“And Madame is a vine witch as well?” He shook his head. “All this time, she never once made me suspect she was anything but a little eccentric, maybe a little superstitious. Well, except for that thing she does by rubbing her thumb and fingers together.”
“Her magic has worn thin with age. The gesture is how she checks for spells. Like reading by braille, only . . . metaphysically.”
“And Du Monde’s wife? She’s a foreigner, but she’s a vine witch too?”
“Oh, no. She’s quite different. She’s a bierhexe from the north.”
“Bierhexe?”
“They’re formidable at spell magic, but they don’t usually dabble in winemaking. They typically concentrate on potions and curatives when they’re not making beer. Think big cauldrons and clouds of rising steam. Though some do venture into wine nowadays. They’ve done well with the Riesling.”
“Am I wrong to think that there are more of your kind here in the Chanceaux Valley than other places?”
“It’s the terroir,” she said, breathing in the scents of distant rain, chalky soil, and verdant growth springing open on the vine. “I’m not sure there’s anywhere else to compare in the world. The place carries its own magic. Difficult for my kind to resist.”
He nodded as if he understood, taking in the scenery like a country gentleman out for a bit of night air. The same things had likely lured him to the valley. Grand-Mère had been right about him. She saw that now. He had the heart of a true vigneron building inside him.
“I was pledged to the vineyard at Château Renard as a child after my parents died,” she said, wanting him to know the truth. “I’ll always belong to that plot of earth, no matter the owner.”
“Are you saying you were sold into the business? Is that how it works?”
“I’m bound but not indentured. I could have easily ended up working on the streets as a card reader or pickpocket if I hadn’t been taken in. Madame and Monsieur had no children of their own, no one to take over when they were gone.” Elena paused, wondering if she sounded like she still blamed him for losing the title to the vineyard. She no longer did. “When they offered to teach me the magic of making wine,” she continued, “it was like planting a new root in old soil. Because I was so young my knowledge was shaped around the unique characteristics of the Renard terroir. That bond is why I’m so protective of it. It’s why I can’t imagine making wine anywhere else.”
They rode a moment in silence before he shifted in the saddle and asked, “What I saw last night. The lights. And that thing.”
“The gargoyle?”
“Yes, that. Is that normal? Is there really an entire world I can’t see?”
“Not even all witches can see what walks in the shadows.”
“But you do.”
She looked around, astonished at how quickly her energy had recovered in his presence. She pointed to a wall marking the boundary of an abandoned vineyard on their right. Above it loomed the ruins of a stone castle. Only one turret remained upright. The rest of the fallen stonework sat buried in overgrown moss and ivy. “There, on the hill. Do you see the arch above the old gateway?” He pulled on the horse’s reins, and she pressed her hand over his. “Now what do you see?”
He looked down at their clasped hands, then squinted at the distant castle. “Do you mean the blue light? It appears to be moving. I watched a demonstration in the Palais de l’Électricité at the World Exhibition a few years ago that created a light like that. But they couldn’t possibly have electricity up there? Why would they?”
“No, it’s not electric. Not exactly.” She fumbled for a way to describe it. “It is energy, but the source doesn’t come from any generator. It’s more atmospheric in nature. It’s been glowing above that gate since I was a child.”
“What’s it for?”
She slid her thumb over the back of his hand, thinking about the witch who had cursed her and stolen her warmth. “It was a fort once, and later they kept a few witches there who’d broken the new Covenant Laws. Celestine is the one most people remember.”
“I’ve ridden up there. The whole place is falling apart. There couldn’t be anyone there still.”
“No, not for ages, but I wanted you to see the ruins aglow with spell magic.”
He stared up at the place, eyes focused in morbid fascination, then tucked her hand back in his pocket