herbs roasting. So she thought she’d done okay there.
And they tasted just fine, she decided, as did the fish Sedric caught only that afternoon and the peas she’d helped shell.
Breen waited until they’d finished the meal before she brought up what she thought might be a difficult topic.
“I need to go back tomorrow,” she began. “I need time, and I need my own space. I’m not saying this well. I’d never lived on my own before the cottage, and I need to.”
“Independence is a valuable thing.”
“I didn’t know how important it was to me,” she told Marg, “until I had it. Honestly, I didn’t know how much I enjoyed solitude until I had that. I know I’d close myself off too much, so I need to be careful there. Marco, well, he’d never let me, but he’s not here. So I wondered if, after a couple of days, I—we—could work out . . . Not a schedule, that’s so rigid. I don’t want to be rigid.”
At a loss, she picked up her wine, stared into it. Set it down again.
“Breen, tell us what you want.”
“I would if I knew. For now, I think I’d like to try living in the cottage, but coming here. If I could come here after I write in the morning, and you could teach me more. I could go back in the evening. Maybe stay here with you on the weekends. I don’t know if you even have weekends.”
“I understand your meaning.”
“I know it’ll take longer to learn or practice or train, but—”
“Balance is what you seek, and it’s a wise choice.”
“I don’t know if I can do or be what you hope for, but if I could take the time, this way, before I’m supposed to go back to Philadelphia, I think I could make a more, well, informed decision.”
With a nod, Marg rose, patted Breen’s shoulder. “Wait.”
“I’ve upset her,” Breen murmured. “I knew I would. I’m not—”
“You’re mistaken.” Sedric sipped his wine. “She doesn’t want impulse or obligation in you—such things weaken with time. Myself, I’d have thought less of you if you’d let either lead you in this.”
Marg came back, set a large book on the table. Carved on the dark brown leather cover was a dragon.
“The dragon, always your favorite. And he guards the magicks inside. I made this for you, began it the night you were born.”
“It’s beautiful.” Breen opened the cover, saw her name, the date of her birth, in beautiful handwriting on thick parchment.
She turned a page.
“The first part you’d call recipes—such as we practiced today.”
“The illustrations are wonderful. You drew them?”
“Some I did, and some Sedric drew, as he’s a fine hand at it.”
Breen looked at him. “A were-artist?”
That brought on the slow smile. “You could say.”
“Drawings help you identify the ingredients,” Marg went on, “the plants and roots and so on. From teas to potions, lotions, balms. And on to crystals and stones and their meanings, uses. And then to spells, from the casting of a circle and beyond.
“It’s yours, to take, to keep. I hope to study and learn, but yours nonetheless. I would ask you not to attempt any spell or ceremony without my guidance.”
“You can rest easy on that one. Thank you. I will study it. And . . .”
It wasn’t impulse so much as yearning that had her looking at the candle on the counter. She drew in her breath, set it to flame. “I’ll learn.”
In the morning, she walked the road with her book in her backpack and her dog at her side. She heard hoofbeats coming fast, stepped over to the side. A good thing, she decided, as the horse thundered its way toward her.
When Keegan pulled it up, her first thought was of course, just of course he’d have a huge gleaming black horse—probably a stallion.
And she’d seen the horse before, as she’d seen the rider.
In dreams.
He looked down at her, lifted an eyebrow. “Leaving, are you?”
“I’m coming back in a couple of days.”
“Are you now?”
“I said I was. Look, I get you’re king around here, but you’re not in charge of me.”
“I’m no king. We have no king.”
Because the idea clearly irritated him, she shrugged. “Whatever you call it. I’ve had other people running my life for twenty-six years. It’s my turn.”
Now he cocked his head. “And whose fault would it be you let others run your life?”
“People like you can’t understand people like me.”
He swung off the horse, studied her with curiosity. “Who are people like me