Page 4 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

“Um.” Owein held his hand at his hip. “About this old.”

“Few years,” she confirmed.

“Bring me anything?”

“You know a boot is the most I can carry, and not that far.” She prodded him in the shoulder. Fallon could shift into a hawk, but not a large hawk. She couldn’t fly the entire way to Ireland and back; she usually stowed away on a ship. People didn’t ask birds for tickets.

Twisting on her toes like a ballerina, Fallon held out her arms and let herself collapse on a thick patch of grass and clover, startling a grasshopper as she landed. “Summer is better here.”

“Not summer yet.” Owein sat beside her, folding his legs in front of him.

“Semantics.” She wiggled over and rested her head on Owein’s knee. “The skies are wider, clearer. Bluer.”

Owein tilted his head back, looking into the depths of sky. He’d said something similar to Cora. What would she think of this place? Would she find it as enchanting as she’d imagined it, or would it be too quaint, too cozy, too simple?

He glanced down for a second, taking in his body. Oliver’s body. Had Oliver liked summers? Thoughts of the boy still crossed his mind, even four years later. Owein’s life affected a few, but how many had been broken by Oliver’s death? Did they feel betrayed that someone else lived on in his stead?

“I wonder,” he said, neck still craned, “where the blue ends and the black begins.”

“Where the stars nest, I guess.”

“It’s refraction,” he went on. “It’s all the same sky, but when the sun rises, its light refracts off particles in the sky, only giving it the illusion of blueness, really. Bright enough that the stars appear to vanish, but they’re all there still. And theout thereis still infinitely black.”

When Fallon didn’t answer, he looked down, meeting her gaze. She lifted a hand and flicked his forehead with her thumb and middle finger. “You take the whimsy out of everything, Owein Mansel.”

The corner of his lip ticked upward. “It’s science, Fallon.”

“My point exactly.”

A small flock of blackbirds took off behind him. Twisting, Owein glanced northward, seeing the faintest movement on the short dock there. “Hulda’s home.”

Fallon’s head shifted in his lap, and by the time he looked back, she’d transformed into a terrier again, shaking back and forth to get free of the dress. Owein grasped it and pulled it off, shaking dog hair from it before folding it into a tight square. “I’ll leave this here for you.”

Fallon huffed.

“They won’t care.” Owein had said as much countless times before. It wasn’t Owein’s choice to hide Fallon’s identity. She valued her freedom above anything else, including the rules of society. And while they had more laxity in America, it might not do to have Owein spending so much time alone with a woman. Out on the island, in his room, in the dark ...

Still, only Hulda might mind, and she could be convinced. But Fallon wanted freedom, and so he gifted her secrecy for however long she wanted it.

Owein scratched behind her ear, and Fallon licked his cheek. Then he stood, brushed off his pants, and headed back.

Hulda stormed into the house, jostling Ellis in her sling nearly enough to wake her. Hearing the Babineauxs in the kitchen, she tempered her fury and stomped upstairs, one hand absently going to Ellis’s bottom to steady her where the fabric pressed the babe to Hulda’s breast, the other shoving her spectacles up her nose. The sound of Merritt playing with the children almost stalled her rage.Almost.

Thundering through the doorway to the girls’ room, Hulda bit out, “Merritt. Jacob.Fernsby.”

Merritt, on his hands and knees, glanced up through his mess of hair. Henri, on Merritt’s back, babbled something incoherent, and Hattie ignored Hulda’s presence, patting Merritt on the shoulder like she was trying to mold a corn cake.

“Oh dear” was his only response. He proceeded to shake back and forth until Henri slid off with a screech and a giggle. Merritt caught him around the waist, then grasped Hattie’s hand. “Quick! Baptiste has cookies!”

A second screech erupted from the children, and they quickly ran from the room, stirring Hulda’s green skirt as they went. It would take them ten minutes just to make their way down the stairs, giving Hulda plenty of time to scold this ... this ...rogue.

He stood, but before he could question her, she pointed to her neck, to a blemish she had only found halfway through the day with a mirror after Miss Steverus asked about it. She knew her finger jutted at its precise center, for her every nerve had radiated around it ever since. “What. Is.This?”

Merritt’s gaze shifted to the spot.

Then he grinned.

“Insolent man!” she spat. “Howdareyou let me go into town with this on my neck!” The red, speckled mark felt like it grew in size as she pointed to it, so Hulda whipped her hand away, instead pointing the accusing finger at Merritt.

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