Page 14 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
Instead, I reach into my pocket and pull out the talisman.
“What’s this?” she asks, eyebrows lifting.
“A tether. For protection.”
She takes it, holds it up to the light. “You made this?”
I nod. “Cedarwood from the south grove. It holds glyphs.”
She examines it, tilting it in her palm. “Looks like something I’d find at a farmer’s market between jars of fermented honey and a guy named Rune selling moss art.”
“It’ll keep you anchored if the land tries anything again.”
Her mouth twitches. “So... this is, what? A magic mood necklace?”
“It’s a charm,” I say, gruff. “Not a toy.”
She holds it up, squinting at it. “If I wear it and start speaking in tongues, I’m blaming you.”
“You already talk like someone possessed.”
She smirks, then to my quiet surprise, she lifts the cord and slips it around her neck. It settles just beneath her collarbone, the carved wood warm from my touch and now hers.
“You’re not putting up a fight,” I murmur.
“Don’t get used to it,” she replies. “I just like the craftsmanship. Might even fool someone into thinking I’m one of those nature types with a crystal collection and a tarot side hustle.”
I want to tell her she looks right with it on. That the glyphs glow faint where they brush her skin, and the land hums softer when she walks now. I want to tell her I carved it because the dream shook me to my bones, and because the idea of her beingconsumed by something I was sworn to protect terrifies me more than dying ever did.
But all I say is, “It suits you.”
She stares for a beat too long, then brushes past me with a mumbled, “Don’t go getting sentimental, Thorne.”
And I let her go, watching her walk back toward the house with her spine stiff and her hands shoved in her jacket pockets, the charm swinging lightly with every step like it’s already part of her.
The orchard watches too.
And for once, it doesn’t whisper.
CHAPTER 9
IVY
There’s something about the sound of tires on gravel that makes my stomach twist, low and slow, like a coil of rope being pulled taut. It’s not loud, just steady—too steady for a deer, too late in the day for the mail truck, and too familiar to be anything good. Out here, that crunch means trouble’s wearing a seatbelt and driving with one hand out the window. No one justshows upin Embervale unless they’re lost, deluded, or looking for a fight they think they’ve already won.
I’m elbow-deep in the sink, scrubbing the remains of orchard clay off a pair of boots that haven’t seen pavement in a decade, when the screen door creaks and groans under the weight of a too-confident push. The metal sings its tired warning, and I don’t have to turn to know who it is.
“Well, hell,” says a voice that’s all teeth and charm and the faintest undertone of mockery. “Either you’re still breathing, or this place really does have ghosts.”
“Brody.” I don’t even blink.
He strolls in like he’s been summoned, like the orchard itself reached out and dragged him through the hills and dust just to irritate me. Same worn denim jacket, same smirk that lookscarved on, same boots thudding against my father’s floor like it owes him something.
The kitchen light catches in his hair as he leans against the counter, eyeing the room like he’s cataloguing all the ways it’s gotten older and none of them good. “God, Ivy. It smells like someone buried regret in here and forgot to dig it up.”
“Glad you could make it,” I say, drying my hands with the towel that’s more holes than fabric.
“You texted.”
