Page 87 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
Nathaniel had the look on his face that told her he was in scientist mode, so she swallowed hard and set loose the thought that had been flitting in a frenzy since he’d found her in her shop. “I got the idea from the blight. I was so afraid of being the Thornwitch that I accidentally used every drop of life and magic I couldsource from the plants in Dragon’s Rest rather than touch my own. I wondered, maybe, when I spent so much of my own power to protect us, if I could repurpose it in the same way. Only, you know, without accidentally hurting anything around me, because it was my magic in the first place.”
He looked down at the ground.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted again, blinking away tears. “I was scared, and trying to be good, and I thought—”
“Violet, I get it.”
Her breath caught. “You do?”
“Well, inadvertently blighting your neighbors’ crops and half the local flora? No. But I do understand desperately trying to avoid a part of yourself that has hurt people in the past.” He took a deep breath. “You’re the one who helped me see that it’s not the answer.”
“You had an accident,” she rebutted gently. “I was the trusted right hand of an evil villain. They’re not exactly the same thing.”
He rolled his eyes to acknowledge her point and let out a weighty sigh that cast dread into her bones.
“I’m going to ask you a difficult question now.” He waited for her to nod, her heart thrashing the whole time. “Will you tell me about the Thornwitch?”
And though it scared her, Violet did. As they walked along the paths of the garden she’d built, she told him the truth about Shadowfade and Silbourne and that day with Karina the Tempest. She recalled memories of growing up here and the gardens she created and the ship with purple sails and the day she realized she had been stolen rather than abandoned.
“I didn’t know how to trust myself after all of that.” Violet kicked at the grass beneath her feet. “I knew he’d lied to me but I still felt like he was right and that there was something wrong with me.”
“Do you feel that way now?”
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “That’s why I came to Dragon’s Rest, to learn who I was without him, to see if I could build something all my own. But I built it around a lie because I thought it was the only way to escape my past.”
Nathaniel took her hand as they turned a corner to discover a gazebo that appeared to have been grown from the ornate window frames of the Great Hall. Some of the panels were still fitted with colorful stained glass.
“None of us can truly escape the past,” he said as they climbed the stairs. Light poured in around them, casting them in a dappled rainbow of light.
“I know that now. The past is a compass; it’s what guides us to the future we want—and away from the one we don’t.”
“Even when that future means facing the unknown. Even when it meanschange.” He said the word like a bitter curse, and Violet laughed.
“Iwantto change. Iwantto be better than I was.”
“It sounds like you already are.”
“I’m certainly trying. And I’m going to keep trying.”
He drew them to a stop and turned to her, taking her other hand and gathering both in his. “I’ve never been someone who deals well with change,” he said, inching closer. “I turn inward when I fear I might fail. I lie to myself or I ignore it or I run. But I don’t want to do that with you. I know now who you once were and I can’t say if that woman would ever have made me feel the way I feel for the woman you are now. But I see how hard you’ve worked to create a life you love, and I want that too, even if it means change. I want a life that I am passionate about, in my business and my family—and with you.”
Her chest tight, Violet whispered, “I want that too.”
He tucked an errant curl behind her ear, letting his thumb linger on her cheekbone as he regarded her with bright eyes. “I love you, Violet Thistlewaite. For all that you are, I love you. For all that you are working so hard to become, I love you. I see you, thorns and all—and I love you.”
Violet’s heart was a bud, and in that moment it blossomed, petals unfurling, expanding, stretching toward the light of a sun she had thought lost behind the clouds.
“I love you too, Nathaniel Marsh.”
And that was the last she could say of it just then, for he hauled her against his body like he couldn’t wait a moment longer and kissed her soundly. Violet laughed against his lips, tasting mint and rosemary and the salt of tears that might have been hers or might have been his. It was the most perfect sort of alchemy she knew, because it all combined in this moment, with his hands in her hair and her lips beneath his and their hearts beating a harmonized duet against their pressed-together chests. Together, the way they were meant to be.
Helovedher.
Pru’s voice cut through the air. “I hate to interrupt, because this is obviously A Moment, but you’re going to want to see this.” Violet and Nathaniel broke apart, foreheads resting against each other, chests heaving, arms still entwined. They had more to talk about, but Violet felt better. They hadtimenow. Time for talking and more mistakes and making up and everything in between.
“Come on,” she said, feeling positively giddy. Hand in hand, they took off toward the sound of Pru’s voice.
Pru was standing with the rest of their group in front of a massive statue. A stone dragon curved around a lone figure, glaring at him with its eyeless face. It was Sedgwick, freed from his thorny bonds but trapped by the dragon’s huge body. Held aloftin his hand was the Eye of the Serpent, the gorgeous peridot gleaming in the moonlight, and at his feet was Peri, still and frozen as the rest.
