It was difficult to focus with his thumb caressing her like that. It made her shiver. Good shivers. Shivers that sank down below her skin.
He fell quiet.
“Emeline?”
She glanced from his stroking thumb to his watchful eyes. There were shadows in them, and a careful cadence to his voice. “If the stories are true, and the Vile was jealous of her …” His thumb stopped its gentle motion as his eyebrows drew sharply together. “It’s possible the Vile killed your mother too.”
Emeline pulled her foot back towards herself, nodding silently. She’d thought of that already.
The twisted butterfly pin was proof that someone had tried to escape that cellar.But did they succeed?Until she found evidence suggesting otherwise, Emeline had to hope her mother was alive.
“And if this is all true,” he went on, “then the Song Mage was your father.”
She nodded again, staring at the pine floorboards beneathHawthorne’s gray wool socks.My father.She hadn’t said the words aloud to herself yet. They were too strange.
Was that why her voice did unexpected things, sometimes?
She thought of her last lesson with Hawthorne. Of the power coursing through her as she sang, stripping him bare. Seeing things she had no right to see.
Something dinged in the kitchen. Hawthorne turned sharply in that direction.
“The bread …”
He screwed the lid back on the moonshine, then cleaned up the mess on the table.
“I should go,” she said, rising. “If I’m going to find my mother …” She only had so much time to look. She needed to be in Montreal in two days, for the opening night of her tour.
How she wouldgetto her opening night was less certain—she doubted the king would let her leave, even if she had found his missing sheet music. But this was a problem she would deal with later.
Hawthorne reached for her wrist, stopping her. Her skin sparked at the contact. “When was the last time you ate?”
Emeline pressed a hand to her empty stomach. “Not since yesterday.”
“Then stay for dinner and afterwards, we can go see Aspen and ask her father about Rose Lark. He won’t be home for a few hours yet, so you have some time.”
Since Emeline had no other leads, she nodded. “All right.” If Hawthorne thought the man could help her, she could afford to wait a few hours.
Gathering the gauze, the moonshine, and the bowl of lukewarm water, Hawthorne brought them into the kitchen, where Emeline heard him wash his hands. When he returned, one arm cradled a ceramic bowl covered in a red-checkered cloth whilethe other carried a large muslin bag full of flour. He hefted both onto the table. After rolling his shirtsleeves back to his elbows, then sliding that plain white ring off his finger and placing it in his pocket, he peeled the checkered cloth back from the bowl. A pale hump of dough sat nestled inside.
She came to stand beside him. “Can I help?”
He raised a dark brow. “Do you know how?”
Uh, no.The process of making bread was a total mystery to her. But Maisie baked bread all the time. So she rolled up her sleeves and shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
He smirked.
She crossed her arms. “You don’t think I can do it?”
“We’ll see.” He reached into the muslin bag and pulled out a handful of flour, sprinkling it across the surface of the table.
Emeline braided her hair back, then washed her hands in the kitchen sink. When she returned, Hawthorne held out one flour-dusted hand.
“First, you’ll need to punch down the dough.”
Emeline reached for his hand, determined to demolish his skepticism. His fingers folded around hers, pulling her between himself and the end of the table. The heat of him rushed up her back, spreading like wildfire.
In front of her sat the bowl of dough.
