behind him, shielding her in case something terrible came flying out, but other than the petals opening to reveal red letters written across the silky white spears, nothing happened.
“Don't trust your little ones?” Abel read aloud, turning to look at them like Uriah or Ivy had the answer. “What the hell does that mean?”
Uriah shook his head, but Ivy looked pale and disturbed. “It means I wasn't wrong or imagining things. I'm going to the coven house. I need to work in my garden.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Don't trust your little ones.
The warning haunted her, and not even the soothing pull and tear of removing weeds from her herb garden could dispel the churning fear and uncertainty rioting inside her.
There was something she hadn't mentioned to Uriah this morning because she hadn't quite trusted the feeling.
It was a strange thing to realize she might not have been able to use the magic she was born with, but her senses weren't so dull that she couldn't feel different kinds of magic all around her.
She'd sensed the wild animal magic in Uriah, and the other shifters around town. She’d sensed the magic her coven sisters built as they called upon Goddess. Early this morning, she’d sensed the ripple along the soles of her feet that had woken her out of a sound and peaceful sleep, pulling her from the warm safety of Uriah's embrace.
Don't trust your little ones.
Le Doux's letter warned Ivy not to trust anything the Fae said, and there was no doubt in her mind the person responsible for the warning via-flower was Fae. Even in sleep, Ivy felt the tickle of magic so similar to her own.
That was the truth of it. Like the ground flexing beneath her feet when she purposefully used her own magic for the first time, Ivy felt the earth reach out toward her with the gentlest of caresses to wake her. It hadn't felt like a warning so much as a whisper of kinship.
The flower had been left inches from the boundary of the wards erected by the coven, white, perhaps as a peace offering? Or was it just another pretty lie? A foolish hope that maybe, just maybe her brother knew about her and was trying to help her.
Don't trust your little ones.
It took everything she had not to look up at the house because she could feel them watching—Brickkle and Avia—both of them from the shadows beneath the porch.
With her hands deep in the soil, testing her magic and learning to read the dirt the way a blind person might learn to read braille, Ivy felt their little feet as they shuffled back and forth. She wondered if somehow they could be feeding information about her to another Fae, who in turn whispered in the ears of the ones who killed her mother.
To think about it made Ivy ache, feeling as though she were betraying her friends, but were the Brownies really friends? Rowena summoned them and asked for their help to make the coven house beautiful again.
Their contract of service was with Rowena, but perhaps they resented it. The two little ones seemed so kind and eager to help, but what if they weren't?
Ivy’s hands fisted in the dirt, and a shock wave rumbled around her, rattling the gardening tools on the table by the shed. The wind chimes on the porch jumped and sang.
It was just violent enough to send the two sneaks hiding under the porch scurrying back inside. Ivy jerked her hands from the soil and sat back on her heels with a thump; the little quake faded to nothing as she sat there surrounded by a pile of weeds, startled by what she'd managed to do.
“I wondered if that was you.”
Ivy jumped again at the sound of Rowena's proud voice and looked to see her leaning against the porch rail with a smile on her face.
“It was an accident,” Ivy blurted instinctively.
Rowena shrugged and came down the stairs to sit in the grass next to her, scooping up the weeds to toss in Ivy's compost bucket. “We've all been there as we're discovering the depth of our powers. Were you angry?”
“A bit.”
“Something happen with Uriah?” Rowena asked carefully, reaching in to pluck a sprig of mint from the garden bed.
Ivy couldn't help the smile that split her face. “No. He's good. We're good. It's crazy how much I love him.”
“It's not crazy.” Rowena sighed, smiling as she popped a mint leaf in her mouth and turned her face up to