Page 78 of Homegrown Magic

Margot has longed to hear from them for weeks, but suddenly, it’s all too much. She stands, going over to the windowsill and picking up the strawberry root Yael had planted in late spring. It’s grown since—Margot carefully tended to it since Yael wasn’t here to do so—and blossomed with little white flowers that subtly perfume her kitchen.

“My strawberries!” Yael gasps, recognizing the pot. “It bloomed, after all.”

“It was well planted,” Margot concedes.

“Honestly, it’s a wonder you didn’t throw them into the pond, after the way I left things. You’re a wonder, Margot.”

Returning to the table, Margot picks up a scone and begins to crumble it over her plate, letting silence stretch between them—the product of too many weeks apart and too many words spoken and unspoken. At last, she manages, “What are you doing in Bloomfield, Yael? I’m grateful for the tea and scones, but I thought…”

Yael sets down their tea. “About what happened at the ball, what I said…”

“I’m not sure any of that matters now.”

“Of course it matters.” Yael’s eyes blaze into hers. “It’s all that matters, Margot. It always has!”

She blows out a breath. “Maybe so, but it isn’t all that matters.” She gets up and starts to pace the room. “Yael, I can’t make the Natural Caster Potion. Meaning I can’t release Bloomfield from your family’s clutches.”

“You—”

“No, please just listen. Your family is going to destroy Bloomfield, Yael! Everything Granny Fern and her friends and I and even you have worked for—they’re going to destroy it.” With every word, Margot’s temper grows hotter. “I care about the people in this town and everything they’ve built here. This is their home. It’s my home. And your parents want to take it all and make it into a shopping center or spa for rich people or some such thing! And I’m not going to let them. Somehow, I don’t know how, I have to stop them, because Bloomfield deserves better, and you may not care about Bloomfield or me anymore, but you once believed so too!” She heaves in a great breath and swipes at the surprising tears of rage that run down her cheeks.

“Margot?” Yael’s voice is painfully gentle. “Daisy?”

“Yes?” she snaps.

“Please, Margot, sit. I know all of this, and I care very much.”

“You do?” Margot falls into a chair.

“I do. Why do you think I rode all the way to Bloomfield in my underwear?”

She picks up her teacup again with a trembling hand. “That’s a comfort, I suppose, though it doesn’t solve the problem.”

“No, but…I believe I may have found our solution, if we play things just right.”

Margot sits bolt-upright. “Really?”

Yael reaches over and twines their fingers with hers. “Really.”

Without thinking, Margot squeezes their hand. “Tell me everything, then.”

Over tea and scones slathered with heartbreak-healing jam, they do.

33

Yael

It’s well past sunrise by the time Margot and Yael ride out for Clementine’s Tavern, fortified by a fresh pot of breakfast tea and a scant amount of sleep. After catching Margot up, Yael had washed themself as best they could with her bowl and pitcher, then curled up in a heap in the tattered but beloved armchair, shoving Harvey off the cushion to claim it. They woke only a few hours later with stiff muscles, their hair in absolute chaos, and not particularly sweet smelling, but they were anxious to get going.

There are plans to be made before the Claunecks come to reclaim what they’ve taken.

Yael switches Sweet Wind to a halt by the tavern gate and slips down the steed’s cold clockwork neck while Margot dismounts from Gloom Stalker. A pleasantly cool breeze ruffles their clothing as they stretch out their back. Gone is the blazing heat that beat down upon them in Ashaway just yesterday, even though autumn is weeks away, and while the breeze brings relief, it also reminds them of the ticking clock hanging over Bloomfield. Fighting a flare of panic, Yael makes themself pause for a moment to tilt their face to the cloudless, cornflower sky and breathe in Bloomfield as it exists: ripe wild berries from the bushes in full bloom, and dew-damp oakmoss that clings to old tree trunks, and breaking bread…well, and still a bit of manure, thanks to the fields and the rambling beasts, but that can’t be helped.

“Are you ready for this?” Margot prompts, stirring them back to the moment.

Yael sighs. “Ready enough. I don’t expect a warm welcome.” Deservedly so, after their weeks-long absence and their silence. They’d bargained away their loyalty to Bloomfield along with their loyalty to Margot. That Yael spent six weeks unaware of this decision, only convinced of its correctness, doesn’t absolve them of making the choice in the first place.

But they aren’t going to lie down and wallow in self-loathing and self-pity or drink themself into forgetting again.