Page 67 of Beyond the Cottage

“I started out by running bootleg moonshine up and down the bayou,” he finally said. “When my employer discovered my aptitude for chemistry, he promoted me to cooking paradisium. I took over the business after he died.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded once.

“Damn,” she said. “You won’t drink three glasses of wine, but you were a drug dealer?”

His body went rigid. “I’m not proud of it, Gretta. And I quit after Isobel rescued me from the swamp.”

“When did you begin your life of crime? As a kid, you were so…”

“What? Passive? Weak?”

“No. Nice.”

He looked away. “I didn’t jump right into that life, it took time. I was distracted for a while.”

“By what?”

“Looking for you.”

Gretta’s breath caught. She propped on an elbow and stared at his profile. “You looked for me?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “For about three years. After, I had no choice but to grow up and get a job. Ditch digging wouldn’t provide the income I needed to research spellcraft, so a life of crime it was.”

He’d looked for her for threeyears? Why did that make her feel…

Guilty?

Maybe because she hadn’t looked for him once. It had been easier to bury everything that happened, and she got good at it. Eventually, she stopped thinking about him every five minutes. Then a time came when she hardly thought about him at all. When she’d closely studied faces in the crowd at anti-witchcraft rallies, she told herself it was in sympathy for other victims.

He’d actively looked for her. Herparentshadn’t done that.

Pressure built in Gretta’s chest, which meant it was time to change the subject. “Speaking of funding your research, have you given any more thought to my proposal?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no point.”

“Thepoint, Ansel, is I’m offering you everything you’ve been working for on a silver platter. A solid gold platter, actually.”

“Exactly. I’ve learned when things seem too good to be true, they usually are.”

He still didn’t believe her?

She supposed she couldn’t blame him. Like Seven and Jonas, he probably expected she’d have him tossed in the clink when they reached Antrelle.

“Alright,” she said. “You’re a logical thinker, so let’s run through this. You believe I hate witchcraft, don’t you?”

“That’s been made reasonably clear.”

“And it’s obvious I’ve dedicated my life to fighting it, right?”

“…I suppose.”

“So the repellent will be a powerful weapon in that fight. You’re the only one who knows how it works and what Nat will need to produce it. One plus one equals two. Can’t you trust that?”

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