Page 56 of A Fragile Enchantment

Niamh stared up at him. Her breath snagged in her throat, and she had the distinct sensation of free-falling. “I… I beg your pardon?”

“Come now, Niamh.” Sinclair looked anguished. He steppedcloser to her, until hardly any space remained between them. He took her by the shoulders and dropped his voice low, as though to speak any louder would give them away. “Give me some credit here. It’s like watching an entire opera play out every time you two so much as make eye contact with each other. If I’ve noticed, then it won’t be long before the wrong person does. Don’t tempt fate.”

A thousand feelings tore through her at once. Humiliation, fear, anger, sadness. She couldn’t make sense of this jumble. She couldn’t deal with the fact that he’d pulled her heart out and thrown it, still beating, at her feet. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that Kit was unharmed. “Thenhelpme, Sinclair. It won’t look so bad if it’s both of us. Will you really take that risk?”

“I can’t do it.”

“I can handle this.” She met his eyes steadily. “I am not afraid of him.”

Thunder rolled overhead. The first of the rain began to fall.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Sinclair shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Fine. I’ll walk with you as far as the edge of the woods. Everyone’s gone inside, but there are windows everywhere. So just… Be careful. And don’t come back together, for God’s sake.”

She clasped the lapels at her throat. “Thank you, Sinclair.”

He nodded. And when she committed to what was quite possibly the worst decision of her life, he was right there behind her.

The sky was downright ominous, with gashes of dark clouds that blotted out the sun. The rain fell in gouts, plastering her hair against her skin. In a matter of minutes, it would soak through both Sinclair’s coat and her dress. Already, her fingers had gone numb and white as bone in the chill. She could not afford a flare-up of her symptoms now of all times.

Past the tree line, the grounds of Woodville Hall grew wild and untamed. Out ahead of her, a field of pale lavender shivered in a sudden gust of wind. Niamh hiked up her skirts and waded in. With every step, the cloying scent of lavender and petrichor wafted up from the earth below. Her shoes sank deeper into the mud as she approached an old wrought-iron gate. The latch was rusted shut and groaned angrily when she tried to shimmy it open. Instead, she threw her weight against it—and promptly regretted it when her hip throbbed in protest.

She’d have to scale it, then.

Niamh drew in a breath and hoisted herself over the top, scrabbling to find footholds in the scrollwork. Her fingers resented being curled to fists. Her swollen joints cried out in protest, and it took nearly all her strength to climb the short distance. The pointed finials jabbed into her guts and tugged a few threads loose in her bodice. By the time she spilled over the other side, great smears of orange marred the front of her gown. She landed in a heap, spattering mud all over herself.

She picked herself off the ground and squinted into the gloom. Once, maybe, there had been a garden here. But now, it was all overgrown and ruined. Purple clover blossomed riotously in the garden beds, and the mint had claimed half the property for itself, the greedy thing. Dandelions pushed determinedly through the cracks in the stepping stones. How gorgeous this place must have been when there was someone around to take care of it. Still, there was something lovely about it all. The dark earth, redolent and alive. All these stubborn, wayward things, thriving in their neglect.

As she stepped carefully through the weeds, tendrils of green snagged at the hem of her dress and curled around her ankles. Another vine wound itself around her wrist almost longingly. They tried to root her in place, but they were slender enough that it required no effort to yank herself free.

Kit clearly did not want her here. She could practically feel hiswill coursing through the flora, even without the telltale gold running through each leaf and petal’s veins. Her vision swam with exhaustion, and she shivered with cold. But she refused to leave him alone in his suffering.

“Kit!” she called, but the squall of the storm swallowed up her voice.

She passed beneath the shade of gnarled apple trees and through vegetable patches gone to rot. At last, as the trees thinned out, she spotted a figure crumpled on the ground: Kit, wreathed in silver rainwater. His jacket and cravat lay in a sodden heap in the mud beside him, and his shirt was translucent with damp. Like this, he looked so frail.

“Kit?” Niamh hurried toward him, kicking up mud in her wake.

He didn’t look up. “Go away.”

She came closer, tentatively. “I know you may not want to see me right now, but I…”

He turned toward her. His loose, wet hair clung to the sharp planes of his face. Through the rain pelting the earth between them, she saw his eyes burning bright and gold. “I saidgo away.”

Thorns shot from the earth, forming a perfect circle around him. Niamh yelped, stumbling backward. By a stroke of good fortune, she managed to keep her footing. Before she could process it, sweetbrier vines wound around him, caging him in a thicket. They were garlanded with white flowers and red berries, and water beaded on each delicate petal like droplets of divine blood.

Niamh’s pulse raced, hard enough that she felt it in her wrists, in the tip of each finger. Never before had she seen magic quite like this. Powerful enough that she might believe the Fair Ones still walked among them. It was awesome and awful all at once.

Kit was nestled within the thorns and wild rose like a seed kept safe within its shell. His shoulders trembled, and when he looked at her, she saw that he was in two places at once: here and not here. Itbrought Niamh back to herself. This was not a god nor a prince. He looked like a frightened child. As the vines tightened around him, they cut into his skin. Blood, golden as sunlight, seeped into his shirt.

“Let me in,” she said, attempting to inject some sternness into her tone. “Right now!”

He did not reply.

The wind lashed her braid against her back. Niamh had half a mind to clamber back over the fence and fetch a pair of gardening shears from that moldering shed. She was drenched and shivering with some mixture of fear and cold, but she would not abandon him here. That was only what he believed he wanted.

“I’m not going anywhere. I can be very persistent, I’ll have you know.”

He hardly seemed to recognize her. His eyes blazed like a lantern in a dark wood. “I can’t.”