’t count on several days of nothing but rain.I used to help him.I’m the blacksmith and know a bit about metals and heat.”
“You are?You do?”Sybil stepped closer, the toes of her boots and hem of her skirt dipping into the rain.
Apollo fought the urge to wrap his arm around her waist and guide her back beneath the dry shelter of the awning because curiosity put a snap into her voice, a bounce into her step he hadn’t seen in days.
Mrs.Paisley nodded.“Just a little.I’m not a true alchemist, but I do what needs to be done for folks until Mr.Paxton’s return each month.Only now he won’t be returning, and his apprentice is gone and”—she sighed—“I should learn more than what I know.Can I watch you, Mr.Grant?Ask you questions?”
Apollo scratched the back of his neck.“I don’t know?—”
“Of course!”Sybil was almost beaming as she turned to him.“Of course she can come.I should like to ask Mrs.Paisley some questions as well.”
Didn’t matter that he knew nothing.Didn’t matter that they’d likely not be able to fix the gate.Sybil had returned in all her golden glory, soul healed from finding a woman with a little bit of metal magic just like her.And in the corner of her mouth there was a secret, silent little plea.
“Oh, all right,” Apollo grumbled.
Good God that grin.What was he to do with a woman who grinned like that.His heart raced faster than a footpad escaping a constable.
They retrieved Sybil’s mackintosh from her room, and Apollo borrowed one from the innkeeper, then, stepping into the rain, Sybil wrapped herself around Apollo’s arm—all sister-like, though his cock thought differently—and they followed the blacksmith to a large grassy enclosure, the two women chatting all the while.
When they reached the gate, the chattering stopped.
Apollo surveyed the thing—iron with narrow bars set into a hedge slightly above his hip height.Two sheep stood at the gate with wide, unblinking eyes, their wool thick and drooping.“Let’s burn down the hedge and have done with it.”
The sheep bobbed their heads as if agreeing.Sensible creatures.The hedge had no… life in it.It served a single man’s will and seemed all wrong, dividing the world as it did.It wasn’t like his little aloe plant, grown to fulfill its own purpose.The hedge had been twisted, shaped until it was something it had never meant to be—a barrier.
“Would be better off ash,” he grumbled.
The sheep agreed.
Neither woman seemed to have heard him.They knelt by the gate.Sybil had her face almost even with the ground, her bum bouncing into the air as she inspected some mechanism covered in mud.Mrs.Paisley inspected bits of the gate that had begun a battle with extended branches from the hedge.
