“You’re not the only one who can accomplish things, Giselle,” he said without taking his eyes off the paper.
I blinked.“I never said I was.”
Maddox set down his pen.“Sometimes the way you speak to me...I feel like you think I’m stupid.”
My neck felt warm.“I don’t—”
“Forget it.”He set his pen to the page again and a stream of words flowed from the metal tip.
The room went silent, though I couldn’t go straight back to crocheting.Not after his words.Heat spread from my neck to my cheeks, and I couldn’t quite figure out whether it was anger or shame.Perhaps discomfiture.Perhaps all three.
We had never argued like this before.The barbs we exchanged previously had all been harmless—the words sharp without any meaning.Though my indignation flashed at the accusations he was throwing at me, a part of me knew that I had unfairly dismissed him on more than one occasion.
A groan came from Edmund’s bed.I stood immediately, discarding my work, and knelt at his bedside to press a hand to his forehead.His temperature felt normal.
“Giselle?”he murmured.He opened his eyes, granting me a sliver of his brilliant blue irises, his face pale and lips dry.“How long have I been sick?”
I breathed a sigh of relief.At least he was in his right mind.
“About three days,” I said.“Your ankle is healed, but you had a nasty fever.How do you feel?”
“Better.”Edmund turned his head toward me, his brows furrowed.“Where am I?”
I looked around the shack with some embarrassment.The armchair had certainly made it cozier, but the storage shelves and the dingy furniture was hard to explain.“You’re safe,” I said instead, patting his hand.“A few more days and you’ll be as right as rain.”
“Very well.”Edmund mustered a smile.“Have you been the angel taking care of me all this time?”
I blushed, not quite sure what to say to that oddly sweet question.Maddox pushed me aside and slapped a sopping wet rag onto Edmund’s forehead.“That angel would be me.”Maddox held up a glass.“Water?You look parched.”
21
The bell rang sweetlyas I entered Shauna’s Confectioneries.Inside, the walls were painted with cotton candy pink stripes.Generous jars of candies lined the shelves and behind a glass counter sat Shauna herself, the candymaker and proprietress.Her frizzy ginger hair was twisted back and secured with a peppermint stick.
“Giselle?”Shauna asked, pushing her large spectacles up her nose, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.“Is that you?”
The last time we’d seen each other was when we were both applying for a position in the Witch Committee.She had been rejected right before I’d been accepted.
