Page 7 of Flowerheart

Papa clasped a hand to the flowers on his heart, shuddering. His face turned the color of bone as more pink blooms poked out from the gaps between his fingers.

“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice quivering and weak.

I touched a trembling hand to his cheek and he yelped, flinching away. A bright pink burn was left behind.

My head whirled like a seed spinning from a tree. Thunder crashed, and suddenly, buckets of rain fell from the sky, soaking our cottage as well as the village of Williamston below. I became drenched as I scrabbled to my feet and stumbled back from Papa, afraid to look away, but equally terrified to see my magic ravaging him.

He coughed, an awful, rattling sound. He covered his mouth with his hand, and when he drew it back, five pink petals lay in his palm.

His eyes were wide and bloodshot. For the first time, he was looking at me with the same fear as the Council had.

“Clara.” My name was faint and hoarse. The flowers on his breast were blooming.

Azaleas,that old book had said.A sign for care—and for stubbornness. Poisonous if ingested.

Papa glanced at his chest and seemed to realize it the moment I did.

“Get help,” he breathed.

I laid Papa on the sofa and darted to my bedroom.

I couldn’t help him, even if I knew how; not after my touch alone had hurt him. I needed a magician who was skilled enough to save him.

Beside my bed was the case of flowers and spare supplies I’d brought back from my time with my most recent teacher, Master Young. I unlatched the lid and threw it back, digging through little glass phials and stems of lavender and lilac.

A green maple leaf was tucked neatly at the bottom, a charm used for sending messages—although it would take too long to reach anybody, especially given my wild magic. And I couldn’t waste a moment.

There was another option. The Morwyns lived close by. If Xavier could not help me, then his parents would.

I set aside the maple leaf and dove under my bed to pull out the small jewelry box that contained my life’s savings. Every coin I’d scrounged up from selling scraps of fabric or doing chores about town. Every tip from a generous patron, from my time assisting various witches and wizards. The pearl earrings Papa had given me for my sixteenth birthday. The gold band my mother had thrown at Papa before disappearing in a cloud of smoke fifteen years ago.

I dashed into the hallway. Just beside the front door, Papa’s boots and mine lay cast aside. I tugged on my dusty gardening gloves along with Papa’s overcoat and the bowler he wore when we traveled. It would be little protection from the rain, but judging by the growling thunder and the turmoil in my heart, the storm—and my magic—would not let up any time soon. As I stuffed the coins and jewelry into the coat’s pockets, I dared to glance at my father.

He had grown quiet, eyes shut and chest heaving. Sleep would help. But there was no telling what the azaleas’ poison could do, given time.

I swept into the sitting room and hovered over him, cautiously touching the cracked leather of my glove against his index finger. His eyelids fluttered open.

“I’m getting the Morwyns,” I whispered. “I’ll be back before you wake.”

“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 Ipassed under a swinging sign readingMorwyn. 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 shopClosed. 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.

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