A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 21

A fter Linden tucked Briar into bed, smoothing his hair away from his forehead and reminding him to take another potion if he felt unwell, he promised to return in a few hours.

But Briar wished to be alone. He couldn’t sleep, Rowan’s miserable expression painted onto the backs of his eyelids. He might as well have slapped him. On death’s doorstep, breaking up with him, then a few days later hopping into a relationship with some savant celebrity like their time together hadn’t mattered.

He took a whole roll of toilet paper into bed with him and spent hours weeping and moping. Vatii huddled close, but he could hardly abide even her company.

“You should be telling me off. This is my fault.”

“I can’t be hard on you when you’re already so hard on yourself.” At Briar’s wretched sob in answer, she added, “Linden has been doting on you more and more. Was it not nice to get to know him better?”

He didn’t know how to express how unhelpful that question was. Linden was the most buttoned-up person he had ever kissed. Kissing Rowan was bonfire warmth, and kissing Linden was cupping a candle in a blizzard. They hardly compared. He couldn’t say it out loud through the guilt, though.

He might have wallowed for the entire week, but a confluence of previous engagements and poor fortune prevented it. He had to pick up an order of textiles from Sorcha.

She was sitting behind her till darning a pair of dungarees when he arrived. At the sound of his entry, she hardly looked up. On the counter lay the folded yards of fabric he’d ordered, but seeing them, he realized they would be too heavy to carry in his current state. His throat went dry.

“There you are,” Sorcha said, pointing with her chin.

Caught between the carving knife of her mood and the immovable weight of the fabric, he went to try. He knew the second he’d wedged his arms under the pile it would be impossible.

“I… don’t think I can lift it,” he said.

Sorcha put down her darning. “I suppose you’ll want me to fetch him?”

He winced. “How is he?”

“I’m not to speak of it. He isn’t here, so I’ll let him know to deliver it, shall I?”

“No, I’ll just take it in trips—”

“Don’t trouble yourself. You’re touched by God he’s better tempered than I am. Just go.”

He took the bolt from the top of the pile and left.

Though the fabric was chiffon and light, it increased in weight with each step. Briar reached his shop with numb arms and a pounding head. It was less than he deserved.

Vatii, unusually merciful, did not agree. She thought Sorcha’s behavior was unfair, and proclaimed this loudly all the way home, where Briar fell into an unintentional nap.

After waking, he unraveled the new fabric and cut the pattern for the bodice of a dress. He got out his embroidery hoop and stitched yellow flowers into the creamy blue chiffon. It would be a summery dress at odds with the snow pillowing outside, but with so little time left to him, all work seemed strange anyway.

He appraised the ribbon wrapped around his lamp. He could distract himself with projects as much as he liked, but he would have to face Gretchen eventually. Getting up, he went to unlace the ribbon. It fell away, and the glowing runes vanished, dispelled.

“Gretchen?”

Silence answered. He waited. She did not appear.

He would sulk too in her position. With naught else to do, he returned to embroidery. Not an hour into it, he’d made good progress, even felt a thrill at his own accomplishment. His phone buzzed a couple times while he tied off the threads of a flower stem.

Then it buzzed again. Again. Over and over, buzzing as if primed to detonate.

He leaned to pick it up and nearly dropped it at the sight of his Alakagram notifications. He’d received no less than two thousand in the span of a few minutes. Flicking open his phone, he checked what had prompted the sudden influx.

Linden had tagged him in a post. It was the first on Briar’s feed—a photo Linden must have taken while they’d been cuddling and Briar fell asleep. His hair shone bright in the television’s blue light, however his eyes bore dark circles from his days spent bedridden from the curse. And he was wearing his fairy pajamas, so faded after ten years of washing that the pattern was barely distinguishable. Linden smiled into the camera, eyes half lidded, as though he’d fallen asleep too and only awoken to take the photo on impulse. The caption read:

He looked too cute not to. Can you guess our secret announcement??

A wave of flattery and indignant fury came over Briar. What secret announcement? Why hadn’t Linden asked before posting that? They were courting, yes, but they’d never discussed going public. The comments were a wash of congratulations and engagement ring emojis. Also, a few less-generous remarks about Briar. He did look haggard, but he was ill.

