To Bear an Iron Key (25 page)

“No.”

“To cast, you must lose yourself to the magic of Nature and trust it to keep you safe as you work with it; if you show any restraint, the spell will unravel. The Way of the Heart makes you vulnerable, but if you trust in it completely, it also makes you infallible. What you give, you receive.” Jessamin sighed. “It is very much like being in love.”

Bromwyn nodded her understanding.

“Being with Oren was like casting from the Heart. He made me lose myself and find myself all at once. He made me feel truly alive. A year and a day after we first met, we pledged our love beneath the moon. It was his name, you see, Oren Moon, and it was both something of a joke to him and yet completely serious: He made all vows in moonlight.”

“Rather like a witch,” Bromwyn said.

“Yes.” Jessamin paused again, and a shadow passed over her face. “Two months after that, he disappeared. The villagers in Mooreston thought he must have drowned, and the fish that he had so enjoyed must have enjoyed themselves in turn upon his flesh. But I knew otherwise. I had begged your grandmother to return him from the dead, and she told me that she could not return what she did not have. He was still alive. Missing, but alive.”

“Mother,” Bromwyn said quietly, “I am sorry.”

Jessamin quickly wiped her eyes. “With Oren gone,” she said, “there was nothing left for me but my magic. And so I finally became the apprentice your grandmother had always wanted. I was dutiful. Studious. The following summer was the test of my Way. Your grandmother gave me the Key to the World Door and good advice that I did not believe I needed. And so I found myself the Guardian, with the King and Queen of the fey dancing overhead. I presented them with the rules of decorum, and they gave me their condition in return: I was not to use my magic during their visit. I readily agreed. The terms were set, and we sipped sweet wine, and I watched the fey celebrate Midsummer in the Allenswood.”

Bromwyn waited.

“I was careless,” said her mother. “The fey saw my darkest heart, and one of them, a river hag, approached me. She knew where my lost love was, she said to me. He had fallen into a waygate at the water’s edge.”

Bromwyn had read of such gates, pockets of magic that swallowed the unwary traveler and spat them out somewhere within the fey lands—with no way to return.

“The hag promised to fetch him for me and return him through the World Door that very evening if I would do one thing for her: Give her a love potion. I agreed.”

“You bargained with the fey?” Bromwyn asked, shocked.

“I would have done anything to see Oren once more,” Jessamin insisted. “Yes, I bargained with the river hag. I gave her a potion that would seduce even creatures with the hardest of hearts, and she gave me Oren. But the hag had been the Queen in disguise, and she had tricked me into breaking the compact made earlier that evening.”

Bromwyn thought of a pixie at the window, and she grimaced. The Queen did so enjoy her disguises.

“The King challenged me for the right to return every night for a year, to walk freely in the land with no restrictions.” Jessamin sighed. “It was your grandmother’s quick thinking that saved the village. She spoke quietly with the Queen while the King gloated in front of me, and then your grandmother flattered him with a suggestion of a toast to his victory. But it was the Queen, influenced by your grandmother’s words, who put the love potion into the King’s cup.”

“Were they not already husband and wife?” Bromwyn asked. “Why did she need to enchant the King to win his love?”

Her mother let out a humorless laugh. “Do I need to tell you of arranged marriages and loveless lives, Daughter?”

Bromwyn blushed and bit her lip.

“The King, newly smitten, rescinded his challenge in his rush to return with his lady Queen to their land and do the things that husbands and wives do when they are in love. The World Door closed with the fey tucked away on their side, and your grandmother locked the way behind them.” Jessamin took a deep breath. “And in the circle of stones on the great Hill in the Allenswood, your grandmother cut my hair. I had failed my test as Guardian, and I lost my magic.”

Bromwyn reached over and clasped her mother’s shaking hand.

“I became ordinary,” Jessamin said. “But I had Oren once more, and as the last glimpses of moonlight remained, he and I pledged our love. Your grandmother married us right there, and he and I returned to Mooreston, where the villagers celebrated his return.”

