Page 27 of This Witch Is Not Wicked

I wanted to say no, make up some excuse, but my brain wasn’t working properly. “Yes” was all I could manage.

Enid and I had a lot of work to do in just four weeks. If we were going to make this convincing, we had to know each other better, and that meant it was time to get to know the mysterious woman of the bog.

CHAPTER 11

Enid

Iarrived at Nevan’s lab the next evening. It was nestled at the top of a tower, and shockingly, Sir Arthur had escorted me, seemingly forgetting about his threats to chop off my head with a guillotine just the previous day.

Now I stood here, Nevan nowhere to be seen, which gave me time to look around. This had been the first room in the castle I’d seen two years ago.

After it hit my bog, I’d woken up in this room. To this day, I still couldn’t figure out how that happened.

I was dripping wet, scared, and confused when Nevan appeared in front of me, a complete stranger babbling about his lab being back, asking me questions.

My first instinct had been to attack, but I was so weak it wasn’t much of a fight. Nevan had easily overtaken me, then tied me to a chair.

Suffice to say, the two of us had a contentious beginning, and we hadn’t spoken much since then. Not until this proposal of his.

I walked around the room, trailing my fingers over the wooden countertops, observing all the shelves and objects.

I didn’t feel comfortable in most spaces in Fairwitch Isle, but as I took in the vines hanging down the walls, the bunches of herbs dangling from ceiling, the potted plants in the corner, I felt at ease. Wooden shelves hung over the countertops, and I ran my nails over the grooves of the smooth wood. Tubes, vials, tins, and jars filled the shelves, some of them empty and others containing mysterious powders and liquids.

I stopped at the large windows that showed the sinking sun over the Cragh. From the top of this tower, my entire bog spread out, green and wild and filled with beauty. I tilted my head, watching the way the waning sunlight filtered through the stained-glass panes that lined the edge of the window. They were all different shades of green, reminding me of the many colors of my home.

“Enid.”

I whirled to see Nevan standing in a doorway on the side of the room.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were here.” He was drying his hands with a cloth, and I wondered if he’d been cleaning himself up after a day of healing.

“That’s because I didn’t announce myself.” I leaned against the wooden counter, getting a glimpse of the room behind Nevan as the door closed and he entered the lab.

I could’ve sworn I’d seen a bed. Maybe Nevan lived here, had an apartment attached to the place he worked.

He walked toward the wooden island in the middle of the room and leaned over, elbows resting on the counter. “I’m sorry about last night. I think my family was just a little taken aback.”

That entire encounter had been ghastly. I’d come to the castle, hoping to speak to Nevan about some of my concerns, when I’d been accosted by that ridiculous suit of armor and dragged to his family dinner.

“They weren’t taken aback. They were horrified,” I said, thinking about their wide eyes, open mouths. “Horrified by me.”

The only one who’d been even remotely pleasant was Niamh.

He grimaced. “Right. Well, mentioning that you threw me into a bog probably didn’t help.”

“They asked how we met.”

“You can lie, Enid,” Nevan said. “And you didn’t throw me.”

I thought about our first real encounter, how Vine had dipped Nevan into the bog. “Well, I thought that would be better than describing in detail how my python vine grabbed you, hung you upside down, and shoved your head underwater.”

To my surprise, Nevan burst out laughing. “So you can lie. Just maybe need to work on the lie itself.”

My lips twitched, and Nevan studied me, his gaze taking me in in a way that made me squirm.

“So why am I here?” I crossed my arms.

He straightened and looked away. “Right. Yes. We need to get to know each other so things like last night don’t happen again.”