Page 12 of Moth to a Flame

Lucia shook her head.

“Is anyone else hurt?”

She glanced over at me and motioned to my forehead, which ached but wasn’t actively bleeding anymore.

Gertude walked over to me and grabbed my face without invitation.

“Not too deep. You have that yarrow poultice I like?”

Lucia nodded.

“Good. Then go fetch that while Hawk explains the situation to me.”

It was strange, seeing Lucia so silent. Almost meek, which…well, was very different from how she’d been with me. I thought about how I’d needed to call Gertrude, how this older woman was asking her questions that only required a nod or shake of the head to answer.

Like she couldn’t speak…or wouldn’t.

But before I could ask about it, Gertrude was suddenly very close to me.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Um…well, I was scheduled to deliver something to Lucia, and she was in the middle of a ritual, and her um…candles exploded and I lost control and crashed through her greenhouse and broke her magic flower, which apparen⁠—”

She cut me off. “She attempted the ritual? Alone?”

I had a feeling those were rhetorical questions.

Gertrude looked me up and down. “And you ‘broke’ the flower, so I assume the two of you are now bonded.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Whatever I expected her response to be, it wasn’t the wicked grin that highlighted the wrinkles around her eyes.

“Very interesting.”

That was unnerving.

“Ma’am, if I may ask, why isn’t Lucia speaking to you?”

The grin vanished in a flash. “I assume she can speak to you, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She let out a soft sigh. “Lucia carries a particularly nasty curse, which twists her words so that no one can understand her.”

“So you can’t understand her?”

“No one can. Well, no one except you. But that’s enough from me on that. The rest isn’t my story to tell. More importantly, what are the effects of this bond you two now share?”

“Well, I can feel her emotions, and it’s painful to get more than about twenty feet away from her.”

Lucia walked back into the hall, a poultice in her hand. She gave me a weak smile, then held it up to my forehead. I winced as it touched the cut, and she winced right along with me.

“It will help it heal faster, I promise,” she said, barely above a murmur, like it was a secret between us. “Sorry, I didn’t think to make it for you before.”

“That’s all right. There was a lot going on,” I replied, meaning it. The more I learned about this situation, the more I realized I had majorly fucked up tonight.

She shifted her hand to let me hold the poultice, and our fingers brushed as I took the warm, damp fabric from her. She looked away, but I still felt the butterflies in her stomach and the heat, which then echoed in me as I watched red flush up her neck and over the tops of her breasts, just barely peeking out of the black lace dress she was wearing.