Page 81 of Homegrown Magic

“But then I never heard from you after, and I really began to doubt…”

“Wait,” Yael insists. “Please, let me tell you everything.” And they do. They recount their desperate, regrettable bargain with Clauneck; the weeks they spent believing that their decision to stay was all their own, and that Ashaway and the Clauneck Company were where they belonged; their visit to the perfumery greenhouse, and the secret garden of the girl from the Rookery; the chain reaction of choices it had set off inside of them, which soon brought down the outpost walls of Clauneck’s spell, thrusting Yael back to themself; how Clauneck had withdrawn their patronage for good, leaving Yael as alone as they’d ever been, and more certain of their place and purpose in this world than they’d ever been.

“I see,” Margot whispers once again when they’ve finished, barely audible above the birdsong.

“But I don’t want you to think that I’m making excuses,” Yael hurries to say. “It was cowardly beyond measure for me to make that bargain.”

“Well…maybe. But it was brave of you to leave again.”

Yael flips the switch to stop Sweet Wind just before the turnoff to the cottage path, and Margot follows suit with Gloom Stalker, watching them curiously. With a deep breath, they confess, “I have never been brave, Margot. I have always walked the path carved out by the Claunecks and faulted myself when I stumbled. But denying the life I was born into was no help to anybody, and neither was hating myself for it. So I am here to make things right, as best I can. And…and I am here to tell you what I should’ve told you in Ashaway, had I been brave enough: that I love you, Margot Greenwillow. It needn’t change anything between us, because whether you can forgive me or not, I’m going to stay, and I’m going to be of use. But I love you all the same.”

34

Margot

“You love me?” Margot stammers. She grips Gloom Stalker’s neck, her fingers digging into the metal brackets along its pseudo-mane. Her heart is surely pounding louder than the mechanical steed’s hoofbeats had been a few seconds ago.

“Yes,” Yael says quickly. Their eyes dart to Margot’s and then away. “I’m sorry.”

She dares to hope they’re not sorry for loving her. Or for being there when the town needed them. Or for coming back to her. Or—most important—for saying the words she’s been too afraid to let herself think out loud. “You’re sorry? Why?”

Yael runs a hand through their hair, sending dust into a cloud around them. “Well, I’m sorry for dropping it on you like this, of course. While we’re astride our steeds, and while I’m once again covered in road dust. I should’ve cleaned up a bit, at least.” They shrug—a helplessly adorable gesture that makes Margot’s heart kick in her chest.

“I don’t have a tub, so that’s hardly your fault.”

“Even so, I’d imagined telling you somewhere more romantic. Say that was the case…What would your reply have been?”

Margot bites her lip, torn for the tiniest of seconds between wanting to keep Yael waiting and wanting to put them out of their misery. At the hopeful, desperate look on their face, she relents. With a thumb on the steering switch, she brings Gloom Stalker closer to Sweet Wind so her leg presses against Yael’s.

“I would say…” Margot leans over, taking Yael’s sleeve in her hand. She runs her fingers over the rough fabric, feeling the bones of their wrist beneath her hand. Suddenly shy, she looks up at them through her eyelashes. Some part of her is absolutely terrified to tell Yael how she feels, though another part knows that trusting Yael with her feelings will be the bravest, most wonderful, most freeing thing she’s ever done. But how to say it best?

Should she tell them the seeds of her affection were sown on that first night in Clementine’s Tavern, but now, like a plant that’s been watered and nurtured, her fondness for them has grown strong until it towers over her, a wild, living, thriving thing? Suddenly, a mere declaration of love feels smaller than whatever has bloomed between them. She’s wanted to say the words for weeks now. And if she doesn’t say them, this plant will not thrive the way she knows it can.

She circles their wrist with her fingers to gather her courage. “I love you too.”

Yael’s breath hitches. “You do?”

“Fiercely and entirely.”

Yael slumps forward in the saddle in relief. “Oh, that is such good news.”

If she weren’t in the saddle of a mechanical steed, she’d lean over and kiss them. But doing so would likely land her in a heap on the ground. “Now that we’ve agreed, can we please get off these damn horses?”

Yael sits up at once, a wicked, hungry smile on their lips. “My thoughts exactly. Shall we go back to the cottage?”

Margot’s pulse races at the look on their face. “I have a better spot in mind.”

“Better than your mattress?”

“Yes. Follow me.”

They ride down the road and into the woods beyond Margot’s cottage. The trail snakes back and forth for a bit, and at a towering pine tree, Margot stops her mechanical steed.

“You’ve brought me to some…trees?” Yael surmises.

“So much more. Please, follow me.”

“Anywhere,” Yael agrees.