Page 55 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

Arabella looked around for something she might use as a weapon. She only had her pruning shears, but she held them aloft and gave a dangeroussnip-snip!just to make herself feel better. Not for the first time, she wished Apolonia were still with them. Apolonia not only did not fear sorcerers, she relished any chance encounter or opportunity to inflict as much pain as she could upon their sorry hides. Neither Arabella nor Aurora was aggressive enough to enjoy such measures, but they were willing to do what must be done.

The portal opened, sputtering more anti-glitter.

Out stepped an absolutely enormous and supremely fluffy demon. It looked around the cottage yard, spotted Arabella and Aurora in their garden, and blinked blandly. Then it sat on its furry haunches, and two figures slid from its back.

Arabella blinked in surprise.

That one figure—why! He looked as though he could have stepped right out of the pages of one of her secretly-cherished romance novels, the ones she kept hidden in her darning basket where Aurora couldn’t find them. His silk dressing gown and shirt hung open, revealing quite a nicely-toned chest, and his hair flopped over his forehead, and his handsome face was positivelyrivenwith anguish and devotion! Granted, were he really out of a romance novel, he would probably be a good bit taller and a whole lot broader, with long flowing locks of ravenhair and possibly some sexy tattoos, but Arabella wasn’t about to be picky. Not at her time of life. Besides, this onedidsport at least one tattoo. A big, ugly heptagram, right there on his exposed chest. Marking him as a sorcerer.

He was also carrying her darling sweet Luna in his arms.

“Please!” he called out in a voice so posh and dreamy, despite obvious signs of exhaustion, fear, and pain. “Please, help her!”

He took a few steps toward them, carrying his fragile burden. Then he collapsed headlong, right on the border of the tea garden.

Arabella and Aurora exchanged stunned glances.

“Meow,” Gronk Cat opined. And no one dared contradict him.

Nigel woke to a strong-smelling stench in his nostrils. One he vaguely recognized. Groaning, he turned his face away from the smell, desperate to escape it.

“Oh, come now, sweetheart,” a gentle, wooly-lamb sort of voice said coaxingly. “You need to sit up and take your tea, there’s a good boy.”

Strange . . . but he’d heard Luna use a tone not at all unsimilar upon more than one occasion. How many times had she coaxed him into imbibing her medicinal brews, both pleasant and disgusting? In fact, he could almost swear itwasLuna’s voice, only aged up by a number of decades and stripped of all her sass and spice.

Luna.

His brow crinkled.

Did he . . . save her?

An image flashed through his brain: a dark cell. Luna bound in chains. Followed by pain, pain, pain . . . oh, right. The severmist. He’d used sorcery, and the severmist had punished him for it, but he’d managed the portal and transportationthrough the Dire. He was fairly certain he remembered the portal opening on the far side as well. They’d made it out, hadn’t they? Yes, they’d made it out, and . . . and . . .

Nigel opened his eyes very slowly, peering up into a cherubic face wreathed in delicate wrinkles and fluffy faded-gold curls. Her coloring was nothing at all like Luna’s, being all pale and blue-eyed. But her mouth. That full upper lip, not as full as it once was, perhaps, but still a recognizable shape. He knew that mouth.

The old woman smiled sweetly. “There you go, here’s a sip!”

He seemed to be halfway propped-up on a bunch of scratchy old pillows, while the woman held a cup of foul-smelling tea to his lips. Nigel wanted to protest, to dash it away, but one simply did not behave that way in front of such a gentle personage. Instead, he dutifully took a sip, gagged, then somehow managed to force the mouthful down. “Wh—what is it?” he asked.

“Wolf Brittlebum,” the lady answered at once. “It’ll give you energy, luv. You were quite worn to bits when you arrived. Fainted outright!”

Nigel grimaced. Pain still throbbed through his head, and the rest of him didn’t feel a whole lot better. Running a hand down his face, he turned, trying to get some sense of where he was. He seemed to be lying on the ground in the middle of a sloped and grassy lawn. Which made sense—a little old lady like the one before him wasn’t going to be able to drag a fully-grown man inside.

“Another sip, dear,” she said.

He took it obediently, nearly spitting it up again, but managed, out of sheer gentlemanly determination to keep it down. Then he pushed onto his elbow, panting a little, and cast about, trying to get his bearings. The portal had landed him just outside a little cottage built of weathered gray stone, darkened by decades of mountain rain. The roof sagged beneath old slatetiles mottled with lichen, and a pair of stout chimneys rose from either end. Beyond the cottage, the mountain slopes lay under a blanket of snow, and Nigel could just glimpse the rooftops of a village nestled in a curve of the valley, smoke drifting lazily from scattered chimneys into the still air.

The cottage itself seemed untouched by the season. The lawn where he sat remained green and damp beneath him, while an impressive tea garden spread away to one side of the house, protected by unseen enchantment. A low stone wall enclosed the grounds, marking the boundary where winter abruptly resumed. Beyond it, snow lay thick and undisturbed. The day was overcast, but not gloomy. Clouds hung low and soft over the mountains, wrapping the landscape in a quiet gray hush that felt less like bad weather and more like a blanket drawn snug around the world.

Luna could be safe here, surely. For a little while at least. Long enough to recover from whatever spells the Brotherhood had placed upon her.

But they couldn’t stay. Because, despite whatever protective wards may be placed around this property, the Brotherhoodknewabout it. They would come, sooner or later. Probably sooner. Much sooner. While Nigel would like to think he’d caused enough havoc among them to give him and Luna a little breather, it wouldn’t last.

“Where is Luna?” he asked, turning to the old lady. Then he shook his head, closing his eyes, and corrected himself. “Miss Talbot. Where is Miss Talbot?”

“Miss Talbot?” The lady narrowed her soft blue eyes. “You’re a formal sort, aren’t you?”

“Where is she?” Nigel demanded again, pushing himself more fully upright. In so doing, he became aware of the fact that his dressing gown and shirt were both hanging open rather alarmingly, and he’d apparently forgotten to don anundershirt. Which meant the heptagram tattoo on his chest was prominently displayed. He hastily gripped his shirt and pulled it closed, but a quick glance at the old lady told him she’d noticed already.