He tapped out a message to Linden, then erased it and typed out another, then erased that, too. He gave up and called but hit voicemail.

A rattling anxiety vibrated in his chest. He should be rejoicing, but instead he felt as though strangers had set up camp in his private bed of mourning and blown party horns in his ears. As he snapped his phone shut, it continued buzzing until he disabled Alakagram’s notifications. He grabbed his coat.

Linden’s shop assistant turned the color of a tomato at the sight of him. She’d clearly seen the post and recognized him. She didn’t ask if he had an appointment, just let him bluster through.

Briar paused abruptly at the sound of Linden’s voice, pitched loud enough to hear on the sixth stair.

“I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours who I court—yes, court! ‘Fuck,’ you say. You chastise me for ‘fucking peasants,’ but you have a peasant’s tongue.”

He spat each word. Briar’s rocketing nerves spiked. Linden’s parents would have seen the Alakagram post as well. Linden didn’t bother correcting them on the current state of their physical relationship, either.

“If it is our family’s reputation that concerns you, perhaps you should look to yourself for the sort of example you set! Regardless, it’s done now. It can’t be taken back, not unless you can call upon a miracle to wipe ten million memories, which you obviously cannot. Now, I’m busy working actual miracles so, with no respect, as you aren’t due any, goodbye .”

A brittle silence followed. Briar’s mind reeled. He hoped never to get on Linden’s bad side but had come here spoiling for an argument. Only now he felt terrible. Linden’s affection for him flew in the face of his parents’ wishes, and he’d just finished defending the legitimacy of their relationship.

He knocked on the door. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Linden jumped. He’d been standing in front of a crackling fire, a cauldron brewing over it. He paled. “You overheard again.”

“Yeah. I get it. ‘Peasant fucker’ isn’t likely to sweeten your resume.”

“You must know I don’t think of you that way!” he protested.

“No, of course not.” Briar frowned. He’d come for a reason, but he was losing sight of it. In light of his parents’ reactions, Linden’s big announcement was probably intended to be romantic. Briar had been furious with Celyn for hiding their relationship out of shame, yet he was still angry with Linden for doing the opposite. The irony didn’t evade him. Whatever Briar planned to say, he tempered it. “I saw Alakagram.”

Linden beamed. “I hoped it might be a surprise, given you’ve had a difficult few days. And that business with the alderman.”

Briar didn’t want to talk about Rowan. “It was a surprise! A nice one, but, maybe next time, a little less surprise would be… good?”

His face fell. “Oh?”

“Not that I don’t appreciate it! It’s very sweet. It’s just, I didn’t know we were going public, and my phone blew up, and I wish I’d had something to cover the dark circles under my eyes in that photo because I look seriously rough—”

“Ah,” Linden said. “Ah, I hadn’t thought.”

“I do really appreciate it!”

Linden took a seat on the lounge. “Yes, yes, of course. Forgive me, I should have warned you. I forget you aren’t accustomed to this.”

“This? Relationships?”

“Fame.”

Briar wasn’t sure it was the fame that bothered him. But he also wasn’t sure anymore which part had bothered him, so he sat next to Linden and opened his phone to the Alakagram post again. Linden eyed him curiously.

“Thought I looked cute, huh?” Briar said.

“You did. Do.”

“And what’s this big announcement?”

“Our summer line, of course. I think we should hold a press release—a party of sorts. It would be a brilliant opportunity to promote our collaboration, not to mention wear the first garment you made for me. What do you think?”

Briar gaped. “When?”

“Soon, I thought. The beginning of February, to usher in spring.”

It sounded wonderful, exciting. It also sounded like a lot of work. The familiar scent of the potion brewing in the cauldron reminded him that these events would affect him differently now. “I’ll take any excuse to party,” he said. “Provided I’m, uh, still standing.”

Linden took his hand and squeezed. “Yes, your health is my priority above all else. That is why I’m applying all my focus to researching a cure, and I think I’ve made progress. You’ve inspired me to explore other avenues, and I may be onto something.”

“I have? Maybe I can help.”

“I appreciate the offer, but you’re not well. Besides, I believe this is something I must do on my own. I promised I would find this for you. I intend to keep that promise. Beyond that…”

Briar thought he saw a crack in Linden’s facade. His distant expression belied an unidentified yearning, some passion he normally protected.

