Page 4 of Wickedly Ever After
Hector carried the flat of skunk cabbages home himself, refusing Adorphus’s offer to bring it by the next day. Once he’d set his heart on a plant, he didn’t like to leave it behind. Adorphus was a businessman and his head was filled with shopkeeping, receipts and tallies—turning a profit, not turning the soil. Specialty plants came from one of his fae suppliers. This particular species was carnivorous, requiring a bog culture. A grin curled Hector’s mustache as he considered diverting a suitable spring beneath their bed to provide them with the optimal habitat at Castle Grim. Within a month he’d have them big enough to take out an army of knights even if they came in with their noses pinned shut.Beat that, Ida North.
It wasn’t entirely a dark witch’s province, this fascination withgardening, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d loved plants from an early age, and his parents—long dead now—indulged his rambles through the forest and neighboring bogs. At least, that’s how he liked to remember it. Once upon a time, his parents didn’t actually care if he got lost and died. He was the third child of seven, not a number anyone gave significance to, and he could hardly wait to go on his own quest to see what the world held for him.
No one was more surprised than he when he dutifully journeyed to the Dread Mountains in the West, twisted his ankle outside a charming gingerbread house, and was rescued by the person who lived there. The Wicked Witch of the West turned out to be a gentle and intelligent old woman who seemed to know that, at sixteen, he wasn’t as brave or bold as he’d hoped to be. She gave him a plate of gingerbread and offered to tell his fortune by the knucklebones. Knowing this to be a good way for a young man to find out everything, from the location of a sword in a stone to who his future enchanted bride might be, he happily acquiesced. Thankfully, he was sitting in bed with his ankle wrapped in a block of never-melting ice when she told him he would be her apprentice.
“But I’m a boy,” he’d protested.
She shook her head and gathered up the bones. “It doesn’t matter. The bones never lie. If they say you’re a witch, you’re a witch.”
“Do I have to wear the hat?”
“Why wouldn’t you? They’re quite comfortable, and the brim is excellent sun protection for your ears. You’ll never get skin cancer.”
“What about the broom? I don’t think boys can ride a broom like that.”
“If you don’t want to ride astride, you can always try sidesaddle.”
He took a bite of the gingerbread. “Maybe I can manage. This is delicious, by the way.”
She patted his shoulder. “It’s world-class bait for children who need to be fattened up for their first quest. My own special recipe.”
He laughed. “Why, you’re not wicked at all.”
She shook her head. “Oh, my dear boy. You have so much to learn about being a witch. Now, pass me the eye of newt and I’ll teach you how to brew poison apples.”
Hector smiled at the memories as he set the baby plants on the skullery table.
“Not there, you horrible old man!” A giant voice boomed up at him from beneath the table. “I just cleaned that!”
He snatched the cabbages up quickly. “Tinbit. I didn’t know you were back already. How is Crowbone? Better, I hope?”
A shock of black hair and a flash of red eyes and Tinbit, his gnome, popped up from beneath the table. “Dragon-flu is a bitch,” he said. “I took him some carrot and ginger soup.”
“Good, good.” Hector tried to hide the plants behind his back. “Ginger is excellent for colds.”
“What in the name of all that’s evil did you want those for?” Tinbit eyed the plants. “I hope you don’t expect me to take care of them. I’ve got more than enough to do, supervising your skeletons. Did you know one of them dyed your boxers blue this morning? You left indigo in your robe pockets again.”
He winced. It could’ve been worse. It might’ve been madder root. “I’ll try to be less careless next time.”
“See that you are.” Tinbit slapped a folder down on the table. “Three questors are waiting for you in the dungeons,here’s a request for a pair of red-hot dancing slippers, oh, and the Flamelord asked you to visit tomorrow. Something about the Happily-Ever-After.”
“I’m supposed to visit at the end of the week. What’s so important that it can’t wait?”
Tinbit shrugged and took the tray of skunk cabbages. “It just said visit him tomorrow. You know how dragons are.”
“But what did he want?”
“No idea,” Tinbit said, walking out of the room. “The message burned up the minute I read it, but if you want to dig through the ashes, that’s your prerogative. It’s in the fireplace. Do you want watercress sandwiches or cucumber with your tea?”
“Watercress, I suppose.” Hector sat at the table, fingering the correspondence: bills, a letter from the king, a few fan letters—even wicked witches had admirers—and a notice for the annual greenhouse sale at the fae university. What on earth did the Flamelord want with him that couldn’t wait? And he’d intended to spend the next day puttering around in his garden too.
But he was the Wicked Witch of the West.
Pulling his robes straight, he headed to his evil lair, which doubled as his library, to deal with his afternoon appointments before tea.
2
Ida
