Page 82 of Claim the Twilight
“Did she stay here often?”
Harald answers for her. “We lived here. This was our home.” There’s an aching resonance to his tone that hits me in the solar plexus, momentarily stealing my breath. He looks down at me, his eyes glittering with emotions I can’t define. “Open it.”
I reach for the gate with trembling fingers. Heat spirals up my fingers and gently grips my wrist, drawing me forward, inviting me to unlatch and push open the gate.
I oblige and step into Moringa’s garden.
The air ripples, colors blurring as if I’m stepping through a portal, and when the shimmering stops, I’m no longer facing a ruin.
The cottage, which was falling down a moment ago, is now pristine and whole—thatched roof, an old-fashioned well in the yard, a coop that once held chickens, and what looks like an herb garden, wild and untamed now. The scent of rosemary and lavender compete for dominance in the air, and ivy curls lovingly around each window of the cottage, making them stand out like kohl-rimmed eyes.
“What the fuck?”
Harald exhales sharply, and when I look up at him, his jaw is tight, his eyes bright.
“How is this possible?”
Aster replies. “This place is tied to the land. To nature, and The Wilds and they have nurtured and protected it as their own.”
“But why?”
“Because Moringa was one of their own.”
“What?”
Aster walks up the narrow path to the cottage. “Come inside. We shall have tea, and I will tell you all.”
The insideof the cottage is decorated in buttery hues of orange and yellow. Dark wood furnishings offset the bright colors. It’s what I would imagine a typical cottage kitchen to look like,except for the wall of teapots—shelves and shelves of them in all sizes and shapes and colors.
“Moringa liked to make clay pots, and she loved tea,” Aster explains. “There’s a workroom and kiln in the back, I’m sure you recall it,” she says to Harald. “Moringa told me you made the teapot she imprisoned you in.”
His jaw hardens, but he doesn’t say anything. It must sting, though, to know she used his gift as his prison.
Aster moves about the kitchen, filling a kettle with water and setting it to boil on the stove.
“I would visit often,” she says. “Beg her to come back to the city. As the eldest Lantana daughter, she had a duty to lead, but…Moringa loved it here, close to The Wilds. Buried in nature.”
“Aren’t you nature-powered witches?”
“There is nature in the city enough,” she says sharply, then sighs. “She should have been there, but no, I was left to deal with the politics and all the things Moringa deemed tedious.”
The kettle whistles, and she turns her attention to preparing tea. I’m used to milk and sugar, but she sets a delicate white cup of some herbal crap on the oak table in front of me.
I offer her a closed-lipped smile, which she returns before taking the seat opposite me.
Harald hovers by the window, his back to us, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking as if he’s posing for some artsy photo shoot.
“Moringa fell in love with one of the wild folk that live in the forest wilds. A man who was connected closely to the Others by blood.”
Harald turns to look at her, and something passes between them. I’m about to ask them what they’re silently communicating when Aster continues to speak.
“Harald killed Finian in a fit of jealous rage, but Moringa didn’t know it. Not at first.”
“I was not myself,” Harald says.
“Yes. The poisoned chalice excuse. Although no such evidence was found, was it?” Aster smiles bitterly. “I cannot believe you still hold to that lie.”
Harald’s eyes flash. “It’s true. I was drugged.”