“You can tell me,” Briar said.

Linden’s answering smile flickered. “The world views all my accomplishments through the lens of those previous. Nearly every week, some tabloid runs a story about my lost talents, and the frivolous waste of my mind on fashion.”

“But you love designing.”

“What I love—hell, who I love—has never felt like mine, though. I’m never allowed to…”

Briar’s chest ached at that word love . A whole world of magic, yet nothing that could forge a new road that didn’t end in death or heartbreak for someone .

“I’ll show you.” Linden pulled his phone out and tapped through the trending tags on Alakagram. One of the first was #pityprince. Scrolling, each post critiqued the nature of Linden and Briar’s relationship, positing that it was a charity case—the prince and the pauper—a ruse to elevate Linden’s image from frivolous to philanthropist. They referred to Briar as “some nobody.” Among the comments, plenty of fans defended Linden, but these were answered with dismissive “bootlicker” accusations. Round and round it went. Briar could imagine what the gossip channels might say if they knew about his health, the curse, or Linden’s research.

“These are tame compared to the more outlandish conspiracy theories. There’s an entire website dedicated to the notion that my family are alien cannibals who devoured our relatives in order to sustain our power on Earth—because that is apparently more believable than losing everyone we loved to a terrible illness.”

Linden had never spoken about his other family members and the plague that took them. From the pinched look on his face, it was a subject which grieved him still.

“It was short-sighted not to warn you what a courtship with me might entail. Truthfully, I’ve lived alone in it so long that I forgot not everyone’s life is analyzed beneath a microscope. Or perhaps, selfishly, I was glad not to be alone in it any longer. I’m sorry to have exposed you—”

“Don’t apologize,” Briar said. “I’ve been called worse things than ‘pity prince.’ Who cares what they say? They don’t know you.”

Linden looked into his eyes. “But you do.”

Did he? Briar still felt they had a lot to learn about one another, but this was a change. A peek behind the curtain into Linden’s brilliant mind. Perhaps there was hope yet that Briar’s feelings could change.

He bumped Linden’s shoulder with his. With more confidence than he felt, he said, “We’ll prove them wrong.”

Despite his commitments, something else swiftly climbed to the top of Briar’s priority list.

Rowan’s visit, and Linden’s untimely interruption, replayed in Briar’s mind over and over, unhindered no matter how he distracted himself. Rowan hadn’t answered his texts, and normally he’d take that as a painful indication Rowan wanted space. Yet, containers full of food appeared on Briar’s doorstep, on top of the fabric shipment—neatly wrapped in cling-film—but Rowan was never there by the time Briar opened the door.

He had to apologize—not only because his mother would be rolling in her grave that he hadn’t yet, but because he kept tripping into a sinkhole of grief over hurting Rowan. This, and he wished he could have heard what Rowan had been about to say that night. Even though he felt sure it would only hurt more to know for certain what he’d lost.

So he bundled up in every jumper and jacket he owned to visit Rowan’s cottage.

It was too cold for the chickens to be out, but he heard aggressive clucking from the coop as he trudged up the snow-slippery path. Smoke curled from the chimney. At the door, he rehearsed what to say, bumping snow from his boots in a shivering tap dance. Finally, he knocked.

Thumping from inside, then the door opened.

And all Briar’s prepared apologies died on his tongue.

Standing in a housecoat and slippers was Rowan, only a decade younger.

“Your beard,” Briar said. “You shaved your beard?!”

Rowan reached to rub his disturbingly smooth jaw. “Ehm, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Just…” Rowan shrugged. He looked rough and sleepless, but he also looked like a baby. “Just thought I could use a—Briar, what are you doing here?”

Briar hesitated. Normally, he’d ask to be let in to have this conversation in private. Now, he wasn’t sure he could handle seeing the inside of Rowan’s home with its stupid, cozy fireplace and stupid, cozy furniture carved by Rowan’s stupid, lovely hands.

“I came to apologize.”

“You don’t have t—”

“No, I do. Rowan, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you that I was never with Linden when I was with you. Not ever. I promise, it only just started.”

The calm in Rowan’s eyes flickered. “I… That’s good to know.”

