I let it go for now, earmarked for later interrogation. “I can’t get through the wards.”
“I can.” Kessian waved the wrist that wore the runestone bracelet. “If you give me the keys, I’ll drive Lunaris in, convince them to let you through, and be back before sundown.”
“The wards won’t affect her?”
“She’s a creature of wild magic, isn’t she? Like the forest. But I don’t think the forest is in the habit of hurting animals. Or caravans.”
No one had ever driven Lunaris except me. I hesitated.
“If that’s all right with you and Lunaris,” Kessian amended.
Lunaris rolled down her windows, turned the radio on, and swished her windshield wipers once for yes.
Kessian grinned. “Does that mean she likes me?”
She was definitely driving at a point I was keen to ignore.
I waited on the roadside for an hour, trying to enjoy the fresh air rather than fixate on the near miss with the wraith or the way Kessian seemed to be the one rooting himself in my life rather than me putting them down anywhere.
Between repainting my bedroom door, conjuring a second mug, and letting Kessian drive her, Lunaris was playing matchmaker. She wanted Kessian to stay.
If I put aside my idle fantasies, it was a bad idea. Between my visions in the spring and the fixedness of the wraith on Kessian in particular—I had to remind myself its first appearance in Shearwater had been outside his bedroom window—no good could come of risking an attachment.
Realistically, I shouldn’t take him up on “round two.” Because of the wraith, and because I’d be lying to myself that it was nothing more than goodbye sex when the longer we spent together, the less I wanted to say goodbye at all.
I’d resolved to keep things friendly but platonic when Kessian drove back up the hill, leaned out the window, and wolf whistled.
“What’s a pretty thing like you doing alone when it’s getting dark?”
It took a lot more conviction than I anticipated not to reply,Waiting for you.
I said, “Did I get their stamp of approval?”
Kessian held up a cord of leather tied to a runestone.
At a cottage with blue shutters surrounded by flowers and clucking chickens, Kessian knocked on the door, and a man who filled the threshold opened it.
He wore a flannel shirt in a tartan pattern and greeted us with all of a dozen words (“Ah, there you are. I’m Rowan. Nice to meet you, Tal. Come in.”) and from there on out answered most questions with, “You’re grand.”
He led us into a conservatory extension where a blond witch with the energy of a hummingbird was bent over a sewing machine, stitching together something with an offensive amount of pink tulle.
Rowan put a hand on his back and said, “Kessian’s back, love.”
Watching the casual familiarity and affection of that touch, I’d never felt so terminally single.
The blond spun to face us. “Well, that was quick. I’m Briar Wyngrave. Give me a moment. I’m almost done making a tutu for my niece’s ballet recital, and I’d rather not face the wrath of a thirteen-year-old.”
“I’ll make tea,” said Rowan.
Briar talked absently between whirs of the sewing machine. “You’re both witches. We don’t have many in Coill Darragh. Tell me, what’s your speciality?”
“I make ceramics,” I said. “Teapots that never let the tea go cold. That sort of thing.”
“And I’m, eh, not technically a witch,” Kessian said.
The magpie perched on Briar’s sewing machine squawked.
“Vatii says you’re ‘some kind of magic whotsit,’ so that’s witchy enough for me,” Briar said, backstitching the final inseam of the waistband and pulling the garment free to fluff it up and spread on his work table.