“It was worth the price,” Bromwyn declared. “Love is more important than magic.”

Jessamin squeezed her hand. “I did love him so. I loved him, though his time in the fey lands had left their mark upon him. He could not stand to be in crowds, and if too many people talked at once, he would scream. We lived on the very edge of the village, where our closest neighbor was Nick Ironside, the blacksmith.”

Bromwyn had not known that Old Nick had originally been from Mooreston.

“There were times when nothing would console Oren, and he had to lock himself away until his sadness passed. Most of the villagers considered his strangeness a side-effect of his kidnapping—for the story was he had been taken by bandits and had been forced to travel with them before he could escape—and they cautiously accepted him once more as the apprentice weaver, and me, his wife, as a cartomancer. My magic was gone, but I could still interpret a customer’s wishes and wants, based on their faces, their mannerisms, their way of speaking.” Jessamin smiled briefly. “And I could talk a good game, if needed.”

Rusty would have thoroughly approved. Bromwyn grinned.

“Soon we had you.” Her mother smiled again, warmer this time. “Oh, how Oren loved to hold you. You soothed him in ways that even I could not. You made him better, Daughter. You healed him with a laugh.”

Bromwyn blinked away sudden tears. How she wished she could remember her father!

Her mother’s smile faded. “You do not know the people of Mooreston. They are a suspicious people, and they look unfavorably upon anything that hints at magic. Old Gilla there is known simply as Mistress Midwife, and she and her apprentice work their craft in secret. Everyone there knocks on Gilla’s door when they need a tonic for one ailment or another, but they would burn her alive if they thought her a witch.”

Horrified, Bromwyn said, “Truly?”

Jessamin nodded. “Most had accepted your father’s oddness. But some—” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat before she continued. “Some did not accept it. They saw my work with the cards as deviltry, and soon they whispered that my evil had enchanted Oren.” Her hand, still in Bromwyn’s, shook violently. “They came for us at night. They entered our home and slew your father. They would have killed you and me as well, had Nick Ironside not arrived, swinging his axe. He dispensed justice that night, but even so, I lost Oren again—this time, forever.”

“Oh, Mother,” Bromwyn cried. “I am so sorry!”

“Old Nick decided to leave Mooreston, and we left with him. The three of us came to Loren, where they were in want of a blacksmith. When I became Mistress Cartomancer, the people here assumed that cartomancy was what I had studied with Niove Whitehair for all those years. None truly remembered that I had once been a witch. In truth, I had never acted the part.” A bitter smile played on her face. “The people of Loren remembered a carefree, irresponsible girl, and they saw before them a new widow with a baby. I told them only that my husband had drowned. Old Nick never said otherwise. He remained a good friend to me over the years, though he never attempted to court me. I think he knew it would not have mattered. My heart had broken and turned to stone the night your father died. And one can never mend a heart of stone.”

Jessamin lowered her head and sighed deeply.

“The fey had taken my love and returned my love at the cost of my magic,” she rasped. “And then I lost my love once more because of the fey’s mark upon him. And today, I spoke of things I had sworn never to speak of because the fey tricked you into thinking their foul blood runs in your veins.” She squeezed her daughter’s hand once more, then pulled away.

“Mother,” Bromwyn said, her voice breaking. “Please forgive me. I did not realize.”

Jessamin glanced down at her lap. “Tell me, Daughter: Your friend, the one whom your grandmother tricked into becoming the Guardian—did he go unchallenged?”

Bromwyn bit her lip before she replied, “No.”

“Did the fey take him?”

“No,” she said again. “I saved him.”

After a pause, her mother replied, “That is good.”

Bromwyn went to Jessamin’s side and knelt beside her, imploring. “I love him, Mother. I would lose everything if it meant having just him. Please, I beg you: Release me from my marriage promise.”

“Love scars you, my daughter. I would spare you from that pain.”

