Page 24 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
“Is that a compliment?” she asked finally.
He had the decency to look embarrassed. “Is that so surprising?”
“From you? Yes.”
He looked abashed at that. “I deserved that.”
Violet softened. “It’s nice, sometimes, to escape the noise. To feel none but your own presence.”
“Sometimes, I suppose.” His expression darkened. “Though it depends which thoughts are there to keep you company.”
“That’s certainly true.” She nodded behind her and beckoned for him to follow. “Come on, I found a patch of crow moss over here earlier. I’ll show you.”
Crow moss, so named for its iridescent black sheen and feathery texture, grew best in early spring before the cold fully released its hold. Here in the Smokewood it was abundant if you knew where to look. Violet picked her way over roots and logs, checking back over her shoulder for Nathaniel to make sure he was still following her, and showed him to a large, flat boulder where it grew in thick patches. They dropped to their knees in the dirt and, side by side, set about gathering. While the basket steadily filled with downy black moss, a gust of wind carried his scent to her, a whiff of sharp mint and fresh rosemary that clouded her senses like stirring up a riverbed. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but the herbal mix suited him. She…liked it.
When they exhausted the boulder, she was almost surprised to find he kept to her side as they set off in search of more.
“Is business going well at the apothecary?” she asked politely.
“It’s…fine.” Once again, quiet settled over them like snow, broken only by the crunching of leaves and twigs beneath their boots.
“I’m hoping to open my shop next week,” she chattered to fill the silence. “Just a few more finishing touches and I’ll be ready to grow!”
She regretted the pun immediately, but after a stilted pause he responded, “I can’t be-leaf you managed it all so quickly.”
Violet whipped her head around to stare at him, but he avoided her eyes. Had Nathaniel Marsh just made ajoke? Wordplay, even?! She wasn’t certain what to make of this new development.
He changed the subject before she could probe any further. “Why do you forage for branches, green or not, when you could conjure them from nothing? Is there a difference in the strength or longevity?”
She shook her head, bristling as she thought of the mugwort she’d conjured for him, and his reaction to it. “My magic does hold up, you know, regardless of whether you think it has any medicinal use.”
Violet took a startling amount of pleasure from his abashed expression.
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
She settled and, after a moment, relented. “Growing them from nothing sometimes…stings a bit,” she said truthfully, flexing her hands and debating how much to tell him. “Starting with a living plant rather than air is easier for me.”
“So youdoget magic burn,” he said, sounding strangely victorious. “I was starting to think you were some sort of legend.”
“Hardly.” Violet cocked her head and laughed nervously. “I have limits, just like anyone else.”
It felt like those limits had been staring her in the face lately. Her darkness still called to her, and though the new way of doing magic had grown easier, it wasn’t the same. Even before, she had not been infallible—after all, it had been five years and she was no closer to figuring out how to turn Bartleby back to a human than when she’d first transformed him by accident. (It was likely for the best, though she didn’t ever say so to him directly. Murderous as Bartleby the plant might be, he had been far worse when he had opposable thumbs and could lift a greatsword.)
“I certainly haven’t seen any limits,” said Nathaniel, drawing her from her morose thoughts.
And you’d know, wouldn’t you?she almost responded.With the way you’ve been watching me.
“Mostly,” she said instead, returning to a safer route of conversation, “I just forage because I like being out in the woods.”
He nodded slowly, accepting the olive branch. “You said you didn’t grow up in a city. Where did you come from?”
Violet prickled, though for once not physically. Still, the spindly boughs of a nearby hawthorn reached for her like it meant to wrap her gently in its branches.
“I was born on a ship in the Stained Glass Sea,” she said, reciting what little truth she knew. The hawthorn leaves tickled her shoulder, and she let them. “My mother was captain of a merchant ship. But I’ve spent most of my life inland.”
“Near here?”
“Sort of,” she said vaguely. Was he prying? Did he suspect her identity? Violet took a deep breath to calm herself. She was getting carried away. People were allowed to be curious, to take an interest in her life. It didn’t mean he—
