Page 6 of Homegrown Magic

“Margot Greenwillow!” booms Sage as Margot reaches the bar. Sage’s delight dances through her words. “As I live and breathe, we’d almost given up on you.”

Margot throws a sheepish smile in Sage’s direction. “Sorry. I fell asleep.”

Sage raises one eyebrow, the silvered whisper of a scar running through it. “Well, you’re here now. That’s all that counts!” She stands and pulls Margot into a tight hug and, despite their similar heights, lifts her slightly. A gasp of surprise escapes Margot’s lips, and she hugs Sage back, then wriggles out of the embrace.

“I love the garden boots,” Sage says, studying Margot’s outfit.

Margot snorts. “I think they go well with this lovely, high-fashion frock.”

“Which goes perfectly with the cardigan, so I’d say you’re winning.” Sage takes a full mug of ale off the counter and hands it to Margot. “You look like a woman who needs several of these. Sit, drink, tell me everything.”

Relief tastes like frothy ale, sounds like Sage’s laughter, and feels like settling onto one of the high barstools. The night unwinds in a cozy blur of music, friendship, and many drinks. Sage gives Margot a present: a pair of enchanted, mirrored compacts she picked up from a trader on the Queens’ Road, which they can use to talk to each other across long distances; one of them need only scribble a short note on a slip of paper and close it up inside the compact, and the message will write itself across the mirror of the opposite one. Clementine keeps flirting with Sage, who tells them both about her next adventure, a mission to the Swamplands on the southeastern coast of the kingdom, where a network of marshes, mudflats, and ponds flood regularly with saltwater from the Serpentine Sea.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Swamplands,” Margot says, her voice lighter from the ale and the thought of sleeping under the stars, the nearby sounds of the sea whispering into her dreams.

“Come with me!” Sage says, clapping Margot enthusiastically on the shoulder. “Our leader is still building the party—”

“Tell me this isn’t going to be one of those shady adventure parties put together by a company out to exploit and destroy magical habitats?” Margot’s parents had hired several of those after Granny Fern died, each of them promising wildly profitable discoveries, and each of them running away with her parents’ money, never to be heard from again.

“You know me better than that. We’re out to discover, not destroy or exploit. A trader in Ashaway told our client about a grove on the coast where no one has been able to venture more than twenty feet in on account of, well, probably monsters. But we’re looking for a rare specimen of sea fern, and we could use a plant witch like you along for the journey.”

“I would love to, but—”

“Think about it, it’s perfect! We’ll be back by midsummer, so you’ll be home in plenty of time for community apple bobbing or whatever charming activities Bloomfield gets up to in autumn.”

For a moment, with the ale making her brain fuzzy, Margot lets the fantasy wrap around her. She could wear an adventurer’s outfit, like Sage’s, instead of garden boots and muddy dresses. They’d pore over the map and then step outside it. Sage would pick through waist-deep mud and monstrous leeches to get to this rare fern, and Margot would study it, finding uses that she couldn’t even imagine in her greenhouses. Maybe she could create the potion that snapped her parents out of—

Right, no. The thought of her parents is a pair of gardening shears chopping the buds of this fantasy to pieces.

“I can’t, Sage.” Margot takes another long swig of ale, finishing it. She slips a hand into her pocket, running her fingers over the letter from the Claunecks; she keeps it with her wherever she goes, partly to root herself in moments like these when she’s tempted to drift into dreams of what could be. “I have to stay here. My parents need me. The greenhouses need me. I can’t just run off.”

She tries to keep the longing from her voice, but Sage shoots her a sympathetic look. “You’re doing too much, love. You know that.”

Margot just shrugs. Maybe she is. But lingering too long on the truth doesn’t mark items off her to-do list. Or concoct magical Natural Caster Potions that will pay down her parents’ massive debts and save Bloomfield.

The clock behind the bar chimes midnight. Sage finishes her drink and stands, buckling her short sword to her waist.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” Margot asks, suddenly desperate for her friend not to leave.

Clementine also looks eager for Sage to stay.

“I would love to, but I have to make up some time tonight.” Sage shoots them both an apologetic half smile. “Need to get at least a few hours of riding in before I bunk up. There’s an inn I can stay at about three hours from here.”

Margot wants to say more, but there’s no stopping Sage when her mind is made up. She’s perfectly free to do what she wants, sleep where she wants, chase whatever adventure she wants.

What would such freedom feel like?

Margot can’t even imagine.

“Take good care of yourself,” Margot says, pulling Sage into a hug. “Please don’t get eaten.”

“I won’t,” Sage promises. “And you try to have a little fun, okay?”

Margot won’t, but that isn’t the point. Sage squeezes her fiercely and then says goodbye. As the tavern door closes behind her, a deep loneliness settles over Margot.

“All done, then?” Clementine wipes the bar in front of her.

Margot looks toward the door, considering her empty cottage, the work in store for her tomorrow, and all of the adventures Sage has in front of her.