Page 66 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
“Violet,” he said gently, tipping her chin so she couldn’t avoid looking at him. “Magic is energy. Energy isn’t good or evil, it’s just energy.” He wondered for the hundredth time who she’d been before she came to Dragon’s Rest, and who had let her believe such a thing.
“So you’re saying Guy Shadowfade wasn’t evil?” she asked skeptically. Even with his tendency to ignore social cues, Nathaniel could sense there was something dark and hulking behind her words, some missing puzzle piece in the picture that was Violet Thistlewaite.
“I’m saying hismagicwasn’t—it was what he chose to do with it that was evil. Just as Sedgwick choosing to do evil with the blight doesn’t say anything about alchemy as a whole.”
“Hmm” was all she said, and he could tell she didn’t believe him.
He gestured to the colorful jungle she’d made of her worktable. “Thatisn’t evil. A bit of a mess, perhaps, but a good one. Did makingthathurt?”
“No, it didn’t.” She looked puzzled, and the most adorable little wrinkle appeared between her brows. Her eyes darted to him, and a blush crept up her neck. “It felt wonderful. Even if I’m going to have to replace all those seeds now.”
Nathaniel’s eyes wandered to the small chest of drawers, barely visible beneath the flower bed that had sprung from it. “Those wereseeds?”
“Mm-hmm. I’ll harvest more from the plants that grew.”
He remembered her telling him in the Smokewood that using her magic to manipulate an existing plant was easier, which meant whatever was hurting her when she used magic wasn’t at play in the same way. The little scientist who lived in his brain began taking notes, and Nathaniel sat up, dislodging Violet with a squeak of surprise. He pressed an apologetic kiss to her temple and stood, ignoring the protests of his limbs after lying on the hard ground.
“I need to try something,” he said, excitement bubbling in his chest as he pulled her to her feet. He tugged on his trousers, not bothering to look for his belt. Behind him, he heard a rustle as Violet donned clothing too. Nathaniel plucked one of the flowers that grew from the seed chest and examined it, sniffing the flower and rubbing the stem between his fingers. He turned to look for one of the conjured flowers as a comparison, his eyes flaring a moment when they settled on Violet wearing his shirt and nothing else. “That’s yours now,” he said, pausing to kiss her again. He wanted to see her wearing his clothes every day.
She chuckled against his mouth. “Good. I wasn’t planning on returning it.”
Scratch that last thought, he wanted to see her wearing nothing at all every day. He couldn’t even bring himself to be frustrated at how easily she distracted him from his task.
“How am I supposed to stay focused when you look like that?” he muttered, dragging his gaze over her from head to toe once more.
“Go on,” she said, shooing him toward his workstation withan indulgent smile, following close behind. Her expression turned sly. “Teach me,professor.”
Pleasure leapt through him, and any restraint he had mustered instantly vanished. Perhaps she was evil after all—she was trying to kill him, it seemed.
“Oh, we’ll be revisitingthat, believe you me,” he growled, catching her around the waist and drawing a delighted laugh from her as he hauled her against him. He kissed her soundly once more before tugging her over to his half of the greenhouse. “But for the moment, would you conjure a flower for me, please?”
Now that he was watching for it, he noticed the tight set of her jaw and the little wince of discomfort before a round, yellow flower with spiky-looking petals appeared in her hand. He had a number of salves and creams at the apothecary; as soon as they were done here he’d fetch her a whole selection to see if any of them would help her hands.
Nathaniel took the flower from Violet and held it aloft in his free hand. “This, erm, flower,” he said, gesturing with the spiky one.
“A dahlia,” she supplied patiently, albeit with an amused smirk. “You work with plants for a living, shouldn’t you know this?”
He treated her to a look of practiced disdain. “If it has no medicinal or alchemical use, then no.”
“Aren’t they used to treat intestinal ailments?”
He paused mid-retort—dammit, but she was right—and booped her nose with the dahlia. “You’re awfully clever today, aren’t you?”
“Just today?” she teased, pulling the flower from his hands and twirling it between her fingers. He could feel himself getting distracted by her (again), and was very grateful that she didn’tseem to mind, though not so grateful when she pulled away from him, once again directing him back on track. “Now what’s this about the dahlia?”
“You envisioned it and created it using nothing but magic, and despite appearances, it didn’t actually grow from anything but your mind. It’s more like a fancy illusion brought to life. It’s real and corporeal, and like we proved with the mugwort, it’s at least partially organic. But it’s not a genuine flower.”
She shifted on her feet, looking defensive. “So?”
“So you’re absolutely brilliant, Violet. You’re creating flowers that have a scent and texture and—forgive me, I’m not as familiar with flowering botanicals as I am with herbs—seem to bear an exact resemblance to the real thing, and you’re creating them using nothing but your mind and memory. That’s incredibly advanced magic.”
She seemed appeased, if a bit puzzled. “Thank you?”
“But it’s not all you can do.” He held up the flower he’d picked from the overgrown worktable and the mound of flowers that had once been her seed collection. “This flower—” He waited for her to fill in the blank.
She grinned placatingly. “Freesia.”
“It grew from a seed, not your imagination.”