“And I’m sorry you found out like that, too. It was horrible, and I’m horrible, and I understand if you need space. You don’t need to answer my texts or bring me food just because I’m ill and—”

“Briar… I’m your friend first. You were clear where we stood, and I—It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Briar said desperately. “It did.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

Just like that. No jealous outburst, no demands to know more. Briar would never have been so gracious in Rowan’s place. His breakup with Celyn came to mind. He wished Rowan would get angry, dare Briar to deny that whatever they’d shared could be so easily abandoned.

Rowan told him he should come in to warm up, but Briar insisted on heading home.

He trudged into his flat and went upstairs to continue embroidering with a healthy dose of sulking. When he reached the landing, he found his flat wasn’t empty.

Gretchen sat just as she had before, cross-legged on the kitchen table. Her apparition wore the same clothes as the day she died, her hair still tangled in its messy bun. Even the streaks of dirt on her knees were the same. She couldn’t wear the exhaustion of her time spent banished the way Briar wore the effects of his curse—in clothes hanging off his thin frame and dark circles under his eyes. Yet she looked… harrowed.

After lingering in the doorway, Briar pulled out a chair to sit facing the table. He was so tired. Slept-for-weeks-and-still-needed-more tired. Neither of them spoke. It was a question of who would be magnanimous enough to apologize first.

“You didn’t have to throw salt at me,” Gretchen said.

“You didn’t have to wish me dead,” Briar shot back.

The stalemate persisted.

Gretchen broke it. “It took me a long time to figure it out, you know. When I died. I didn’t look down at my corpse like they do in dumb movies. I woke up in bed like I’d been sleeping and went straight back to working on a potion recipe. I could stir a cauldron, drop ingredients in. I went a long time without feeling hungry when I was alive, so it wasn’t much different when I was dead. I only realized when people came and started taking away my things, and they couldn’t hear me screaming at them to stop, but they sure felt it when I threw a ladle at their head. They ran away screaming, ‘Ghost!’ and that’s when I knew.”

Briar listened with a feeling like a clenched fist.

“Ever since, I’ve been trapped here. A new witch would move in, and every year they’d make sure I stayed trapped. No one bothered with the expense of an exorcism. Why bother, when salt’s good enough, right?”

She looked around at the bed, at the various symbols of Linden’s presence there. “It doesn’t look like you’d struggle to afford an exorcism now.”

“Linden offered,” Briar said. “I’d never do that to you.”

She looked sad, picking at a laddered tear in her leggings. “I’m not very good at admitting when I’m wrong. Wasn’t when I was alive either.” A shaky sigh. “I wasn’t mad at you about the tether. I was mad because I thought we were friends, and you didn’t even tell me you were cursed.”

Briar said, “We are friends.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

Because people looked at him differently when they knew, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Where had he got this stubborn impulse to do everything by himself? At the heart of it, maybe he still felt he had something to prove. That wasn’t the whole of it either, though.

He said, “Ever since my mum died, I’ve been on my own.”

“Ever since I died, I’ve been on my own, too, until you showed up.”

The last part she said with such dripping sarcasm that Briar chuckled. “Sorry?”

“Is that an apology?”

“I’m sorry for throwing salt at you.”

“Well, I’m sorry for telling you to just die.”

The pressure of the stalemate dissolved. Briar eased back in his chair. Spoken like this, the argument sounded ridiculous, for all it had wounded him deeply at the time.

Gretchen said, “I really am sorry. Are you… feeling better?”

It mattered most that she asked. “A bit.”

Awkwardly, Gretchen said, “So, what have I missed? What year is it?”

They fell into companionable conversation, mostly about the bizarre occurrences lately, the increase in attacks from the forest, the acceleration of his curse. He skimmed over the events of his love life, though he doubted she’d ridicule him for it. He enjoyed the return of his friend so much, he almost forgot to tell her what he meant to.

“The siphon!”

He sprang up. Gretchen looked bewildered as he ran to the desk and reefed open the drawer. The siphon rolled around inside.

“Have you seen this thing before? Do you know who made it?” he asked.

Gretchen floated next to him, her head tilted to the side. She looked closely at the object, face scrunched in confused concentration. Then her jaw slackened, a strange mix of recognition and uncertainty coming over her.

