The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [94]
The Mysteries of Thorn
BETHINA LOOKED UP from the old-fashioned coal range when I banged through the door. “Miss. You’re back.”
“Yes, I …” I looked at the pots on the stove. “You’re still cooking breakfast?”
Bethina shook her head, frowning at me. “Dinner, miss. Stew and potatoes. My mum’s recipe.”
“Dinner?” I sagged against the doorframe, recognizing the pink sky outside for what it was—sunset, not sunrise. “I’ll be damned.”
“Miss,” Bethina scolded me, spooning out a bit of stew and smacking her lips against it. “A lady like you shouldn’t use such language.”
“I’m not a lady,” I snapped. “I’m an engineer.”
Bethina’s face fell, and she turned her back on me and started slicing half-soggy tomatoes with short, choppy motions that telegraphed her irritation better than any words.
“I apologize,” I told her sincerely. I didn’t really want to be that girl who snapped at the servants. “I got lost in the forest. I suppose I’m a little testy.”
“I suppose you are,” Bethina huffed, setting her knife aside. “Dean and Cal were both out looking for you. They’ve been searching all day.”
The throbbing in all of my battered bits redoubled. Of course Cal and Dean would expect the worst. I’d lost an entire day in the Land of Thorn.
Even as I kicked off my dirty boots by the door and slung my cape over a hook, elation crept in. I felt terrible for worrying Cal, but I’d learned something. Tremaine had told the truth about the hexenring. Time did encroach around it, and my ten minutes inside had turned into ten hours.
One fact, but an important one. I resolved that before the night was out I’d learn another, and enough to discern what I was truly dealing with now that the responsibility of the Kindly Folk had come to me.
“Bethina,” I said, “where are Cal and Dean?”
“Back parlor, I think. Mr. Cal said that he wanted to try and find the baseball game.” She shook her head at the notion. She didn’t know that Cal would crawl across an acre of glass to listen in on a baseball game.
“I’ll go find them and let them know I’m all right,” I said. “They must have been terribly worried.”
“Dean was talking about calling up some friend of his with a dirigible and scouring the hills for you,” Bethina said. “Pure foolishness. As if he really knows anyone licensed to fly an airship.”
“Dean knows a lot of things,” I murmured, though I wouldn’t debate her over whether Captain Harry was in actuality licensed to fly under the laws of Massachusetts.
“Supper’s in half an hour. Don’t you wander off again and let it get cold!” Bethina called over her shoulder.
I ignored her—she might try to sound like a mother, but she wasn’t one, not even close—and went toward the sound of a scratchy play-by-play announcer in the back parlor.
“Come on, you bum!” Cal was shouting. “It’s a fly ball, not a grenade!”
“Will you knock it off?” Dean demanded. “My noggin’s had about all the yelling it can take for one day.”
“You’re the one who said we had to stop looking,” Cal retorted. “I’d still be out calling for her if it wasn’t for you.”
“I told you,” Dean sighed. “Woods ain’t safe at night. You’d just get yourself drained by a nightjar or laid out by a ghoul if you stayed out after sunset.” He shifted his weight restlessly on the settee, putting one booted foot on the parlor table.
“Listen to you,” Cal scoffed. “You sound like you’re scared of a few virals. I’m not scared of a thing out in those woods!”
Dean rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Thank stone Aoife has more sense than you. Being afraid keeps you from being eaten.”
“So far, anyway,” I said. Cal yelped and Dean jumped to his feet.
“Aoife!” He rushed to me and for a moment I thought he was going to sweep me into his arms, but he pulled himself upright and put his hand under my chin, turning my face from side to side. “You look right as rain, princess. You all there?”
“I got lost,” I said. “I’m sorry. Bethina says you went to a lot of trouble.”
Cal practically knocked Dean out of the way and grabbed me by the arms. “Aoife, I thought you were dead.