“You look happy,” I said carefully. “Work or...?”
He ducked his head, but not before I noticed his cheeks darken. “I love helping out with stuff like this, but I might be seeing someone.”
“Ha, you’re in love. Don’t worry, I won’t press you for details. It would seem that they’re good for you. I hope it works out.”
“Cheers. I hope so too.”
I called Edwin, because Marlowe was happy to wait around and get the job done the same day. It made sense; he’d come a long way. James answered, sounding sleepy. I realised I’d woken him and apologised, but he said it wasn’t a problem and asked what was up. When I told him about Marlowe’s offer, he told me there was no need to wake Edwin to check. “Get your stuff moved, Trace. You don’t have to ask. You should know that.”
“True. Oh, hang on though.” I grimaced and caught Marlowe’s eye. “I’ll need a much bigger trailer, or a small lorry. I’d have sorted it before if I’d realised you’d be doing it today.”
Marlowe waved a phone screen in front of me. “Already thought of that. Your local town has a place that rents out ‘reliable wrecks’. You should be good to go with your driving licence and insurance documents.”
“James, we’ll see you after dark some time then. Sorry,I’llsee you.” Marlowe caught my attention again. “No, right first time,we’llsee you.” I hung up feeling flustered. Much as I wanted it all over with, the move was gathering pace, leaving me running to catch up. I smiled at Marlowe. “D’you want to come with me to find a suitable wreck? I could pick up something for dinner too, seeing as I’m not sure you’d be happy with my original plan.”
His echoing grin was wide and carefree. “Sure I’ll come along. What could you possibly be eating that makes you think I’d have a problem with it? I’m intrigued.”
After collecting a truly dire-looking, medium-sized flatbed lorry that sounded like a large dying creature of some kind on even the slightest incline, but which inexplicably drove like a dream, we headed back for dinner. A starter of nettle soup from my freezer and a mixed vegetable main dish that vaguely resembled lasagne but that I’d never labelled for fear of offending any passing Italians brought forth multiple compliments from Marlowe on my cooking, which was gratifying as I usually threw in whatever was ripe from the garden and made it work.
When we’d cleared up, I followed him outside where he helped load several more bulging bags of compost into the truck. “The trees will like that,” he commented with a jerk of his head. “It will calm them on the drive.”
“Seriously?” I was all in with my plants, but this had never occurred to me. Mind you, I’d never contemplated moving fully established trees before.
“Absolutely,” he assured me, wandering from tree to tree, feeling their trunks and…listening? Yes, I think he was listening to what they told him through the connection of his palms against their bark. “Compost is part of the cycle of life. It’s comforting, like a blanket for a person on a cold day. They don’t need to be wrapped in it, but they will feel it’s there.” He halted next to a medium-sized ash tree. “You pollarded this?” His tone was guarded.
I sighed. “Don’t judge me for it, please. I asked permission and explained why. If I’d let it grow too big, it would’ve overshadowed too much else, plus then I’d have definitely had to leave it for Filey and his mob. This way, it will live for as long as I’m able to watch over it.”
There was a loaded pause before Marlowe gave me a brief, decisive nod. “I like working with you,” he said quietly. “You really care.” Without waiting for me to reply, he crouched down and began chanting, soft syllables that sounded old and unfamiliar to me, and yet still made my insides quiver with a nostalgia for something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
Marlowe stood and gestured for me to take a few paces back. As I watched, with soft creaks and sighs, the ash tree trembled. With agonising slowness, the entire plant worked free from its rooted position, until finally it lurched towards the mage.
“Goddess.”
My whisper must have travelled across the lawns. Marlowe shot me a quick grin. “Might be an idea to back that lorry up a bit, and bring those old planks you told me about. I’m good, but I’m not stretching my talents to levitate a dozen trees. They can walk, same as the rest of us.”
It was a surreal experience to watch my little orchard, usually bound to the earth as was right and normal, defy its collective nature. One by one, Marlowe coaxed each tree from its home with promises of a refuge in a new, safer place. His magic was very different from my own. Powerful and rooted in the land he commanded, it made me uneasy even as I stood in awe of his abilities. As he worked — all I could do was jump into the lorry bed and help him shuffle the trees into place as they tottered to the top of the makeshift ramp — I had plenty of time to unpick my feelings about his magic. Turned out I wasn’t so much uneasy as downright envious. Andthatdidn’t sit well with me. Sighing, I pushed my jealousy deep down to deal with at a later time, forced a cheerful expression onto my mug, and got on with the job in hand.
As I drove down the roads towards Poplar in the dead of night, Marlowe had a text exchange with Edwin, who was waiting with James to offer assistance their end. He chuckled asanother message came through. “Good heavens, he’s offering to make me a meal. Should I be worried?”
I snorted, fully aware of how Edwin had bitched about bagged blood when we’d stayed at Dalziel’s Lanarkshire country home, then how his devotion to James had finally extended to making a decent cuppa. “Fairly sure he’s volunteering James to make any food. Don’t fret, you won’t get poisoned.”
Something in my tone must have given him pause for thought. There was silence in the cab for a few minutes, then, “Which one of them has taken your interest? If you don’t mind my asking.”
This time, my sigh was embarrassingly dreamy. “Both of them. They’re a couple, kind of, but it’s…complicated.” No way was I telling anyone any details and especially not about James, about whom I was already fiercely protective.
I didn’t have to explain. Marlowe sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I can only imagine that Edwin is having to tread very carefully with James. James seems strong from the little I gleaned of his true personality in the time I was with him, but he must be struggling to deal with the after-effects of…well,him.” It seemed Marlowe was as reluctant as James to speak Cormack’s name. I didn’t blame him. I wanted nothing more than for the fucker to have never existed. The next best thing would be for James to live a long, beautiful life and for the vampire’s name to be consigned to the depths of obscurity.
Edwin and James made an amusing, if decorative pair of garden ornaments, their stunned expressions matching as Marlowe unloaded the trees in a reversal of the uploading. His magic didn’t extend to keeping a dozen sturdy trunks waving gently like stoned dancers for long, or not without expending a lot of extra energy, so he directed them to lean against the garage wall. I quickly explained to James about mage magic, before he and Edwin shook themselves free of their rabbits-in-the-headlights stance and the three of us began feverishly digging holes for the trees. I wondered briefly if we’d be unlucky enough that a neighbour would choose tonight to pop round and see things they couldn’t explain. I must have been telegraphing my thoughts on my face because Edwin asked what was wrong. I told him.
“Trace, mate,ifit happens, I can use thrall and they’d forget they’d ever got out of bed. Don’t worry about it.” His grin was wide and wicked, sparking a flame low down in the vicinity of my shorts. It didn’t help that James, I assumed, had persuaded Edwin to forgo elegance for practicality this time. His outfit of threadbare denim and an old T-shirt with the sleeves ripped out was making it hard to concentrate on the in-and-out, dig-and-dump action of the spade in my hands. Mud streaked his wrists and forearms, sticking to him courtesy of the previous forty-eight hours of soft drizzle that had soaked the soil. The trees would love it, but we were all already caked with the stuff.
“Trace?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
This time, his smile was sly and full of sexual promise. “Were you perving on my assets?” He ran a deliberate hand over his crotch. “These jeans are very worn in places, aren’t they?”
I glared at him and stuck my nose in the air, aware of my ears heating up. “Get over yourself, you vain peacock. You probably sanded the fabric yourself.” I indicated the half-dug pit in front of him. “I can’t plant anything in a hole that small.”
