“Small ones, maybe.” He let out another one of those laughs that was more like a huff. She wondered, briefly, what it would feel like to make him really laugh.
“You know…” Taliesin began, pausing as if hunting for the words he wanted to say. “It’s a relief that I’m not doing this alone anymore.”
Before she could stop herself, Maggie said, “Why did you ever assume you could?”
Instead of the anger or annoyance she expected, which she maybe wanted to tease out of him, he smirked before his expression turned soft, the light catching his glasses. “You’re right, of course.”
They seemed to have drawn together, slowly, over the course of this conversation, until there was just a breath between their fingers at their sides.
Maggie couldn’t be sure who pulled away first, but then she was fiddling with her hair tie and Taliesin was stuffing his hand in his pocket and asking her where she parked. “I walked,” she said as she finished twisting the elastic around her bun.
Taliesin tensed beside her. “You did what?”
“I put one foot in front of the other until I arrived here.”
“In the rain?”
She reached into her tote bag and pulled out her sage-greenumbrella, dotted with runes that deflected water, but that didn’t seem to make him feel any better.
“Maggie,” he said, frustration curling the edges of his words, “you were attacked by a ghoul in town twelve days ago.”
She ticked off days on her fingers. “Thirteen.” His expression had turned from soft to sour so fast, Maggie wanted to laugh. “What? There hasn’t been a banshee sighted in town yet. And obviously I can handle myself against a ghoul.” She reached into the neck of her T-shirt and pulled out the charm she’d thrown on before she left. It was a circular piece of hawthorn, the wood grain polished and shining, with a protection rune calibrated to her birthday carved into it. “I’m being careful.”
“Maggie.It’s irresponsible.”
There was only the hint of pleasure at the way he said her name through his clenched teeth before annoyance set in, and she barely suppressed the roll of her eyes. Taliesin seemed to have a real gift for reminding her that he was nothing more than an annoying, paternalistic know-it-all. Now if only the rest of her body could get the memo, because it seemed to be heating up in pleasure at his concern.
“Now who’s lecturing,” she said under her breath.
“I’m walking you home.” It wasn’t a suggestion or a request, and before Maggie could even begin to protest, he turned in the direction of Hawthorn and started walking. The top of the tree and the tallest spire of Ilex Hall were just visible in the distance.
Maggie sighed. By the time she went after him, he was already halfway down the block, moving in long strides as if determined to get her home as fast as possible. She needed to practically speed walk to catch up with him. It was undignified.“Wait! If you insist on walking me home, you’re going to have to run my errands with me.”
He looked back at her with narrowed eyes. “I have time.”
She knew he didn’t. He needed to get on the road back to Atlantia, back to his nephew and brother and father, but for some reason he didn’t even trust her to walk through her own neighborhood back to her apartment.
“It’s your time to waste, I guess.” She stuffed her fists into her sweater pockets as they walked in silence. At the corner, Arthur stopped abruptly and turned on his heel to face her.
His cheeks were red with the chill. “Getting you home safe isn’t a waste of my time.”
“Oh.” Maggie bit her lip as awkward tension bloomed between them. She was desperate to defuse it, but instead only managed to mutter a quiet “Thanks.” She gestured across the street toward the other corner. “Um. Glinda’s is right there.”
Crystals hung in the shop windows, catching the evening light, and inside, Glinda’s shop cat, Mustard, curled on his toadstool-shaped bed. The royal-purple door was dotted with flyers for events around Galloway—gardening magic classes at the greenhouses, a weekly crochet circle at Bean There, and an old, curling flyer for the Beltane festival on Brig Beach.
Maggie pressed her palm to the door, but before she could open it, Taliesin asked her worriedly, “Did my students already eat all of the candy I replaced?”
“Oh, gods above, no. Dahlia’s birthday is in a few weeks. I’m just picking up her present.”
The bell chimed delicately with their arrival, and there was the ghost of a touch low on her back as Taliesin led her into theshop. But before she could turn, the touch was gone, and Taliesin was already escaping down one of the aisles to look at something intently.
“Hey, Dr. Linden!” called the student behind the counter, Nat. “Oh, and Dr. Taliesin, too!”
From somewhere in the shop, Taliesin responded with a warm “Evening, Nat,” but Maggie was suddenly nervous.
“Dr. Taliesin and I were working late on a project,” Maggie explained, answering a question that no one in the shop had asked.I need to get a grip.Nat didn’t care that she was here with Taliesin. They had already returned to the alchemy textbook they had spread out on the counter, a pencil in their hand as they worked through a problem set to prepare for their upcoming final.
In the window, Mustard stretched on his toadstool and yawned as Taliesin walked by and reached out a hand to scratch between the cat’s ears. The cat purred contentedly and then curled back into his tight ball while Taliesin returned to browsing. Glass jars filled with tiny, jeweled sweets lined one wall, the flavors ranging from Maggie’s favorite lavender to the new chamomile to tart raspberry. Along another wall, there was a range of decoction powders in delicate cotton bags with drawstrings. A new display on the counter held small hourglasses full of glittering sand. Maggie sighed. She wished she had hours to spend combing Glinda’s, but Taliesin’s towering presence over the squat, uneven shelves reminded her that she should come back another time, so she went straight to the counter.
