Page 110 of Wretched Thorns

“I would like to thank you,” she said.

Her mouth kept moving after that, but nothing came out.

I had never seen Rowena Voss fail to finish a sentence. You don’t forget the first time you see something like that.

Tara’s grandmother reached up and put her old hand on the back of the chair Rowena was standing behind. She didn’t touch Rowena. She didn’t have to. Tara’s grandmother was the only person I’d ever met who could communicate something complete and final through the back of a piece of furniture.

“We will go home now, Rowena.”

“Yes.”

“You will come see me when the weeks are quieter.”

“Yes.”

Miss Delphine spoke from the window. She had a voice like a teacher who had spent forty years not raising it. “You eat what is in front of you tonight, Rowena. You eat. You do not work in this kitchen until tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” Rowena said. “You need to get some rest, too.”

That was the closest thing to a smile any of the witches managed all morning. Miss Delphine’s mouth did a small, private thing at one corner and then went back to neutral.

Dex straightened off the back wall and held the door open.

Tara’s grandmother kissed the top of my head on her way past. The kiss was light and dry and almost undid me. Miss Delphine put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed once, without force, and let go.

Tara still hadn’t moved.

Her fingers were still over mine. Dex stood at the door with one hand on the frame, waiting. He didn’t push. He just stood there. I wasn’t sure if it was patience or wisdom, but he obviously wasn’t going to be the one to rush her.

She finally let go of my hand and stood up.

She came around the table to my chair. I stood with her. My legs were not entirely steady, but they were not going to be the reason Tara didn’t get to hug me before she left. Her arms went around my ribs. Careful at the side where the cracked one was. I’d told Tara when she’d helped me up the stairs the night before, and there was much neither of us was likely to forget for the rest of our lives.

She held on.

I held on back.

We stood there in the kitchen with the witches in the doorway and Dex at the frame and the brothers at the table, and neither of us said anything. Tara smelled like her favorite brand of shampoo and a little bit like Dex, which was new on her and which I was filing away in the back of my mind to tease her about the second I had the energy. The word ‘stamina’ ping-ponged around in my head and ‌I almost giggled.

“Sunday,” she said into my hair.

“Sunday.”

“If we’re not back by sundown, you can blame Dex.”

Dex tipped his head back against the doorframe and looked at his brothers across the kitchen like a man asking for backup. “You see the shit I put up with?”

There was a round of snorts and chuckles from the brothers that was just the kind of normalcy I had needed. And just like that, it felt like home again.

Hot tears slid down my face, and I finally let loose the flood.

“I’m gonna kick his ass,” Tara said into my hair. “I can kick all their asses.”

And then we were both laughing and crying, while four men watched quietly, perhaps not out of fear, but most certainly out of self-preservation.

Chapter twenty-two

A Crown of Cypress