Still looking at the plant, Cassie nodded. “It has that funny hole in it.”
“I figure that hole is about the size of a good-size pot. So if you plant one blue river in that hole and the others in front of the boulder . . .”
“It will look like a waterfall tumbling down rocks into a river. Gray, that’s a wonderful idea.” She gave him a quick kiss, right on the mouth, before she turned back to the wheelbarrow and began crooning to the little plants.
Gray stood frozen. She had kissed him. But not in a mean way. Not in a way that meant he was going to be tied down and hurt. Not the way the other Queen had done.
And not quite like a man-and-woman kiss. At least, he didn’t think so. It was done before he’d known it had started.
He wouldn’t mind trying a man-and-woman kiss if the woman was Cassie.
Would she want to try that kind of kissing with him?
“Gray?”
“Huh?”
“Where did you go?”
“Huh?”
Cassie stood in front of him, holding two of the seed pots, smiling at him, and looking a little puzzled.
“You have the strangest expression on your face,” Cassie said. “What are you thinking about?”
Oh, no. He knew better than to answer that question. “Did you ask me something before?”
Cassie studied him for a moment, then shook her head. “Males are very strange.”
Not half as strange as females, Gray thought.
“I asked where you got the plants.”
“Oh. There are a couple of women in town who grow plants for sale. They have greenhouses and everything. And there are two sisters who grow a lot of the plants Healers need for their brews and salves. So when Shira and Ranon went to look at plants yesterday, I went with them. And I found these.”
“I’d like to take a look at what’s available,” Cassidy said. “Maybe we could go back to those places tomorrow morning or the day after.” She wrinkled her nose. “I haven’t been in the town yet; things have been so busy here.”
“We?” Gray asked, wondering why his heart was feeling funny all of a sudden.
“You and me. Oh, and I suppose I’ll need an official escort as well just to keep everything proper.”
“Protocol,” Gray said, nodding. “You have to set a good example.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve lived here all your life, but you sound like you’re from Kaeleer.”
The words made him feel strange—and good. And stronger in a way he couldn’t describe.
“I thought you could go with me,” Cassie said. “If you want to,” she added.
“I want to.”
Her smile when she was happy was bright enough to dazzle the sun.
“Daylight’s wasting,” Cassie said. She set the seed pots aside and held up her hands. “Look. A double shield over the skin and then heavy gardening gloves.” Which she called in and slipped over her hands.
“And your hat,” Gray said.
She wrinkled her nose at him but obeyed and called in her hat.
“Are you going to swear at me?” Gray asked.
“I’m thinking about it.”
He just grinned.
*Cassie? Cassie!*
Gray paused to watch the Sceltie’s dance of indecision. Vae clearly had an opinion about Cassie working in the garden—Hell’s fire, the dog had an opinion about everything—but she wasn’t sure if her “permission to nip” applied to the Queen.
“She’s all right,” Gray told Vae, glad for the excuse to take a break. Not that he needed an excuse. Not with Cassie. But he didn’t want to admit about himself what he’d been so quick to point out to her—sometimes damage couldn’t be healed all the way if you weren’t careful during the healing.
He didn’t want her to know. Wasn’t ready to tell her. Not yet. But he knew the warning signs and knew he needed to take some care or he’d be helpless and hurting.
“Yes, I’m all right,” Cassie said. She stripped off her gloves and held up her hands so Vae could see them. “See? Nothing hurt.” Then she looked at Gray. “But the hands have had enough work for the day.”
He shrugged and smiled. “Nothing more to plant anyway.”
“Was that deliberate?”
“Maybe.”
She studied him for a moment as a thread of awareness grew between them. Then she looked at the Sceltie. “Did you come out for walkies?”
*Theran said I am underfoot and should go outside for a while,* Vae replied.
“Nipped him, didn’t you?” Cassie said.
*Many times he will not listen until I nip him. But he is learning.*“I’ll bet he is.” Cassie vanished her gloves and got to her feet. “I want to take a look at the rest of the garden, get a feel for the whole thing.”