“I used to go on the roof,” she said. “I used to go on the roof to clear my head.”

She glided toward the window. Briar had seen her move objects before, but it was something else to watch her curl her fingers in the handles and, in one hard pull, open the window. She leaned out but seemed to encounter glass and could go no farther.

“Do you still have that curtain?” she said.

Briar fetched the cravat and tied it around his neck. He put his cloak on, climbed across his bed to the window, and looked out at the sloping roof. It wasn’t too steep, traversable, but the shingles were frosty with January cold. Briar held on to the frame and stepped out, making his cautious way up. The clay tiles would be easy to roll an ankle over, but he climbed on top of the dormer window, which was flat enough to sit on.

Gretchen waited there, knees tucked to her chin. “I used to come up here when I was stressed and too busy to take a walk, but I needed the air.” She recalled it hazily, squinting into the night. Her memories seemed to return to her like drips from a leaky faucet.

Briar followed her gaze. Over the rooftops, the forest swayed, a dark inkblot seeping into star-dappled sky.

“I think it does bother me,” she said. “Being dead.”

“Why are you so determined not to care about that?”

“Come on. It’s such a cliché.”

Briar couldn’t imagine not caring.

“I worked so hard, Briar. So damn hard, and for what? I thought I was doing good things, making healing potions. But I’d come up with one brilliant recipe, and it wasn’t enough. I’d move straight on to the next thing. Never stopped.”

The words felt sharp. They prodded Briar in places he didn’t want to examine.

“I think the worst part about being trapped in this house,” Gretchen said, “is that I hardly ever left it when I was alive anyway.”

She hugged her knees. Briar understood the feeling—he’d come to Coill Darragh wanting to make something of himself. To do something that mattered. Now, with his breath coming short in his lungs, he sometimes found himself wanting something simpler. Happier.

“Did the siphon jog any other memories?”

She shut her eyes. “I saw it before, but not here. In éibhear’s office? Then he gave me something.” Abruptly, she stood. “Something to hide.”

She was moving again, gliding toward the chimney. It was an old thing of brick and chipping mortar. She stopped on the other side of it, staring. Briar made his way slowly, some of the roof tiles wobbling. When he’d crested the top, he saw what Gretchen was looking at.

There, shimmering on a corner of the flanching, was a purple scar.

They knew without speaking what they’d found. Gretchen moved to touch it, but Briar called for her to wait. “Are you sure you want to see?”

In answer, she slapped a hand to the scar. Briar sat back on the roof ridge, one leg to either side of it for balance, as movement reined their attention toward the dormer window.

Gretchen, the living Gretchen, emerged from it.

She wore everything her apparition did, but her cheeks burned red with exertion as she scrambled up the roof. She reached the spot where her ghost stood and, getting to her knees, started prying at the roof tiles until she found one wiggly enough to free. She pulled something out of the pocket of her jumper and, in the recess beneath the loosened tile, set a small wooden box. A rune glowed on its lid.

A noise from the street, and she whipped her head around, terror in her eyes. With harried movements, she covered the gap with the tile again. The noises sounded closer, beneath them, emanating from Briar’s flat. Only it was her flat.

She said out loud, “Think, think, think!”

In a burst of inspiration, she tugged a few strands of hair from her own head, pulling her bun messy and looser. Her fingers trembled as she tied the hair into a knot. She pressed this to the tile, and the hair scorched and vanished, sealing the tile beneath.

Shaking, she made her way back toward the window, but someone else emerged from it, blocking her path. A tall figure, hooded and wearing a mask of ebony filigree, as if arriving from a party. A long tear in their cloak was soaked in blood from a cut to the shoulder. They stood on the eave. From the look on Gretchen’s face, she was considering pushing this person, except there was a good chance they would pull her down with them. Behind her, the fall was treacherous.

Briar gripped the roof tiles beneath him. A charge ran through him that had nothing to do with magic or memory. He knew what he was about to see.

Gretchen’s eyes flicked, searching for an escape route. The intruder lunged forward with something in their hand. Whatever it was imploded, their hand clenching around empty air. A shockwave of force hit Gretchen in the chest and sent her sprawling. Briar’s teeth ground together seeing her head clip the chimney. She landed heavily on the roof tiles, then rolled, her limp body tumbling over the edge. In the seconds before she hit the concrete below, her murderer summoned a portal and stepped through it. Briar only got a glimpse of something glittering brightly on the other side before the portal vanished. The vision severed the second Gretchen hit the pavement.

