Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)(4)
The Harlows didn’t even compete, being so magically stunted that we’ve historically overseen the proceedings instead. And as the Harlow heir and the other scions’ peer, the Grimoire also demanded that I be the Arbiter, rather than my father.
Woot for tradition.
“Well, bully to Delilah,” I replied a little sourly. “But, huzzah, here I am! So she still doesn’t get to steal my thunder as Emmeline, scion to House Harlow, the magical admins of Thistle Grove.”
My mother frowned at me over the rim of her mug. “If you’re going to be so glib about it, darling, perhaps you really should have let her step in for you. You know respecting the spirit of the thing is terribly important to your father.”
I leaned back into my chair, my insides churning. I did know that, thanks to the tragically heartfelt and impressively guilt-trip-ridden letter my father had sent me a few months ago. Even thinking about his swooping script across the grainy Tomes & Omens stationery made my stomach twist, with the particular flavor of angst reserved for disappointing daughters.
Dearest Scoot, I know you’ve chosen to make your life a different one—a separate one from us. But, please, consider coming back to the covenstead just this once, for tradition’s sake. Consider discharging this final obligation to your history and kin, to your mother and myself, and I promise this is the last we’ll ever speak of duty.
How could I have said no after that—especially to parents who had always been so supportive of my choices, and my magicless life in Chicago? A life they’d never understood, and one that so pointedly made no room for them?
“I know that,” I said, not mentioning the letter, because there was no way my mother would have let him send something so emotionally manipulative had she known about it. My parents were basically the living embodiment of #relationshipgoals, and I had no desire to stir the pot between them. “And the spirit of the thing demands that it be me. And since the Blackmoores have won since pretty much time’s inception, it’s not like I’ll have all that much arbitration to even do.”
This was technically incorrect. The Thorns won once, back in 1921—but only because Evrain Blackmoore was such a roaring drunk he lit both himself and the Avramov combatant on fire while transforming a fishpond into a fountain of flaming spiced rum.
See? Suck it, Delilah, I did know my Thistle Grove history.
My mother sighed softly and capitulated, rubbing her temples. “I suppose that’s true. And you’ll have a few days to rest up before the tournament opening on Wednesday. Acclimate a bit to being back.”
At the mention of rest, I tried to stifle a yawn and failed miserably, my jaw nearly unhinging from the force. “Sorry,” I barely managed through it. “I’m just beat.”
My mother pushed back from the table and swiftly gathered up our empty mugs, then set them in the sink. “No worries, sweet. I have the carriage house all ready for you,” she told me over her shoulder as she rinsed them. “I thought, for a whole month, it would be nice for you to have your own space rather than a guest room in the house proper.”
“That would be great,” I said, my heart lifting at the prospect with genuine pleasure. I’d loved the carriage house as a kid, and spent most of my sleepovers with Linden Thorn sequestered out there, apart from my parents but never too far away for help if any was needed. The kind of distance they’d probably envisioned would carry over into my adulthood, instead of the two hundred miles of Illinois flatlands that now yawned between us, vast and intractable.
Together, we lugged my things out the back door and down the paved path that led through my mother’s flower garden. The night bloomers stirred in their beds, swaying toward one another and tittering in high-pitched tones like gossiping fairies. Jasper trotted over to sniff a particularly lively evening primrose, leaping like a rabbit when it leaned over with a tinkling giggle to bop him on the nose.
It was a simple animating spell, though nothing like what a Thorn could have done with one. Flowers in a Thorn-animated garden might have distinct names and personalities and the power of speech, all the trappings of sentience. I knew because Linden Thorn, my best friend of over twenty years, once animated a cherry tree in the Honeycake Orchards for me as a birthday present. Cherry—so styled by yours truly, the world’s most literal eight-year-old—whooped my ass at chess a solid four games out of five, and enjoyed regaling me with its gorgeous, uncanny dreams.
Sometimes I still really missed that tree.
We both dropped my luggage at the threshold with a pair of matching, extremely unladylike grunts, grinning at each other as she handed me a key.
“Your dad may very well sleep at the shop if the night gets away from him,” she said, rolling her eyes fondly. “As they so often do. So don’t rush to breakfast tomorrow on his account.”
“I have brunch plans with Linden anyway.” I’d messaged Lin a few weeks ago to let her know I’d be in town for the Gauntlet, and to see if she wanted to get together as soon as I was back. We were still close, mostly thanks to Lin’s staunch commitment to keeping us abreast of each other’s lives even from a distance, so I figured it was on me to swing our first real-life reunion in years. “But I’ll stop by Tomes and Omens right after, if that works?”
“Of course it does,” my mother said, leaning over to brush a kiss over my forehead. “Good night, my darling, and give me a shout if you need anything at all. It really is so very lovely to have you back.”