“I’ll warn you now,” Gray said. “This is the best of it. At the far end, the ground is overrun with some kind of weed. Can’t dig it out. It just grows right back. Can’t even burn it out.”
“I’ll take a look.” Cassie turned toward the house. “What about that dead tree? Why didn’t anyone take down what’s left of it?”
“Can’t.” Gray rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “That honey pear tree is a symbol of the Grayhaven line. That’s why the Queens let it stand. At least, that’s partly why.”
“But it’s dead, Gray.”
“Yes.”
He saw the moment when she understood.
“Bitches,” she said softly.
“It’s dead, but it still taunted them,” Gray said. “I’ve been talking to some of the men who used to work here and some whose fathers worked here. They said some of the Queens tried to pull the tree down, but there’s something about it, about what’s left of it. Saws won’t cut the wood. Axes can’t do more than chip at the outside. And the roots are still so chained to the ground, the tree can’t be pulled out either. The soil all around it is so hard it can break a shovel, and Craft can’t touch it at all. So all that time, they said they left the tree to remind everyone that the Grayhaven line was gone, but in truth they left it because they couldn’t get rid of it.”
“Maybe because the line isn’t completely gone,” Cassie said.
“Maybe.”
“I hear the names Jared and Lia,Thera and Blaed. They must have been so important to this land, but I know so little. Does anyone know stories about them? Or were those lost too when the other Queens took over Dena Nehele?”
“Sure, there are stories,” Gray said. “I know some. So does Theran. Talon would know more because he knew the four of them. They were friends.”
“Do you think Talon would share some of those stories with me?”
“He’ll tell you. So will I.”
She stared at the tree and looked a little sad. Then she smiled at him. “I’d better take a look at the rest of the garden before someone comes looking for me.”
He watched her walk away, with Vae trotting beside her.
As he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, he felt a warning twinge in his back.
“Enough,” he said.
It surprised him how bitter his voice sounded that he couldn’t work anymore today. He’d never minded before when he had to stop.
But that was before it mattered that someone might think he was weak.
One last thing, he thought as he vanished the tools. He’d get a bucket of water to wet down the new plants, and he’d use Craft to take the weight of the full bucket instead of forcing his body to do more than it should. Then he’d get something to eat and sit in the shade while he studied the next part of the book on—
*Gray? Gray!*
His body stiffened in response to the panic in Vae’s voice. He saw Cassie at the far end of the garden, backing away from that weedy spot, one hand clamped over her mouth.
Something wrong. Something terribly wrong.
*Gray!*
He ran.
The moment Vae saw him running toward Cassie, she ran toward the house. He had no idea who the Sceltie was calling for help, but he was certain she’d do her best to rouse everyone she could.
He slowed to avoid running Cassie down. “Cassie!” Maybe it was nothing worse than a snake or a dead mouse. Maybe . . .
She turned to look at him. Her freckles were the only color in her face.
“It’s witchblood,”she whispered. Then she threw her arms around him and held on as if her life depended on it. “It’s witchblood.”
Her legs buckled, and he went down with her, wincing when his knees hit the ground.
“So many,” Cassie sobbed. “So many.”
He didn’t know what to ask, didn’t know what to do, didn’t understand why those black-edged red flowers upset her so much.
*Cassie? Cassie!*
Not alone, Gray thought as the Sceltie returned, whining anxiously.
Voices. Shouts. He couldn’t twist around to see, but moments later Theran and Ranon were there, asking questions he couldn’t answer while Cassie sobbed.
Then Shira was there, on her knees beside him. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Gray said, so shaken he began to stammer. “She looked at those weeds and got upset.”
“Not w-weeds,” Cassie gasped before she started crying harder.
“Mother Night,” Shira muttered. She called in a bottle Healers used to store tonics, yanked out the stopper, then grabbed a hunk of red braid and pulled Cassie’s head up. “Here. Drink this. Drink!”
Cassie drank. Gasped. Gulped air.
But she settled. When she rested her head on Gray’s shoulder, she was still shaking but no longer crying.
Shira sat back, took a swig from the bottle, then held it out to Gray. “You too.”
He obeyed and took a long swallow.
“What is that?” Theran asked.