A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 28

B ackstage at the Pentawynn Gala Runway was a mill of models, makeup artists, choreographers, and designers. It reminded Briar of Gretchen’s exorcism in his flat, a typhoon of frenetic movement and swirling fabric. He waited in the wings, wringing his hands.

Their line would walk the long, lit strip beyond, and it should have been a moment for celebration, but every inch of Briar trembled with sick nerves.

His plan had come together in the wan hours of dawn light while Linden slept.

Vatii’s talons gave his shoulders a squeeze. “You can do this,” she whispered.

Still, it wouldn’t do to lose what little breakfast he’d eaten.

Briar prepped the model wearing his dress from the press release. It had to be adjusted to fit. He resented letting anyone else wear it, but it had been his greatest creation yet, and he’d be damned if he didn’t make good on Finola’s bargain that he bring something of his own to the runway.

Finola appeared, wearing her braids piled in a colorful scarf on her head, the long sleeves of her robes trailing like wings. She spoke, to his surprise, with Linden’s parents. There were stilted laughs and polite, overly wide smiles. She caught Briar’s eye, said her farewells, then whisked over to him.

“Nervous?” She gave his shoulder a pat. “You look a bit pale. Can I get you a glass of water?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine. Is it strange to just want to get it over with?”

In a conspiratorial whisper, “You seemed to love the cameras before. What’s so different now?”

“I’ve waited for this day my whole life.” It was half the truth.

“And your nerves have nothing to do with Linden?”

She’d been so reticent to let the Fairchilds near her show. Briar said, “Are you on better terms now?”

“You know, at first, I thought it was rich. Now they want to talk to me. Now that I’m somebody . But after speaking to them today…” She tapped a finger against her elbow. “They said they’d missed me, and they sounded genuine. Makes a girl wonder, you know?”

Once, Briar might have considered the implication ridiculous. Linden was their son, their junior. How could he possibly have that kind of influence?

Now, he knew Linden better.

“Shit, speak of the devil,” she said. “Oh well, it’s time to start. Knock ’em dead, yeah?”

Finola left at Linden’s approach. His garments were forest green with gold embellishments like scales. His hair had been drawn up into an elegant knot, a decorative pin dangling jeweled drops from it. He appraised the models, each wearing something Briar’s fingers had bled to create. It raised all the hairs on the back of Briar’s neck to feel him stand so near, their arms touching from shoulder to elbow.

“It is a fine thing we’ve created,” he said.

“How much longer until it starts?”

“Ah, these things always run over. It feeds the anticipation of the crowd. You need not be nervous.”

Briar held his arms tightly around himself and, with a hand, felt along the edge of the journal hidden within an interior pocket of his vest, magically masked from sight. Not that it needed much. The curse rendered him thin enough that it probably wouldn’t show anyway.

“I have something that might take your mind from it,” Linden said. “I thought to surprise you, but…”

Briar knew what he would pull from his pocket. It was a velvet box, which he flipped open to show the ring inside. An enormous, glittering thing, a band of tiny diamonds set with one huge gem and a waft of magic—the enchanted contract that would prevent Briar from ever speaking a word against Linden to anyone. It did nothing to stifle Briar’s terror.

He pretended to be awestruck. Linden tucked it back into his jacket before anyone else could see. With a smug laugh, he said, “Our work will be the star of the show, but you will be the envy of everyone.”

Outside, the crowd hushed, spotlights spun, and Finola’s voice rang out, magically projected to the audience of fellow designers and celebrities. She introduced herself, the show, talked about how excited she was to present the stunning, innovative work of many new and untried designers.

Then she called their names.

Linden took Briar’s hand, and they walked out together. Briar plastered on a smile, though his jaw felt like rusted iron. He squeezed Linden’s hand hard. The lights shone so brightly that many faces were mere shadows, for which he was grateful. After the applause died down, Linden told the story of their meeting, their project, how their work together brought them closer.

Briar spoke his rehearsed lines verbatim. So lucky to be here. And the one line that mattered most to him, “This is for my mother, without whom I’d have never made it this far. I wish she was here.”

It was the only moment where the painful, stilted speech made his voice bubble with real tears. He hoped she would be proud of what he was about to do. He hoped, if her spirit watched, that she did not feel responsible for what he’d landed himself in. If his resolve to do it alone, to prove himself, had been for her, he understood now that she would never have wanted that loneliness for him. She’d tell him it was okay to need people.

