“Are you coming?” Mouse asked. Smudge whined pitifully.
Mickelwaithe stepped out onto the stoop, and Smudge snuggled up against his leg.
“We will wait here for you,” the Faerie servant said.
Mouse and Thornwood trudged out into the garden. Although the rain lifted in the night, the mud remained, squelching under their feet. It pulled at Mouse’s heels. Mist settled low over the grounds and the garden like a blanket.
Thornwood balanced a sack across his shoulder. She could make out the outline of items jammed so tightly into the bag that the seams strained, barely holding together through what Mouse assumed was good craftsmanship and a fair amount of magic.
The old well rested at the bottom of a decorative pond, filled and refilled since the dark ages. Before Thistlemarsh was remodeled from a medieval castle to an Elizabethan hall, the well drew travelers from across England and Europe.
Faerie-blessed waters flowed from a spring in Thistlemarsh Wood to the well. Of course, after the Enlightenment movement arrived from the continent, such displays were deemed “unsophisticated” and un-Christian, so the well was filled. In its place was a fashionable, ornamental pool.
As often as she was in the garden, Mouse avoided the pond. Something about it made her skin crawl, although she never could pinpoint the source.
The water was glassy and green in the morning air. To the casual onlooker, the pool appeared much the same as any other in England. White water lilies adorned the surface like a crown of stars. Below, drifting orange fish danced among the stems.
A stone face peered out from between the flowers, cold gray eyes watching Mouse and Thornwood as they approached. Behind the statue’s head, a fishtail threaded in and out of the water. The tips of her split fin waved just above the surface.
“This mermaid statue has been here as long as the pond,” Mouse said. “At least, that’s what my uncle told us. But I still do not understand why the well might be a source of power. It’s not inside the house.”
“No, but it is on the grounds. I have not tried any proper magic in the gardens. Perhaps I would encounter the same issue that I do in the Hall.”
“Are you going to try?”
“It’s more complicated than that. After all, the grounds are your domain. We only dealt for the house. On top of that, it is more difficult to bend the will of living things to magic’s influence than it is to convince a chair to change its shape.”
“I did not realize that magic relied so much on persuasion.”
“Magic is a conversation. One asks the stone to rebuild the wall, and the stone listens for the price of your energy. It is all compromise.”
“You would do well in Parliament, then,” Mouse said.
Thornwood wrinkled his nose. “Hardly. After all, furniture can be reasoned with.”
She laughed, and he replied with a sly twist of his lips.
Thornwood cast his magic over the water, and the moment it touched the surface, the green orb popped like a bubble, sending ripples out in every direction. Thornwood’s magic threw long shadows up the stone wall that crested around the back of the pond. Waves raced through lines, illuminating them as they went. When the orb’slight fizzled out at the water’s edge, a forest of gold vines rose above the surface. They tangled at the top, reaching toward the house. The light reached down through the water to the top of the well, which was crowded with gold as thick as a tree trunk.
“We can safely say there is magic down there,” Mouse said.
“The disadvantage here is that you cannot hold your breath as long as I can.”
“Is it true that Faeries cannot cross holy water?”
Thornwood scoffed. “What a ludicrous idea! Of course we can cross water, holy or otherwise.”
“It’s listed as a way to trick Faeries in many stories.”
“Undoubtedly an addition from the church,” Thornwood said with a roll of his eyes. “This was a Faerie-blessed well. Why would we bless something that we reviled?”
Mouse shrugged, and Thornwood grumbled as he shifted the pack off his back. He rummaged through it and pulled out a short sword. Mouse gasped.
“I thought we should come prepared this time in case the second dragon we meet is not as friendly as the first,” he said. He tossed the sword to Mouse. She stepped back with a shriek, and it clattered to the ground and out of its sheath.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“I see that sword work is not one of your strengths,” he said.