Caroline's Heart by Austin Chant

Author:Austin Chant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

~

“I can’t sit here for one more day watching you do magic while I gather dust,” Roy says.

Cecily looks up from her enchanting-frame, exasperated. “Did you expect getting shot in the heart to be a picnic?”

“I know I’m not exactly well enough to get back on ranch duty, but I need a change of scenery at least.” He looks like he’s prepared to plant a flag in this idea; Cecily recognizes the warning signs of stubbornness in his chin. “Put me out on the lawn for a while.”

“No.” Cecily ignores his beseeching look. “With that much space to run, I could hardly stop you from sneaking away to… rope a horse, or whatever it is you do.”

“The kitchen, then.”

“So you could attempt to strain your heart doing chores? I don’t think so.”

“How about your workshop?” Roy says, painfully undeterred. “Your customers must be missing you. I’d be content with a view of the street, ma’am.”

He does have a point. Besides, as much as she’s trying to bear it, the quiet, empty coast house is really only tolerable because Roy is there to talk to.

“Very well,” she sighs, and tries not to be charmed by the way his eyes light up. “But don’t let me catch you trying to escape.”

“I can’t think of a single place I’d rather be than in your workshop,” Roy says. “Remember? I’m campaigning to be its first employee.”

“Ridiculous,” she murmurs. After breakfast, she takes him by the hand to lead him to the workshop door, and lets him turn the handle. His excitement is palpable; he’s like a child unwrapping a gift.

His face falls when he steps through to the other side, however. Cecily, following, lets out a noisy sigh. The front window of her workshop has been destroyed, one pane shattered and another cobwebbed with fractures. Glass splinters cover the floor, glittering like snow. At least, Cecily thinks, taking a quick inventory, they don’t appear to have damaged any of her spell components, and neither have they written anything rude on the floor.

“Who the hell did this?” Roy asks, in a faint, furious voice.

Cecily sighs, beckoning her enchanted broom to sweep up the glass. “Given the timing,” she says, “I suspect it was the men who shot you—whichever of them weren’t arrested.”

Roy lets go of her hand and stalks across the shop, his shoulders taut as a wire, stray glass crunching beneath his boots. He goes to the front door and pulls it open, peering out as if he expects the perpetrators to be out there still.

Cecily marches after him. “Sit down,” she orders. “I won’t be flattered if you get yourself shot again on my behalf.”

Roy ignores her. He’s frowning at the ground below her window. “Isaac?”

Cecily follows his gaze to the young man sitting against the wall with his knees drawn up to his chest. She recognizes him as the drunkard who tried to pull Roy from her arms at the bar; one of his friends from the ranch, she supposes.

Isaac blinks, lifting his head, one of his eyes bruised purple and his clothes smeared with dirt.

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