“I love you,” he said, the words jumbled and slow.
My teeth pressed hard into my lip as I tried to tamp down the tears and the magic writhing in my chest. “I love you, too.”
When I strode out the door, I did not look behind me. If I told myself I could be seeing Papa for the last time, I’d start to believe it. And as I’d learned in my time as an apprentice, once my heart took hold of an idea, my magic might very well act upon it, whether I wanted it to or not.
My boots strained against the mud as I sprinted down the road out of town. I climbed hill after hill, and at the top of the final one was the strange and beautiful house I knew so well.
Morwyn Manor had a cobbled-together look: a mix of a watchtower and a palace and a cottage, a combination of several different eras of architecture. On one side, a turret seemed to have been taken from an old fortress and made to adhere to the mansion. On the other end of the house was a chimney covered in ivy that crawled all the way up to the roof. At the top of the roof stood a weathervane with a blazing sun, a sign for “magician” that anyone could identify even from afar.
When I was a child, my time at the Morwyns’ mansion had been spent rolling down hills, weaving crowns of daisies, and playing hide-and-seek in its wild, twisting halls. Every Saturday, Papa let me ride in our wagon filled with flowers on his way to the market, dropping me off at the Morwyns’ while he worked. I’d bounce eagerly in the back of the wagon, jabbering to Papa about the games I would play with Xavier and his little sisters, Leonor, Dalia, and Inés.
Now an altogether different, altogether more frightening sort of anticipation filled me. Every step was a second in which Papa was suffering. Today I was at the Morwyns looking for a savior, not a playmate.
I climbed the slick path snaking up the hillside until I passed under a swinging sign reading Morwyn. Standing on the porch, I leaned against a square, faded-white column to catch my breath. My sides ached. My head spun. My boots had rubbed my heels raw where my stockings were worn thin.
My legs wobbled like a fawn’s as I approached the emerald-green door. Above it hung a little golden bell that rang as customers came and went. Garlands of white heather streamed from the lintel—a charm against robbers.
On either side of the door were square, white-trimmed windows, aglow from the light inside despite the sign that hung in one declaring the shop Closed. The interior was warped by the glass; I could make out the outlines of shelves and a counter and perhaps a chair or two, but no people. Still, the lamps were lit. Someone was home. Someone could help my father stay alive. I imagined Dalia, Leonor, and Inés racing to call their parents and then their brother.
I tugged on the handle, but the door was locked. I beat my fist against it. My magic was already whispering eagerly in my ear that my efforts were hopeless. Instead of yielding to its teasing, I took out my anger on the door, hitting it harder.
“Madam Morwyn?” I shouted. “Master Morwyn?”
Why did you even come here? asked my magic. You’re too late!
I kicked the door, scuffing the bright green paint. “Xavier?”
Perhaps he was upstairs. My cynical magic insisted that he was ignoring me—Just like he ignored your letters.
“All right,” I mumbled to my magic, “if you’re going to be so chatty, you may as well help.”
I stepped close to the door and inhaled deeply, concentrating on the way my power boiled inside my middle, on the burning in my cheeks, on my outraged thoughts, on the way my elbow quivered as I held the handle. I imagined opening the door fluidly, as if it had been unlocked all along. On my exhale, I whispered, “Open,” and then pushed.
There was a loud crack, and the door flew off its hinges, ringing the shop’s bell with fervor as it slammed to the floor. I yelped, hopping away from it with my hands over my mouth.
Frantic footsteps pounded close by.
I stepped into the shop, tracking mud over the fallen door, and craned my neck towards the sound. At the far end of the room, at the bottom of a spiral staircase, Xavier appeared, still in his prim, Council-appropriate suit, but with mismatched socks and a butter knife he wielded like a dagger. His dark eyes, ringed purple with fatigue, darted from the door to me.
“Miss Lucas?” he asked. The hand holding the knife fell to his side. “You broke down my door?”
An explanation was on the tip of my tongue, but I thought better of it—my father was forefront in my mind. The fear in his eyes. The flowers bursting from his heart.
“I need help. From you or your parents or anyone; I just need a magician.” I crossed the room, turning out my pockets and holding out the ring, the earrings, the coins. “I’ll pay—”
His hand lightly touched the back of my glove, slick with rain. With his other hand, he tucked away the knife into his pocket as subtly as he was able. “Miss Lucas, please—I, I don’t understand. What’s happened?”
I took a long breath and kept my gaze averted. The confusion and worry in his eyes only made my own panic grow. “It’s my father. He collapsed. He . . . he has azaleas blooming from his heart.”
His already pale face turned lily-white. “Was it your magic?”
The monstrous thing squirmed inside my chest at the mention.
Tears muddied my vision as I nodded. This was precisely what the Council had feared.
“That doesn’t matter now,” I said, the tremor in my voice breaking any illusion of resolve. “Please, he’s in danger.” Once more, I held out my dripping, gloved hands filled with payment. “This is all I have. Heal him, please, you must—”
“Of course I will,” he said, his voice stern but soft, like he was calming a child. “Let me get my case.”
I dropped the money into his cupped hands. With long strides, he entered the room I’d blasted the door off of, which served as a storefront and a kitchen all in one. The pouch and jewels clattered against the countertop where he set them down. My heart lurched at the sound, at losing all I had ever saved, and to someone who I’d thought was my friend—but I would make any sacrifice if it meant saving my father. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from trembling from the cold and from fear.
Xavier kept his back turned to me as he plucked bottles and jars from cabinets. He stuffed a large green jar into his potion case and then snapped it shut.
“Follow me,” he said. “I’ll make the portal.”
He approached the kitchen’s pantry, which would serve us in lieu of his broken front door.
In a language I didn’t understand, his voice gentle as a lullaby, he sang over the door, pressing his forehead against the wood. A few times in my life, my teachers had created portals for me to visit Papa in Williamston. But never before had I heard the portal spell sung. Listening to his song, my heart pounded. As I stood there by his side, I felt like his friend again for just a minute—despite the horrid purpose of this visit.
When he pulled back the door, the air was heavy with a sickening, flowery perfume.
3
I stepped through into the comfort of my own living room—the table with our broken tea set from this morning, my old cross-stitch on the wall, and Papa on the sofa where I’d left him, his chest rising slowly, still sprouting flowers.
With wide eyes, Xavier halted in front of my father. “Curse me twice,” he muttered. “There really are azaleas.”