Page 70 of Enchanted Village

“You’re all right,” Silas said. “I thought about going to get Liza to help, but we’re snowed in. And Bernie kept zooming up here, and I think she was trying to tell me to just let you rest, so I carried you up, but—”

Margaret put a finger on his lip, stilling him instantly.

“I’m all right thanks to you,” she said, then cocked her head. “Do you want to see something, Silas?”

The use of his name brought on an easy smile that she hadn’t realized she needed to see in that moment, but she drank the sight of it in greedily. She let her hands fall so that he could lift them up.

“Whatever you want to show me,” he said. “Though, I feel again I should say . . . we’re snowed in.”

She laughed. “And you’re forgetting that you’re in an enchanted village.”

She tugged him after her, crossing the room to the painting of the garden. As before, she pressed her hand to it, letting the magic ripple over her and Silas. With this touch, the painting would forever recognize him, would let him in at both the school and pub entrances, but Margaret had never been more certain of anything in her life than that letting him in was what she was meant to do. If anything, the painting pulled to her, pulled to both of them, and they tumbled inside.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The scientist part of Silas’s brain wanted to question every aspect of Margaret’s painting. How was it possible? Was there some kind of teleportation spell? Some rip in the universe that they were slipping through? Was the painting what was charmed, or was the charm on the whole pub? He had so many questions, all of them banging inside of his brain as he was, quite literally, yanked into a painting and sent spinning somewhere else.

Because how was it that, seconds ago, by some miraculous twist of fate, he’d been in Margaret Nettle’s bedroom worrying about her surviving dragon-talon poison, and now, in the time it had taken him to brush sleep from his eyes, he was standing in an enchanted garden?

It had to be enchanted. How else could one explain how he was now surrounded by the sort of vines and plants that had previously only existed for him in fairy-tale books he read as a child? Every direction he turned, he found flowers in shapes he’d never seen, in colors that seemed more magnificent than mere reds or blues or purples, twisting and reaching up to the sky like brushstrokes of color made on a canvas he could walk through. The flowers at Mrs. Hunnery’s shop were beautiful, but they seemed like common daisies compared to these. These . . . these were like creations from dreams.

But the flowers were nothing compared to her.

Her face was clean, and while he had certainly appreciated how whatever makeup she wore last night had drawn out her features, he found she was more beautiful this way than any other. Her eyes were brighter, softer, the freckles on her cheeks more visible, the natural blush of her lips the same color as the splashes of red in the flowers that surrounded them.

“Everything comes from right here,” she said. “See, these flowers are the ones I use for your tea. And over there, those crushed up make a balanced gin and tonic. And that one there, that’s the nectar I use on the hot chocolate. It’s what makes them perfectly sweet.”

Silas laughed. “You’re incredible.”

She smiled.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, waving around the garden.

“Beautiful,” he said, not taking his eyes off her.

She blushed at that, eyes widening before she burst out laughing. God, that sound. Let him drown in it.

“Where are we?” Silas asked. “I mean, are we literally in the painting?”

Margaret shook her head. “A portal, basically. Actually, we’re at the school. My grandmother created this while she was a student and then charmed it so that only her descendants—and those we let inside—can find it.”

At once, Silas thought of the shimmery space on the grounds that he could see from his window but couldn’t actually see through or find. This was that place, he realized.

Silas thought of his uncle. “You’re sure no one else can get in, though?”

Margaret laughed again. “Yes. It’s impossible for anyone to get in without being shown in by someone who has already been here.”

She pointed to a walkway at the end of the garden.

“That’s the entrance—and exit—to the school, right onto the grounds,” she said. “But as I have never shown anyone where it is, the entire school could walk right up to that entrance and not see a thing. Couldn’t even set foot here. That includes your uncle. He knows it exists, but he can’t get in.”

She walked closer to him, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “And considering you’re the only one I’ve ever brought here, there literally isn’t a more private place.”

Her eyes flashed at him then, a sort of hunger swirling there that made his own heart slam against his chest. Was she . . .

“That poison,” he said, fighting to keep a clear head. “It doesn’t addle your mind or anything, does it?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and stepped closer to him, lowering her voice to a husky whisper that burned clean through him. “No. My mind’s perfectly clear.”