Page 83 of Wickedly Ever After
“I don’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t matter anyway.” HeopenedDragons: Their Ways, Their Wounds, and Their Weirdnessand took out his quill to take notes. Tinbit was right. Work was the answer. As long as he could stay focused, he wouldn’t be thinking about things like Ida’s heartbroken face when she told him to fire her, revoke her immortality, do whatever he had to do, she was still going against him and all of Happily-Ever-After. That ought to make him angry all over again. But it hurt. How could she not know that he needed her to be with him on this? No one else could understand the importance of this magic like she could, and yet, she hadn’t. That had to be his fault. He hadn’t articulated his reasons well, perhaps. He’d become too emotional—his damned heart probably—
“Must have been bad,” Tinbit said, setting the poker down. “If you won’t talk about it to me.”
“A minor disagreement, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about.”
Tinbit stared at him for a long moment. “All right. If you say so. If you don’t need me, I think I’ll take a bath before I go out to make sure the pony hasn’t kicked that poultice off.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Go on.”
“Hector?”
“Yes?”
The gnome stood in the doorway, jacket down to his elbows. “You…you didn’t bring your heart with you, right?”
He laughed. “Why would I do that?”
Tinbit shrugged off his jacket. “Because you’re weird about it. You never had to hide it from me, but you did. You never had to bury it, even if it was a sentimental kind of thing. You could have kept it in the castle. I’d have taken care of it for you.”
“It wasn’t your burden to bear, Tinbit,” he said softly.
Tinbit shook his head. “Hector, you’re such a great witch in so many ways. But you really don’t know a damned thing about love, do you?” He walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
“No,” he said quietly. “And it needs to stay that way.” Hector returned to his books, determined to find the answer, for all their sakes.
38
Ida
Those who seem to have the largest hearts often just have a big hole in their chest, while those who seem to have no heart often have the biggest hearts of all. They’ve simply hidden them away against those who would steal them for their own.
Magic and Mischief—A Thousand Years of Happily-Ever-After: A Memoir
Ida North
Ida had slept in many places over her centuries of travel: posh hotels, enchanted forests in glamping tents, gnome homes, dwarf mansions, elvish tree houses, even in a farmhouse one night when her carriage broke down. All of them had some redeeming quality.
Not this place.
Never had a hostel felt more hostile, starting with the skeleton she subdued when it popped out of her closet and tried to confine her in an elaborate ballgown made of blue satin with a million golden flounces.
“The audacity,” she complained to Hari, shutting the last of the angry bones in the chest of drawers in the corner. “Now, let me tend to your hand.”
“It’s fine,” Hari said. “Tinbit dressed it. He’s very good. You should’ve seen how he took care of the pony, and it tried to kick the snot out of him too.”
Ida placed the pouting skull on the dresser and lectured it. “You’ll get your spine back in the morning if you behave yourself. I agree, he’s good, but the thorn was poisonous, like everything else in this part of the world. Let me see it.”
Hari unwrapped his hand. The puncture wound barely oozed, and a fresh smell of sage and the bitter reek of goldenseal soaked the bandage. No doubt about it, Tinbit knew his herbs and poultices. She rewrapped it, adding a healing blessing.
“I wish I could’ve talked you into going home,” she said when she finished. “This is my fault.”
Hari laughed hollowly. “What’s your fault?”
“You’re more in love with him today than you were yesterday.”
“Well, I have news for you,” Hari said, getting up and going to unpack her valise. “It’s absolutelynotyour fault this time.”
“The magic—”
