Page 42 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
He wrote hurriedly, his handwriting growing messy as his nerves spiked. With an anxious smile, he walked the bottle over to her side of the greenhouse and set it down alongside the note.
Yes, he thought as he doused the lamp and left the greenhouse, his eyes darting to the leafy vine that stitched together the space between their bedroom windows, he rather hoped he could lessen her burden too.
You Know What They Say About the Past Coming BACK to Haunt You
“Thank you!” Violet waved to Fallon, who lifted a clay-splattered hand and watched her leave their shop. The potter, who had a bit of fire magic that they used to power their kiln, had agreed to increase the number of pots they made for her, and even to design a stamp for the shop.Rough Around the Hedgesit would say, with a border of flowers and even some silhouetted dragons for the town she now called home.
“I’ll wager this is the first time anyone’s asked me to make a regular stream of flower pots,” they had mused. After an hour of conversation with the quick-to-laugh ceramicist, Violet rather thought they’d wager anything that came their way. Thanks to a forewarning from Pru, she had been able to resist taking any of Fallon’s offered bets.
Violet had had a dozen moments over the past few weeks that had made her want to pinch herself. She couldn’t believe this was her life, that the specter of the Thornwitch had faded to something like a long-ago dream, half remembered and easily forgotten at the slightest distraction. The call of dark magic had mostly faded from a shout to a faint whisper, and even the question ofthe blight, frightening though it may be (especially to a woman whose livelihood was plant related), couldn’t put a damper on Violet’s mood.
And it was all due to Nathaniel Marsh.
Well, perhaps notall, but his Sweet Dreams Elixir had done wonders for Violet. Her sleep had been haunted by nightmares for months even before she’d left Shadowfade Castle, and Guy’s death had only made them worse. She hadn’t realized hownotfine she’d been until yesterday morning when she awoke feeling refreshed and light, and without having to wipe aside a layer of dread to even begin her day.
She hummed as she made her way down the street, lifting her face to the sky. It had rained for most of the day, but now beams of sunlight pierced through the clouds to bathe the town in patchy golden light. Though snow still crested the mountaintops that crowded the horizon, Violet could feel the tendrils of spring unfurling in Dragon’s Rest. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she was putting out warm-weather flowers and sun-loving vegetable starters for her customers to plant in their gardens. Already, the cherry trees that lined the street had begun to blossom, and the green of their leaves wouldn’t be far behind. As the sleepy town began to wake and bloom under the change of the season, Violet wondered more with each day how she ever could have thought it dreary.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, skirting around a man who had stopped at the edge of the street. His hood was up as though he expected the rain to start again, and as Violet followed his gaze, she halted too, her mouth dropping open in dismay. There was a new patch of blight stretching all the way from the front of a house to where the grass met the street. It was the largest Violet had seen yet.
“Has anyone determined where it’s coming from?” asked the man, still staring.
“Not yet.” Violet worried her lip between her teeth, her hair falling over her face as she stared at the ground. They were learning more about it every day—someone had brought home a blighted vegetable just yesterday, and while it wasn’t an experiment Violet would have ever sanctioned, they now knew, at least, that while it smelled something awful and was quite difficult to clean from the skin, the blight didn’t seem to affect people at all.
Word had spread quickly through Dragon’s Rest, and more and more residents were finding blight in their gardens, lawns, and fields. Nathaniel had been diligently collecting samples from each, trying to determine if they were different in some way or if he could learn anything about how they’d formed based on the surrounding areas, but so far, they seemed entirely random. Violet, Nathaniel, and Pru had done their best to spread the word of how to keep it in check—make sure it stayed away from live organic material and contain it within a barrier of stone, glass, or metal—but it was only a matter of time until someone slipped up or it spread somewhere that would be more difficult to isolate.
“Odd that it would begin after Shadowfade’s demise, isn’t it?” The man’s voice was smooth and drawling, and it sparked uncomfortable familiarity in Violet. Perhaps the mere mention of Guy was enough to do that to her these days. “Almost as if the sorcerer had been keeping Dragon’s Rest safe.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said sharply.
“No?” His attention was still on the blight, but his tone once again tickled Violet’s warning bells. “A powerful magical entity is dead and now a magical blight crops up from nowhere? Perhaps Dragon’s Rest is in need of a protector once more?”
He turned to her, and as his face came into the light, horrified recognition dawned on her.
Hell and Undersea, it was Tristan Sedgwick, the alchemist who had made her life miserable in his attempt to unseat her asShadowfade’s favorite. Violet looked quickly down at the ground again, grateful for the hair that covered her face, hoping he hadn’t gotten a good look at her.
“Do I know you?” he asked slowly.
“I don’t believe so,” she responded in a slightly higher voice, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. She turned away, fists clenched against the onslaught of thorns that pushed against her skin, begging to let them defend her from a threat. If he hadn’t recognized her already, thorns would certainly give her away. “And I also don’t believe a ‘protector,’ at least one like Shadowfade, is what this town needs.”
She could feel his eyes on her back as she rushed away. It was just about the most suspicious reaction she could have had to someone asking “Do I know you?” but Violet was operating on instinct, not intellect. Like the frightened animal she knew dwelt beneath the thick bramble protecting her heart, she fled like prey, even knowing it would draw the predator’s eye.
Sedgwick had the power to bring her new life crashing down around her. He could destroy everything she was building with a single word. It mattered not that she could do the same for him—she doubted his talk of a new protector was meant to be rhetorical after all. He was planning something. She suspected it was no coincidence that the blight had started appearing so soon after he arrived.
Violet rounded a corner and leaned against a building, pressing her back to a wall that was still pebbled with stubborn droplets of rain. As she sunk to the gleaming, soaked cobblestones, her breath caught in her throat.
I can handle this, she told herself, but the note sang flat in the frenzied melody of her thoughts.
A protector, that’s what Sedgwick had said. He was positioning himself to take the role; she would bet her life on it. WithGuy out of the way, there was a whole castle on a hill that sat empty and a town full of people who were used to living under someone else’s control. Her training kicked in, years of lessons about spotting weaknesses, looking for an opportunity. Dragon’s Rest was as wide open as an abyss and Violet knew then, in her heart, that it was only a matter of time before someone came to fill it.
She still had some money. She could flee Dragon’s Rest tonight. Get to Lokoa, board a ship, and make for the Shards. The massive island chain was full of pirates and criminals andvillains, just like her. Plenty had gone there to hide from their pasts. She could be safe there.
But what of Dragon’s Rest and the people she was coming to adore? They needed a protector, a real one.
It struck her then: the Tempest.
Karina the Tempest had stepped in when Shadowfade became too much of a threat. She and her band of heroes could protect Dragon’s Rest. Violet needed to contact her, let her know what was unfolding. She would come and help.
Be good, she’d said, and Violet knew she would never forget the tone of her voice, the exact cadence of those words. Violet was a coward—she was certainly no hero—but for her town, for her people, she could do this before she left.