The ghost of her still stood with her hand in the chimney. She withdrew it. A cold horror overcame her features.

“Gretchen, I’m—”

“Don’t.” She dropped to her knees at the exact spot where she’d hidden something under the roof. Her last act. She pried at the tile, fingers leaving trenches in the moss grown over it, but it didn’t budge, sealed by her own magic.

“Help me!” she said shrilly.

Briar startled into action. He moved carefully, balancing next to her. Brushing away the moss, he found the faint scorch marks of the hair used as a tithe. “We need magic to open it.”

“Then get something!”

“I don’t have anything for unlocking something like this, and if I use a flesh tithe, I’ll fall off this roof, too.” He said it gently, which only made her angrier.

“There has to be something.”

A stir of memory hit him. “A secret. Tell me a secret, and that’ll undo it.”

Gretchen started to say, “I have no secrets because I can’t remember—” She stopped. She looked at the edge of the roof where she’d fallen. “I do remember.”

Briar put his hand over the tile. He didn’t speak, afraid to derail the threads of recollection she’d been gathering since laying eyes on the siphon.

“I remember,” she said again, “going to the woods with éibhear to harvest red carnellas. There was something special about them. This time was different, though. The forest felt… sick.” Her eyes glazed, caught in memory. “We went to the place carnellas bloomed and found a crater. Everything—the carnellas, the trees, their roots, gone. Just scorched earth and that siphon thing at its center. éibhear took the siphon to study and sent me to look for more carnellas.”

“Why were the carnellas so important?”

“I… can’t quite remember? They had special properties, but they were difficult to harness as tithes. We were studying them. Working on something with them? I looked for a long time and found only three, so I picked them.” She folded into herself. “The forest reacted. It was all wrong. It lashed out at me, tried to kill me. I barely escaped. It had never done that, not in all the times we’d gone before.”

Briar listened, his heart thudding like the unusual, rhythmic cadence of her speech.

“I found éibhear in his study. It was in tatters. Everything trashed. God, everything was so wrong. éibhear didn’t have time to tell me what had happened.” Her face was stricken with misery. “We heard noise on the stairs. No one else was supposed to be home. éibhear told me to take the carnellas and hide them where only he would find them.

“Then I turned to go, and I saw him .”

Briar shivered. Somehow, he knew it was her killer she spoke of.

“That mask. I had to run past him to get away, and he lashed out with a knife.” She gripped her shoulder, where the fabric was torn, the cut underneath obscured. “I don’t think I’d have made it if éibhear hadn’t struck him. He used some kind of magic I’d never seen before. Like he’d called the forest up to fight for him. I think that’s when I knew how much danger I was in. That mask .” She shuddered. “I ran. That’s the last time I saw éibhear.”

The rest of the story they both knew. They’d just watched it play out.

Between them, the roof tile juddered as the secret, now told, worked its magic. Neither of them removed it to check what was beneath. Not yet. Gretchen sat frozen, racked by memories. Her murderer had chased her down. Not to take the carnellas—he’d left without them—but to get rid of her. Like she was a loose end that needed trimming, a stain to rub out of the carpet. Whatever she’d seen, she was never meant to.

Gretchen sniffed. “We should get that out.” She pointed at the loose tile.

His fingers were going numb with cold, but Briar pried it up. There, just as she’d left it, was the box. It had cracked open, compelled by the powerful secrets in her story.

Inside, the carnellas, decades old, had wilted to papery shrapnel.

“We should keep them. They could still be useful,” Gretchen said. Seeing him shivering, she added, “And you should get inside.”

Briar made his way down, grip tight on the tiles, taking it slow. Images of Gretchen falling over the edge played in his mind in a nauseating loop. He climbed back inside, trekking dirt and moss onto his bed covers.

“Briar.”

He turned around at the sound of Gretchen’s voice. She floated there, just outside his window, when he and his cravat were inside.

He held the small box of carnellas tightly. Her tether, now unlocked.

She was free of it.