Page 48 of Homegrown Magic

She shifts under the silk covers, her knee brushing against Yael’s bare thigh. The touch starts a fire low in her belly, and she plants the lightest of kisses on their shoulder.

Yael murmurs, then burrows deeper into the piles of pillows. Margot could keep kissing them, but she lets them sleep. She’s been awake since before dawn—greenhouse habits don’t disappear simply because she’s traveling—and she’s been replaying their journey from Bloomfield to Ashaway over and over in her head, lingering on the steamy parts, while hoping sleep might find her again. But it’s a lost cause. Fully naked, she slips out from under the coverlet, careful not to disturb Yael.

Margot’s bare feet whisper across the marble floor as she searches for her hastily discarded traveling dress, which is piled somewhere near the bed…maybe? Or in the bathing chamber, where she and Yael took the longest, most delicious bath of Margot’s life. But it’s not there, nor slung across the back of a chair, nor under the inlaid table where the remains of their dinners still sit under silver cloches.

After several minutes and more than one stubbed toe, she finally finds her dress and underthings discarded along with Yael’s travel clothes in a lump beside their trunks, which a porter placed near a sitting area stuffed with velvet sofas and cut-glass decanters. She picks up Yael’s jacket, running a hand over the lapel as their words from yesterday’s carriage ride rise in Margot’s mind.

The fact that my mother might hate you is one of the many reasons I love you…

I love you.

Margot drops Yael’s coat and pulls clean undergarments from her own trunk roughly, as if the force of the movement could shove away Yael’s words along with their love—if it even is love. Which Margot doesn’t want to consider.

Because you might love them back?

Ridiculous.

Margot slips into her undergarments, desperately ignoring the voice in her head.

…one of the many reasons I love you…

If only Yael knew what their mother actually thought of Margot. How had Menorath spoken of Margot in her secret note? A capable witch can accomplish much in the capital, especially with patronage such as ours. My husband and I place our faith in you…

Is that who Margot is? A capable witch in need of a patron? Or is she Yael’s favorite form of rebellion? Or just someone doing their best with what they’ve been given? Which version of herself does she even want to be?

The questions spin through her head as she digs into the trunk again, sifting through layers of cardigans, stockings, petticoats, and her three best dresses, until she finds a hyacinth-blue day dress she’d bought from Arnav. It’s not fancy, but it’s certainly nicer than her faded strawberry-print frock or her garden boots. As she twists her hair into a simple braid—something much more suited for Bloomfield—Margot takes in the sleeping lump of Yael burrowed deep in the covers, practically hidden, just as they had been that first morning in the cottage’s loft.

How has it been four months already? If you’d told Margot back in February that she’d be in Ashaway, sharing a room—and a bed—with Yael Clauneck by the start of summer, she would’ve laughed out loud. But here she is, in Ashaway, listening to the soft way Yael breathes in their sleep.

Of course, four months with Yael also means there’s only a season left until her deadline.

Life is surprising, and often nothing happens like you’ve planned. Margot knows this. But that doesn’t mean she should give up, right? After all, she’s in Ashaway with dreams beyond accompanying Yael to the masquerade ball. She knows what she has to do—convince the Claunecks she’s living up to her potential as a brilliant remedy maker so they’ll extend her grace period awhile longer—and now it’s time to make it happen.

But…

What if you can’t do that?

She drops into the closest chair, swearing under her breath. Her fingers are still tangled in her hair, the braid half completed. It had all been so simple in Bloomfield, when it was just her and Yael in the greenhouses, but now everything is a mess. Her ability to make a godsdamn impossible potion is still her only hope for the future of her business and Bloomfield. But also, she has very real feelings for Yael. And along with those feelings, there’s guilt over the way she talked Yael into coming to Ashaway under false pretenses. And then there’s Menorath’s threat of the Claunecks gathering up assets they’d overlooked, which means Margot may be out of time sooner than expected.

Margot buries her head in her hands, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed with Yael and stay there. It’s all such a tangle. More knotted than the ivy that covers the cottage she loves so much.

The cottage she can’t lose just because Yael Clauneck strolled into her life and kissed her like she mattered to them.

Margot takes a shaky breath and stands, finishing and tying off her braid. She can’t give up on her family or her village. Crossing to the window, she pulls back one of the heavy curtains to peer through the leaded-glass panes into the city. She undoes the latch and lets it swing open just a crack. A warm breeze that smells of fresh bread and river water fills her nose. She inhales deeply, feeling like she’s twelve again and standing on the balcony outside her room in the city. Is this what it feels like to come home? She’d thought it would be, but Ashaway is just loud, busy, and enormous.

From their high vantage point, she peers across the burnished rooftops of the Copper Court, the golden ones of the palace, and red-clay-tiled ones that cover the many buildings spreading through the city between the courts. The house she grew up in is somewhere east of the Glowing Coin, on a street with other packed-together mansions. Margot turns away and looks instead to the west. Coult Park is only a few blocks from here, and the Willowthorn River winds like a silver ribbon through the city in the distance. Swallows and tiny pixies dart through the air, chasing one another around the eaves of a building across the street from Margot’s window. It’s lovely, but the trees only remind her of Bloomfield.

She pushes down the thought, watching as a pair of wagons trundle over the cobblestone street. The cries of vendors fill the air as they pass one another, competing with birdsong and the bells from a longboat floating along the Willowthorn.

“Morning,” Yael says behind Margot, their voice laced with sleep.

Margot turns, smiling to see the many directions in which Yael’s hair is standing. “Morning. Sorry if I woke you.”

Yael yawns as they sit up. “Not you so much as that racket. I’d forgotten how noisy Ashaway is in the morning. I’m not sure I enjoy it.”

“Yael Clauneck, I do believe you might be a country soul after all these months.”

Yael gives an exaggerated shudder. “Nonsense. I’d forgotten just how loud it gets near the Copper Court. Why don’t you come back to bed?” They pat the space beside them.