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She was a grown woman. She had a pub to run. It didn’t matter that her feelings for Silas were past the point of friendly now. She’d pushed them down before, and she could push them down again. There would be no distractions, not tonight. She tugged the letter from her pocket and unfolded it, read over the words from Liza, and sighed with a light laugh.

Mags,

Good luck tonight. Forever rooting for you, even when you are being a fool.

Lots of love,

Liza

P.S. Wear the fucking scarf.

She should never have told Liza about Silas’s gift. And yet, outside, as if on cue, a rogue, lazy firework display went off, splashing the evening sky in warm, glowing red. Margaret took it as a sign, went upstairs, and grabbed the fucking scarf.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Silas’s last real required act of service before his holidays truly began was to attend the final feast for those who had chosen to remain at Emberwind for the holiday break. There were not many students who’d made this choice, so it was primarily the staff and a handful of them, all seated in the warm dining hall. Christmas trees surrounded them and charmed ornaments floated through the air while a magical harp played haunting versions of “Jingle Bells” and “A Marshmallow World” in the corner.

It was gorgeously magical and would have been plenty for Silas, had the feast not happened on exactly the same day as Margaret faced off against Patrick Kerrigan and the opening of his obnoxious bar. He wanted to be there for her for the entire time, but he would have to settle for being a touch late. She had understood when he told her, he thought. She’d become increasingly hard to read, though, in a way that made his uncle’s pronouncement (“Just ask”) seem all the more impossible.

Ask her what, exactly? Who are you? What have you been through? What’s going on in your mind? What would it take to let me in so that you don’t have to do so much of this alone?

Wyatt, at least, seemed less nervous with so few students around. In fact, he was in positively boisterous spirits by his usual standards and only winced once when Elliott asked him how he thought the term had gone.

“All right,” he said. “A bit of an adjustment with, um, my new class—”

He glanced at Silas then. Silas’s class had replaced a foundational class called Non-Magical Ways: How Those Without Do Anything Successfully, and there were some students who resented the swap from the general to the extremely scientific specifics. Silas wondered if Wyatt was about to give the headmaster an honest review right in front of him and sat up straighter.

“—but it’s been pretty interesting, actually,” Wyatt said, allowing Silas to breathe.

“Well,” Elliott said. “Coming from a young man, that might as well have been a glowing, five-star review.”

Silas and Elliott laughed. Wyatt looked awkward. Elliott asked him about what he was hoping to study after school. They made small talk about this for some time while the courses were being served, decadent entrées with names Silas had never heard of. And even though the flavors were incredible, it all tasted the same to Silas because he couldn’t focus on any of it.

All he could think about was her.

She was torturing him, that was evident. Maybe not intentionally, though he had his suspicions. There was the nectar-tasting incident, the moment he’d thought that maybe, just maybe, cracks in her armor were starting to develop. Even their walks throughout the village as she checked in on the shopkeepers with him had seemed so natural, so easy, the kind of walk that made him wonder what it would be like to spend every morning that way: walking with her through this magical village, saying hello to their neighbors.

Everyone adored her, that much remained clear, even those she clearly hadn’t been able to patronize recently. Every one of them had lit up when she walked into the shop—well, nearly every one of them, yet even Old Man Weatherby’s chapped lips had twitched into the ghost of a smile—and they’d all seemed both thrilled and relieved to see her out and about. He knew she worked long hours at the pub, didn’t employ anyone else, but Hex Hollow was still her home. Wasn’t it?

When desserts came around, little puff pastries with caramel and passionberry sauce, Silas found he couldn’t stay another minute. He looked up at Elliott, who was already smiling and waving at him.

“Go on,” he said. “Enjoy the night.”

Silas looked at Wyatt. He felt responsible for the boy. If he wasn’t studying at the pub, then he was in Silas’s classroom, working quietly in the corner while Silas recovered from his classes. But Wyatt waved him off, offering his own ghost of a smile.

“I’ve got something, too,” he said. “Don’t worry about me, Professor.”

Silas was extremely grateful, especially as he discovered that it was later than he had anticipated when he started the walk through and out of the castle. The night sky was a dark sea of stars twinkling above him. As seemed to be the law in Hex Hollow, there was fresh, glittering snow on the ground and in the towering trees and forest that bordered either side of the stone path. His boots crunched on the snow on the ground, and he pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders.

Silas checked his watch, an old, classic thing with a brown leather band passed down to him by his father. The grand opening had been happening for at least three hours. Silas didn’t enjoy wishing failure on other people, but he had to admit that he hoped without a speck of remorse that Patrick Kerrigan’s bar had failed, that Patrick was sitting alone among the ruins of his expensive and doomed venture. After all, Silas told himself that the people here weren’t won over by showy displays. These were loyal people who could sniff out a charlatan, for that was what Silas had decided Patrick was: a grifter who favored outrageous displays rather than someone who could appreciate the softer, quieter richness that was the pub’s magic. Margaret’s magic.

The second that Silas stepped over the hill and began his descent down into Hex Hollow, however, a sinking sensation seized him by the stomach. It was faint, but he felt certain he could hear the thump-thump-thump of music that could not be tied to Margaret’s ancient record player. There were also screams and whoops and boisterous laughter that Silas had never heard from the Toasty Owl. As if to confirm his suspicions, something rocketed into the sky, a firework display, but not a kind he had ever seen before. These fireworks were a dance of light that turned in the air and spiraled around until it had become a sea of sparkling snowflakes lit by red and green lights that then twisted to form the letters Merry Christmas! before bursting into confetti that rained down and highlighted the shining beacon that was Fox Bar, open and clearly bustling with guests.

Silas picked up the pace. As he drew closer to both Fox Bar and the Toasty Owl, he saw a further sign that drove concern deeper into his mind. The flickering lights and warm glow pulling people in from the streets at Fox Bar were in stark contrast to the pub, where the only light was from the lanterns bordering the doors. If Fox Bar was a light beckoning the people of Hex Hollow into its open doors, then the Toasty Owl was a shadow that might as well have been telling people to go away.

As was his custom now, Silas held tight to the knob when he pulled the door open. It opened with a swoosh, sending in a light flurry of snow from outside. Inside, candles flickered and the fireplace crackled. But Silas’s heart sank when he saw that all of the chairs were empty, from the tables to the armchairs to the bar.

Save for the one Margaret was sitting in, head in her hands. She didn’t seem to have heard him over the record player, which was playing soft jazz again, what Silas was starting to realize must be Margaret’s favorite. He approached her quietly, not wanting to startle her, only for him to stumble to a stop when he heard the noise she was making.