“After all this time you’ve known me, you still thought I was capable of poisoning your mother. You said you trusted me, but you didn’t.”
Ash parted his lips. He looked away.
My gut sank, but I forced the feeling away. “There’s something else you should know. Captain Greenwood is a witch. He’s Narcissa’s father.”
“Narcissa...she’s a witch?” he said.
“The animals were under Narcissa’s control. The mice and the swans. And her cat. It was all her.”
He pressed his lips together. “Was she the one who...?”
“No,” I said grimly, answering his unfinished question. “It was the duchess. But my aunt...she’s involved too.”
“Amarante—”
“She didn’t mean any harm,” I said. Somehow I wanted to defend Lana, even if it meant further lowering myself in Ash’s esteem.
Ash touched my shoulder but withdrew it when I tensed. “You don’t have to tell me everything right now. Just know that I trust you. I will always trust you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
He looked past the pond. “I reckon you had a plan to stop the duchess before I interfered,” he said.
I sighed and straightened my shoulders.
“I did,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind some help.”
31
Ash didn’t ask any questions during our ride to Miriam’s shop. If he was bursting with curiosity, he didn’t show it, but he eventually spoke when I knocked on the door.
“This isn’t really a snail shop, is it?” he said.
The door swung open. “Yes, it is, sonny. It’s just that no one has had the good sense to purchase anything yet.” Miriam stood at the door frame, looking ridiculously short compared to the prince. She crossed her arms and glared at me. “I thought you were imprisoned.”
I pulled Ash inside without waiting for an invitation. “We need to go to Witch Village. Now.”
Miriam gave him a grave look. “The last time I let a human pass through it resulted in death and heartbreak,” she said. “Are you trustworthy?”
Ash looked to me, his brows drawn. He wanted me to answer for him, but his distrust still stung. That was something I wouldn’t easily forget. Yet he agreed to follow me here even when I told him of Lana’s role in the poisoning. Though I sensed his discomfort, he was trying. And that was enough for me.
“He is.”
Miriam sighed and made her usual route to the back room. Ash and I followed. She activated the bricks, revealing the gaping black passageway that only a month before I had been afraid of entering. Now, everything depended on where it led.
“Good luck with whatever you’re up to,” Miriam said. “But if you end up dead, it’s not my fault.”
I knelt and embraced her, burying my nose in her shawls. Her scent of incense and lavender oil was overwhelming up close. “Thank you. You’ve done more for me than I could ever repay you for.”
Miriam looked flustered when I pulled away. “Well, get on with it,” she said in a wavering voice, shooing us into the passageway.
When the wall sealed itself, Ash took my arm. His hold was as tight as mine was during our visit to the dungeons.
“I can’t see a thing,” he said.
I smiled in spite of myself. I didn’t want him to believe I had forgiven him, so I was grateful for the lack of light. “It discourages trespassers from going any further,” I said. “There are no real directions. We have to walk forward for long enough until the passageway opens.”
“Fascinating! We could use something like this for the treasury.”
Eventually the door to Witch Village appeared. I pushed it open. Hundreds of lights gleamed from the hill, the sky bejeweled with stars. Ash’s jaw hung open as he took in the fields of crops and the village in the distance.
“We’re not actually outside,” I said. “It’s magic.”
He nodded in awe, as we made our trek toward the hill.
Eventually, I spotted Lana’s cottage at the end of the winding road. The circular windows were bright, meaning she was home and awake. A lump appeared in my throat when we approached. She had removed the enchantment on the door. I stared.
Ash waited a beat. “Are you going to knock?”
“You do it.”
He tapped his knuckles on the wood. It swung open.
But instead of Lana, someone else stood at the threshold.
My lips parted. “Rowena? What are you doing here?”
She glared at me, but the tears that welled up in her dark eyes betrayed her feelings. “I thought you were rotting away in the dungeons, you ungrateful girl.”
I embraced her. Her arms held me tight.
“You came back.” Elowyn poked her head out behind her sister’s skirts. Her eyes widened when she noticed Ash. “Who’s that? He’s handsome.”
Ash cracked a smile. “Prince Ash of Olderea,” he said with a smart bow. “You’re quite handsome yourself.”
Elowyn darted back inside with a squeak.
Rowena released me and stared at Ash. “It looks like we all have some explaining to do.”
Lana was absent when we gathered inside on the benches near the fireplace. I told Rowena everything that had happened, though this time Ash jumped in to insert his part of the story.
After the duchess assigned my punishment, Ash set out to find Peter, who turned out to be alive. He was hiding in the outskirts of the forest with plans to flee the kingdom. When he was cornered, he admitted to using a witch-made sleeping elixir, but still refused to reveal whose orders he had been acting under.
“No doubt the duchess is threatening him with the death of his family,” Ash said darkly.
With no other choice, Ash ordered his men to interrogate shops rumored to be associated with the Witch Market, hoping to trace down the witch who sold Duchess Wilhelmina the poison. His search was cut off when I was accused and imprisoned.
“So, why are you here?” I asked Rowena after we finished.
“Olivia Sternfeld told me and Theodora everything,” she