They retreated backstage, and the models strutted out in an even stream, garments billowing, springtime cherry blossom charms dancing around them. From backstage, Briar saw appreciative nods, some murmurs of approval, but he could also see Finola. She watched the outfits with a pursed mouth, recognizing Linden’s trademark influence, which had consumed Briar’s vision. Until the second-to-last garment.

Linden hadn’t allowed Briar’s to take the runway as the show-stopping finale. He’d insisted it be the penultimate. Still, Briar felt a small glow of pride as the model glided across the stage with a train of flowers sweeping behind him. The dress Briar had made and worn himself, not long past. Finola’s stern expression melted into one of nodding approval, her eyes following the outfit to the runway’s end and back again.

Briar saw the last two models return as if watching the blade of a guillotine slide toward him.

Linden took his hand again. They walked out to applause and the standing ovation of some. He and Linden bowed deeply, twice. Blood rushed to Briar’s head, made his vision swim. To the tune of many hands clapping, Linden pulled the ring smoothly from his pocket and got down on one knee. The noise of the crowd was a crescendo of applause and cameras clicking. Briar ceased breathing, steeled himself. Vatii gave his cheek an encouraging touch of her cool beak.

Linden said, “Briar Wyngrave.” A hush fell over the crowd. “You have fulfilled my life in ways I can never hope to articulate. These past months with you have been a dream, and I ask you now to ensure I never wake from it. Would you do me the honor of marrying me and being my husband?”

In the long hours of the night in which Briar had not slept, he had wrestled with two truths.

The first was that he could not fight Linden on his own. He knew what would become of him if he confronted Linden at the manor. He would disappear; nothing but a sad casualty of his curse. Linden would post mournful stories to Alakagram, beautifully shot photographs of funeral lilies. No one would know what had really become of Briar, and no one—save for a lonely, love-struck Coill Darraghn—would care.

The second truth was that he didn’t have to do it all alone. Any of it. His job, his success, some things were more powerful when shared.

If he wanted to fight Linden, he had to do it with millions of eyes watching.

The gasps and clapping subsided the longer Briar stood unresponsive. Murmurs began to spread.

Briar looked down at Linden and the ring. He didn’t melt into his arms or hold his hands to his face in blissful surprise. He waited until the crowd’s enthusiasm for a live proposal went out like the tide before a big wave. Until it was quiet enough they could clearly hear him say,

“No.”

Linden’s blinding smile hardly changed. It froze there. “Excuse me?”

“I can’t marry you.”

“Briar, this is hardly the time for jokes.”

“I’m not joking.” Briar took a step back as Linden reached for his hand. “I cannot marry a man like you.”

Linden’s beatific features locked in a rigor of shock and, briefly, anger, but he smoothed this, turning to the audience, to the cameras. “I’m so sorry. He’s confused. He’s been ill.”

“Yes. I’ve been ill with a curse. A curse you might as well have cast on me.”

Linden said quickly, “That is preposterous. Briar, really. We both know the source of the curse is an accident of unpredictable, wild magic. I’m wounded that you could say such a thing.”

Linden was turned toward the audience, speaking as much to them as to him. Briar did not waver from staring directly into Linden’s face as he began to explain, as much for Linden’s benefit as the people watching, just how well he understood.

“Ten years ago, an invasion of witches came to Coill Darragh to pilfer its woods of the powerful magic and rare tithes found there.”

“Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“The forest retaliated. To survive, it took energy from the townsfolk. The alderman at the time sacrificed his life to build wards that would keep the invaders out. It killed the invaders. Most of them.”

“You’re sick, Briar. Delusional. We should get you to a hospital immediately.”

Briar clenched his hands into fists and willed himself to go on. The audience of high society watched, riveted but skeptical.

“You escaped,” Briar said. “You left the witches to die by the wards. Those witches were your own family. You claimed they died of a mysterious plague. Aunts and uncles. Cousins. The Fairchilds didn’t die of an ailment, they were killed paying for your avarice. Avarice you paraded around proudly! You never had a talent for healing. You used the powerful siphons collected from Coill Darragh to go on a miracle tour, curing people of their sickness and earning yourself a tidy fame and fortune, while the siphons caused curses to strike anyone unlucky enough to witness your so-called miracles. My mother included.”

Linden’s face paled, but he maintained a smile. An ugly, bared-teeth smile that failed to convey any of his usual charms. “How could you say this of me? I cured the sick and the dying. I’ve been trying to do the same for you.”

