“Gwenhwyfar,” the second mother said sternly, “I will not have you speaking to your mother like that. We are not children.”
“You sure act as irresponsible as kids sometimes,” Gwen said with a sharp edge to her voice that softened when she added, “Regardless of what you may have done—and don’t think we aren’t going to have a little talk later about hiding things from me—we can’t lay the blame for the reclamation woman on your heads. She’s here for me because she thinks I owe her my soul.”
“Don’t give it to her. You’re not done using it,” the first mother said, picking up a bottle from Ethan’s desk and giving it a sniff. “You’re going to have need of it when you marry dear Gregory. Alice, pink roses or yellow for the bouquet?”
Alice eyed Gwen thoughtfully. “White. With pale pink carnations. And perhaps a carpet of matching pink rose petals.”
“You have such a good eye for details like that.”
Gwen gave him a long-suffering look before turning back to her mothers. “That’s enough premature planning. And before you blast me, yes, I will marry Gregory, but we have more important things to do now. We have to find that bird.”
“What bird?” the mothers asked.
She turned to him, nodding again at the two men on the floor, both of whom were now moaning, fainting, and making jerky movements with their arms and legs. “Can you take care of them? And by ‘take care,’ I mean get rid of them in some nonlethal way so that they don’t come back and try to hurt my moms again?”
“Yes. Because I love you.”
She rolled her eyes, then leaned in and bit his lower lip. “You’re adorable when you’re being sexy. My moms and I will tackle the folks around the camp about the bird. Maybe one of them remembers it and knows where it flew off to. Maybe we can find a descendant of it, too.”
“We don’t have any time to go bird-watching,” the first mother said.
“The sooner we find the bird, the sooner we fulfill Aaron’s demands, and the sooner we can get out of Anwyn.”
“Who’s Aaron?”
As he was leaving to find a couple of strong-looking lads to help him truss up the two hit men, he heard Gwen explaining about Aaron and Ethan’s war.
Everything was going to be fine. He’d have to find a way to get rid of Death’s minion, but he had an inkling of how that might be accomplished, and he was never one to back down from a challenge. He’d make sure Gwen was safe from the reclamation agent, get rid of the two hit men, and then deal with the situation regarding her mothers and the Watch . . . and the vendetta that Death evidently held against them.
Yes, it was all going to work out to his satisfaction. Gwen might not want to admit yet that she loved him, but she did. She had to. He really didn’t think he could bear it otherwise.
SIXTEEN
The hunt for the missing bird didn’t go spectacularly well, mostly because my mothers were so excited about the thought of Gregory and me getting married, they couldn’t focus for long on anything else.
Married.
That word kept chiming in my head like the deep note of a large bell. Gregory wanted to get married. He loved me. And what was more, he wanted me to love him.
“Which of our wedding dresses do you think she should wear?” Mom Two asked Mom as we headed to their tent. “Mine was pretty, but I think yours would go with her coloring better.”
Men had said they loved me before, but with Gregory it was different. He wouldn’t say it unless he really felt it. And I had a feeling by the somewhat shocked expression that he had worn, it wasn’t something he’d felt very often.
“Yes, but yours was made of old lace, and that never goes out of style,” Mom told Mom Two.
That thought pleased me. I told myself to stop being idiotic—what Gregory did or felt before I knew him was absolutely none of my business—but all the same, I couldn’t help a smug little sense of pleasure that it was me he loved, rather than anybody from the great herds of women who I was sure had tramped through his life.
“It was my mother’s lace, too,” Mom Two agreed. “Lovely handmade stuff.”
When a squire bumped into me as he tried to get around us, I realized that I was just as guilty as my mothers of wasting valuable time.
“I repeat: the sooner we find the bird, the sooner we can leave Anwyn and I can wear the lace.” I grabbed a passing squire by the arm when he tried to sidle past. “Hi, there. Would you happen to know anything about a bird that Ethan stole several hundred years ago?”
“A bird?” The boy shifted the long mail coat draped over his forearms and scrunched up his nose. “What kind of a bird?”
“Lapwing.”
“Never heard of it,” the lad said, and wresting his arm away from me, he hurried off on his business.
I sighed. “Someone somewhere has to know something about that bird. It doesn’t help that I don’t know what a lapwing looks like. Do either of you know?”
The moms shook their heads. My mother took my arm and tugged me toward the tent. “But we have the books from the woman who used to live here, and they are full of all sorts of historical notes, so perhaps something is there about it.”
“All right, but while I’m looking at her books, I want you two to get packed up.”
Mom stopped dead. “Why should we pack? We aren’t done here. We have a batch of frogspawn potion evaporating down to just the essence, and you know how long that takes.”
“Eleven days exactly,” Mom Two said with a nod.
“I want you both to come with me over to Aaron’s camp. My tent is big enough for all of us, and I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe with me.”
Mom Two bridled. “We’re perfectly safe here! Ethan would never let anything harm us.”
“Yes, indeed!” Mom gave me a stern look and proceeded to their tent. “We’re very happy here, Gwenny. Very happy. Even Mrs. Vanilla—Hello, dear, did you have a nice nap in your chair? Cup of tea? With extra honey?—even dear Mrs. Vanilla here is happy. Aren’t you, dear? Happy here?”
I followed my mothers inside, wearily wondering how on earth I was going to persuade them to come with me. Mrs. Vanilla, who had been dozing in her chair, suddenly perked up and squeaked at us, her hands moving in the quick little way she had when conversing. Or when she was doing what she thought of as conversing. I eyed her critically, wondering if I could use her as a way to get my mothers over to Aaron’s camp, but I had to admit she did look pretty chipper.
She gratefully accepted the cup of tea, liberally laced with honey, that Mom handed her.
“Gwenny?” Mom held up the big cast-iron teakettle from the coal stove that resided in the corner.
“No, thanks. And I’m sorry, but you are not safe here, Mom Two, as that episode with Irv and Frankie demonstrated to a degree that will give me nightmares for years to come.”
“Bah,” Mom Two scoffed. “I wasn’t harmed, and your young man said he would remove them. I have faith in him.”
I stared at her in surprise. Since when did my mothers fall under the spell of a man? Even one as charming as Gregory? “I’m glad you believe he can protect you, but he can’t be everywhere at the same time. And if that bastard lawyer sent two hit men after us, then he might send more. No, it’s not safe for you to be here without someone to watch over you.”
“We’ve been taking care of ourselves for centuries, Gwen,” Mom Two said as she and Mom bustled about, obviously preparing to start a new potion. “No, Mags, the dried lion’s ear, not the fresh.”
Mom handed over a glass jar containing dried ferns. “And besides that, we’re learning ever so much from the trees.”