Now I cross my arms and arch a brow at him. “No one told me what I’m supposed to be doing, but you expect me to come prepared?”
His brows pull low over his dark eyes. Irritation flashes in them.
For a moment, I think he may want to put one of those sharp black horns right through me.
But then he steps back and says, “I’ll get you a pair. Wait here.”
Of course, he doesn’t invite me in out of the damp. Instead, he just shuts the door, leaving me standing there on his drizzly doorstep.
Irritably, I blow a frizzy curl out of my eyes.
While I wait, I drift around his hut, curious about all the potted plants and flowers. Most are foreign to me, with stunning colorful blooms and petals that unfurl to catch the thin light of day. Around the side of the hut, there’s a pastoral fence built of woven branches, and it looks like the groundskeeper—Mr. Axton, I think HeadmistressMoonhart said—is growing an abundance of food: tomatoes, assorted greens, onions, peas, beans, and more plants I don’t have a hope in the world of identifying.
And to the back of the garden, along the forest line, there are pale flowers growing, with their petals all curled in, like they’re trying to protect themselves from the cold. They draw my attention, and I’ve just taken a step forward when the door opens and closes at the front of the hut, and a gruff voice says, “Here.”
Turning around, I find the minotaur offering me a pair of gloves. I arch a brow at him.
“They’re the smallest pair I own,” he huffs, flopping them toward me. “You want them or not?”
For some reason, I’m enjoying annoying him. Maybe it’s because I have about a million better things to do than help this grumpy groundskeeper muck around in the mud all day.
I tip my head and purse my lips. “No thanks.”
His eyes narrow. Annoyance level: rising.
Eyebrow arched, I ask, “So, what special brand of punishment do you have in store for me today?”
The minotaur tosses the extra pair of gloves onto a narrow table alongside the hut, already cluttered with pots and soil and gardening tools, and says gruffly, “Compost.”
AS FAR AS I KNOW, compost is supposed to be soft and fluffy and smell good.
Thisis not compost. This is slimy leaves and garden debris and muck. And it’smyjob to turn it. Because,apparently, compost likes to be turned. I didn’t realize how high-maintenance rubbish piles could be.
I shed my cloak an hour ago, and I wipe sweat from my forehead before sinking the three-tined compost fork into the big pile and grunting with the effort it takes to turn it over. When Mr. Axton showed me how to do it, he made it look simple—of course, he’s probably got about two hundred pounds of muscle on me, so for my scrawny arms and wrists, this is anything but easy.
With another grunt, I flip a glob of the unfinished compost, then pause to catch my breath. My hands sting, and with a wince, I peel them away from the handle of the compost fork to find blisters forming along my palms. They’re angry red and tender to the touch. And now that I know they’re there, they start to burn hotter. Funny how awareness does that.
Shit.My eyes narrow.Should’ve worn those gloves after all...
Movement to my left catches my attention.
It’s Mr. Axton, bringing yet another wheelbarrow full of fallen leaves to dump onto the compost. There’re numerous piles back here, and I’m only on the second one.
He doesn’t even look over at me as he hefts the wheelbarrow up and dumps everything out. The tunic he’s wearing is stained at the hem with mud, and he’s a bit sweaty, like me, but somehow, it suits him—like he’s meant to be part of the salt and the earth. Unlike me. I just burn everything down.
A flare of irritation goes through me. It’s done that innumerable times today.
Why can’t my magic justlisten? Why can’t I control it the way my peers can? It’s gotten me into more messes than I can count, but this—I look down at myself, finding my pants and tunic smeared with compost and dirt and leaf litter—is certainly the worst of it.
And it’s also the only thing standing between me and possible expulsion.
The thought of losing my place at the academy makes my stomach twist. I can’t let that happen. Papa would be so disappointed, especially after how hard webothworked to get me into Coven Crest in the first place.
“Finished?” the minotaur asks.
It’s only one word, yet it feels spoken slowly, and as he comes to stand beside me and I look up at him, I get the impression that he may have been a mountain in another life—ancient, stoic, towering above everyone else. But maybe lonely too. I’ve always felt like mountains are lonely, so high up in the sky, in the quiet and the cold.
I pull my focus back to his question.