Briar said, “No, you’ve used me as a token example of your charity. A poor, dying nobody you lifted up. You want to marry me so that taking what’s left of Coill Darragh will be no challenge to you, so you can cover up your misdeeds, so you can claim to cure the very people you cursed. You’ve been studying the forest, trying to harvest its power without incurring its wrath. You even hired a helper, a man called Kenneth, to carry out your research. I wonder what you promised him, but I know what he got. He became a convenient scapegoat for all the terrible things that arose as a result of your research. All so you can harness more power and bury your past. And if your actions pass on more curses, what’s that to you? On and on, in an endless cycle. And for what? Your reputation?”

Linden stood. He’d been kneeling the whole time, as if expecting Briar to name this all a joke. The expression of heartbroken misery he wore chilled Briar. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, would believe me capable of all that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Where’s the proof? When this took place, I would have been—what? Fifteen?”

This rippled through the audience in whispers of disbelief and dissent. Fifteen was young to tithe half a forest, to kill most of your family, to use dangerous magic in pursuit of fame. Who was Briar to level these accusations? He had no reputation or accolades to lend his word credit.

“I do have proof,” Briar said.

He opened his vest and showed Linden the journal. Old, creased, and dappled with blood.

“This is the other reason you came to Coill Darragh. You heard about a panacea, something powerful enough to compete with your family’s recipes. You stole the formula from the alderman, éibhear O’Shea. There was a single witness. A girl named Gretchen, who you threw from a rooftop in order to cover your crime.”

Linden scowled. “That is hardly proof.”

“The journal isn’t my proof.”

From the journal, from the spots of blood, her apparition rose.

Violet and smoky, seeping from the pages with spectral drama, Gretchen materialized. Non-magical people might not see her, but they would feel the room go frigid, and there were enough witches to behold Gretchen’s testimony.

“Linden Fairchild,” she said. “You killed me.”

Now, Linden truly looked ashen. He stepped back, a livid aura enveloping him. The crowds’ noise changed in quality again. More raucous, outraged. Here stood a ghost, a girl who looked no older than Briar or Linden themselves, to confirm Briar’s words.

“Linden killed me,” Gretchen said, “and tried to exorcise me so I wouldn’t tell anyone. I can attest that everything Briar told you is true. I lived with him in Coill Darragh for the better part of this year. I was not an easy companion, yet he befriended me and did his best to help me. He freed me from the prison of the house I haunted, helped me reclaim my lost memories, and now he’s given me the opportunity to tell my murderer who I am. Who he killed.”

She rounded on Linden. “I was twenty-five. I was young and idealistic. I wanted nothing more than to make potions and medicine and help people. I gave up every minute of my time in pursuit of that, and you ended my life and took everything éibhear and I worked for! You robbed me of my future. You’ve robbed Briar of his mother, and now of his future, too. You robbed the planet of life-saving medicine and tithes. You’re a liar, a thief, a murderer, and I hope you rot for what you’ve done.”

Linden’s eyes darted to the faces of their audience. Some wore frowns of disapproval, others slack-jawed shock. Briar knew, coming into this, that his chances were small, but he’d also known what Linden feared most. The ever-turning tide of public opinion. Humiliation.

And lucky for Briar, he himself was immune to embarrassment.

Linden, cornered like an animal and watching all that he’d fought for slipping away, turned to desperate action. Briar saw the motion too late. Linden reached into a pocket and pulled out something dark and shining.

A siphon.

Briar thought, No . Would Linden freeze this moment in time, reverse it, wipe the memories of the audience? Everything had been televised. Could he control Briar, force him to discount everything he’d said?

Linden clasped the siphon in his hand. At the same time, Gretchen launched herself at him. Never had she been capable of affecting another living being. Throwing knives had been an exhausting use of her energy. Yet her fist connected with his jaw and sent him sprawling. She landed on his chest, drawing back for a second attack.

She said to Briar, “Go! Get out of here!”

At the same time, the siphon in Linden’s grasp shattered into dust. The malodorous aura contained within spread, the magic seeping through the air like a toxic cloud.

Briar grasped the tiny vial of bone powder pilfered from Linden’s stores, uncapped it. In a second, he could be through the portal with the journal and drag Gretchen back home.

But the siphon acted faster. Gretchen had a second to realize what was happening as her apparition flickered. There came a noise like water sucked down a drain, only it was a roar.

She turned in time to look at Briar and smile. It looked as though she mouthed the words “thank you.” Then her specter melted, ink diluted in rain, and she was gone.

The magic of the siphon, like a thick blanket over the entire room, receded back to the spot where Gretchen had been.

Linden wrestled to his feet. He moved like a bull, like he never had in public before.

The bone powder felt thin and measly between Briar’s fingers as he flung it in the air and thought, Take me home .