Page 52 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
You’re nothing.
This was never going to work. Not only did she have no idea what she was looking for, but Sedgwick was right—her powers wouldn’t help her here.
Violet turned the page and swatted Bartleby away when he tried to flick back to the previous one. “Are you trying to read with me or just being annoying?” she snapped, but left him to his own devices when the front door opened. More customers—perfect. She needed a distraction.
“Hi, neighbor,” said Pru. “You’ve been making yourself scarce, haven’t you? I figured I’d come and check that Nathaniel didn’t melt you into a puddle the other night.”
Violet could feel her blush down to her toes. “Pardon?”
“With his magic soap,” clarified Pru, her brow furrowing. “For the blight. You used it, right?”
“Oh. That. Yes!” Of course Pru wouldn’t know about the kiss. Of course she couldn’t possibly know the tangle of emotion that knotted in Violet’s chest. She’d been far too open, and though letting the Thornwitch out in front of Sedgwick had been a calculated and necessary move, there was no denying that Nathaniel had seen far too much of her to make Violet comfortable.
She stood by her decision to pull away from him, but now that she’d resolved to stay in Dragon’s Rest, it felt— No, she needed to stay on task. Outsmarting Sedgwick would take all her energy. Now more than ever, she needed to put her former life under lock and key if she intended to stick around, and spending more timearound a man who made her want to spill all her secrets was not the way to do that. No matter how much she longed to.
Banishing her thoughts, she asked Pru, “How are you?”
Pru hummed, her face serious. “Frustrated. Did you hear the news about the Feldspar farm?”
Violet nodded. “Jerome mentioned it.”
“Did he also mention one of the field hands accidentally tracked it on her boot and it spread to a second field?”
Violet groaned. “He did not.”
“Idiot,” cursed Pru. “It’s common knowledge now that it spreads—what were they thinking?”
“People are scared,” said Violet, “and when they’re scared, sometimes it’s easier to pretend problems don’t exist.”
“Well, I hope they’ve learned their lesson over there,” said Pru with uncharacteristic bitterness.
Violet grimaced. “I suspect we’ll all learn the lesson of their mistake.”
Prudence leaned against the counter, propping her head with her hands. “What do we do?”
“I’m working on something,” she said, gesturing to the useless book open in front of her.
“For the blight?”
She hesitated. If her suspicions were correct, then stopping Sedgwickwasstopping the blight. “Yes. Do you know anything about ancient artifacts in Dragon’s Rest?”
Pru’s dark brow furrowed. “Artifacts? Oh, you mean the legend? Sure, everyone does.”
“Seriously?” Violet threw her hands up and glared at the book like this was its fault. “This town’s library is useless.”
Pru laughed good-naturedly. “Well, don’t judge us too much for it. All our good books ended up at Shadowfade Castle. Not that we had much to offer in the first place.”
“Right.” She supposed that made sense—Shadowfade Castle did have an extensive library full of books and scrolls about magic and history. As the years had passed, Guy had made sure to build the collection of books on botany, gardening, and herbalism to satiate Violet’s endless appetite for plants. It was in those books she’d discovered her penchant for poisonous plants and the exact species of carnivorous flowers that she could work to her advantage—but she’d also pored over books on vegetable gardening and propagating and greenhouse cultivation. It was where she’d learned the basics of flower arrangements (of course, it was for the purpose of sneaking blades into the bouquets for an enemy’s gala) and how to grow plants by hand rather than by magic (that one was meant for a rival sorcerer who could sense magic on plants, so she’d started the vines the old-fashioned way before sneaking them into the garden beneath his bedroom window and using them to— Never mind).
How she wished for the resources of that library now.
Violet was ashamed to realize she’d never given any thought to where all those texts had come from. But if the books that would have proven useful to her were missing from Dragon’s Rest, it carried a sort of logic that she was on the right track if Guy had found value in them as well.
“We could break in and steal them all back…” Pru was musing. “No one’s using them now, and as far as I know the castle’s sat empty since all his minions cleared out.”
The very thought of returning to that place pumped ice into Violet’s veins, but she forced the feeling away. “Before we go committing any crimes, I’d love to start with that legend,” she said with a strained smile. “What can you tell me?”
Pru’s expression turned thoughtful. “How much do you want to know?”