“It is a pain I am willing to have.”

“You need protection.”

“Mother,” Bromwyn said quietly, “when you were married, did that protect you?”

In reply, tears spilled down Jessamin’s cheeks.

“Please,” Bromwyn whispered. “Please.”

For a long moment, Jessamin did not speak. And then, through her tears, she replied, “If your grandmother agrees, then yes, I will end your betrothal.”

Bromwyn sobbed with relief as she hugged Jessamin tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered, and “thank you,” and “thank you” again, and for a time, the air was filled with thanks and quiet sobs.

Finally, Bromwyn gently kissed Jessamin’s brow. “I must go,” she said. “Grandmother is expecting me, and now I have even more reason to go there quickly.”

Her mother nodded and brushed away her tears. “Go. And Daughter?”

“Yes?”

“Everything I have done has been for love. And it ended poorly.” Her voice broke. “You are a better witch than I have been. Be better at love too.”

“I will,” Bromwyn promised, and then she kissed her mother once again before she ran out the door.

ONE NIGHT’S ACTIONS

Bromwyn stepped quickly as she walked through the village, thinking of what words could sway her grandmother into breaking off the engagement. Surely, even the witch of the Way of Death had to bow her head before love. Surely.

Bromwyn pondered and walked faster.

As she hurried, she noted that the people of Loren had clearly been working for hours, cleaning up the mess the fey had left in their wake: A massive pile of wreckage had been gathered in the Village Circle, and it slowly grew larger as one by one, villagers added shattered furniture and broken tools to the mound. Men and women and children all worked together, sweeping and hauling and gathering and, in the case of livestock, catching. Stray sheep trotted along the avenue, sporting colors upon their coats that would have put Mistress Dyer out of work. The heavy smell of charred wood and scalded grain still hung in the air, but based on the gathering clouds, the coming summer rain would soon set it right. Stepping quickly and carefully in the muddy streets, Bromwyn nodded to the villagers as she strode past.

And if one or two of them bowed their heads and murmured “Wise One,” well, who was she to tell them otherwise?

She paused by the ruins outside of the bakery, where she saw a familiar, red-haired boy hauling debris as his parents loaded the ovens. The sight of Rusty doing an honest day’s work made her smile. Perhaps the thief prince could learn after all. Seeing him made her heart swell, and she quickened her pace to a run. Surely, she could get her grandmother to see reason.

“Lady Witch,” a man’s voice called.

She halted her steps and turned to see Brend approaching her.

“Master Smith,” she said, surprised. During the year of their betrothal, he had never willingly spoken with her. “You look well, considering your ordeal last night.”

He smiled awkwardly, just a flick of his mouth, but it was enough to soften the hard lines of his face. “A black eye or two is nothing. I get worse every day from the forge.”

She recalled seeing his naked back, broad and muscular and peppered with fine scars. “If I may pry, is everything right again between you and your master?”

“He bent over backward to apologize. Said he wasn’t himself last night. And that was plain to anyone who knows him. He’s a good master and a good man.”

“Just this morning, my mother told me something similar.” Bromwyn smiled. “I am glad Nick Ironside made amends with you.”

“Yes. Well. So. I’ve been thinking. I never thanked you. For what you did last night.” He took a breath. “Thank you.”

Bromwyn’s mouth opened and closed, then opened once more, and she found her voice. “You are very welcome.”

He nodded, looking relieved. “I have to get back, keep helping with the cleanup. Fairies made a mess of things. Fairies,” he said again, quieter, shaking his head.

“And my grandmother is expecting me. Oh, Master Smith—”

“Brend,” he rumbled, and then he coughed. “Given that we’re to wed, it seems you should call me Brend.”

“Brend,” she agreed, “this should please you: After I speak with my grandmother, we can end our betrothal! We will not be forced to marry,” she said happily. “My mother finally understands that this would be a poor match, and she is willing to relent. I am certain my grandmother will agree. And once that is done, we will be free!”