Lottie runs to the blue boat, far enough away that Marigold can no longer make out the details of her face. She is but a speck of wild red, leaving the isle for the very last time.
And Marigold is alone, the way she always should have been. She turns away, unable to watch Lottie fade into nothing. She walks back to the apiary to be with the rest of the broken things. She is one of them now. Lying in the grass, she closes her eyes and focuses on the raindrops hammering into her skin. Her grandmother’s resting place is by her side.
“I’m sorry,” she says. The rain taps against her teeth as she speaks. “I’m so sorry, Grandmother.”
She rolls over, resting her hand over the grass, but as she moves, she sees something that makes her stomach turn.
There it is, in the smallest corner of the apiary, the one place that she was careless enough to miss before she left—only half of a protection rune. The rest of it has been wiped away. The other wards kept Versa off the isle, but even this small disturbance was enough to let ash magic rain down upon the land.
Someone had to come to the isle to do that.
Someone else let Versa in.
Part Four
It is the winter of 1832, and Lottie Burke has not seen the sun in days. Her room is made of darkness. Her wrists are heavy in chains. She cannot recall the taste of clean air. Her lungs are stained with ash. There is power in her veins, a dark magic that she refuses to accept no matter how much torture she endures for saying no. Fate calls her back to Innisfree.
She will return, and soon, but she will not be alone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Marigold does not know where Lottie went, nor does she allow herself to wonder in the month that passes.
Though she does wonder if time is passing at all. She has always heard that time heals everything, but if that is the case, how is she still so broken? Where are these healing hands of time, if not here, stitching her wounds? She feels as if she has been left to suffer, to bleed, but she does not allow herself to believe that the pain is undeserved.
She did this.
To herself.
To Lottie.
To the isle.
She’s able to distract herself from it all during the day. She exhausts herself by strengthening the protection wards and healing the landvættir, providing bountiful offerings twice a day. This is the only way she has been able to keep them even remotely healthy, but she is almost out of honey, and her apiary is still destroyed. Soon, she will have to make a choice—give the honey to the landvættir or maintain her protection wards upon the isle. In the cold winter air, she works tirelessly to rebuild the apiary so that she may call upon wild bees to make Innisfree their new home. Hopefully, she can finish before her honey, and her magic, runs out.
Mr. Benny comes to help a few days a week, and he is always a comforting presence, but he is very old and cannot work theway he used to. He gives great instructions on which tools to use, how to cut the wood, and he’s always happy to paint. He asks her how she is feeling, and she always lies. What more can she do?
There have been no additional attacks from the Ash Witch yet, but it is not over. The will-o’-the-wisp’s warning still flickers in the forest. She knows that she must still be afraid and prepared for any sudden horrors that may come. But the landvættir kept Versa from overtaking Innisfree before, and now that they are seemingly back to their full health, they should be better equipped to defend their home.
At night, she is consumed with reading as much as she can of the grimoire, denying herself sleep until it forces her under. Customers have all been warded off by Mr. Benny. Marigold cannot bring herself to care. She is too tired, too broken to heal anyone else.
When she does try to go to bed at a reasonable hour, she cannot escape the thoughts of Lottie. It is absolute torture, lying there awake and alone.
The guilt is overwhelming, heavy, and seemingly endless. She is sickened with the feeling that she has made the world worse. She feels the jagged edge of every promise she has broken, every person she has hurt, and all the landvættir she let down. Night after night, she cries herself into a panic. Even Cindershine can no longer stand to stay in her room at night. The screams keep him awake. She curls into herself on the bed, praying that she can make herself small enough to disappear forever.
She finds herself screaming Lottie’s name over and over again, as if it were an incantation that could bring her back. Her grandmother warned her of this pain, this loneliness, but she never knew it would be like this. She has become a hollow, heartbroken girl who grieves the love she never truly had, and there is nothing she can do to change that.
There never was.
Another month has passed, and the hives are almost all rebuilt. Marigold sands the last one to get ready for Mr. Benny’s bright purple paint. She knows that he is far more exhausted than he is willing to admit, and she has always wondered about his unwavering dedication to helping her, and to her grandmother, before she died.
“Mr. Benny, can I ask you a question?” Her voice feels rough against her throat, like the sandpaper scraping the wooden hives. Benny nearly drops his brush out of surprise. She has barely spoken a word since Lottie left, let alone initiated a conversation.
“Go ahead, miss.”
“Why are you still taking care of me?”
“Because you are a sweet girl who does not deserve to be alone. And because I promised your grandmother, long before you ever came to the isle, that I would protect you until my last breath.”
