Rosemary Thorne's Arc

Chapter 11 of 24

Damien slept on the floor by the hearth. Rosemary sat at the table with the two halves of the pendant in her palm. Dawn had come and gone. He had stayed. She kept looking at him to make sure. A knock came at the low pane by the door. Not a fist. A knuckle the size of an acorn. Rosemary knew the sound before she saw him. The gnome stood on the step with his purple hat askew and one of her tabby cats tucked under his arm. He was the one who had come with riddles the night the witch first learned Damien's name. He was the one who had warned her about the price. He was small and old and his eyes were too blue for his face. "Put the cat down, Whisker," Rosemary said. "A debt walks on four feet and asks for cream," Whisker Riddlewick said. He did not put the cat down. "You bound a woman with borrowed rope. Who paid the ropemaker?" "I paid," Rosemary said. "My mother's stone." "You paid the spell." He shifted the cat. "You did not pay the one who pointed you to the page." Rosemary went cold. She thought of the green book. The marked pages. The riddles that had steered her toward blood and iron and the binding at the end. He had been guiding her the whole time. Behind her, Damien stirred. He sat up slow, saw the gnome, and stood. "What does he want?" Damien said. "A cat," Rosemary said. "He always wants a cat." "One cat for a dead witch," Whisker said. "Cheap at twice the price. Say yes and I go. Say no and I sit on your step until the moss grows on me, and your tall friend will hear me every night he tries to sleep here." Damien's jaw set. He stepped toward the door. Rosemary put a hand on his arm. "Not that one," she said. She lifted the tabby out of the gnome's grip. The cat went limp with relief. "You get cream. You get a bowl every moonrise on the step. And you get this." She held out one half of the cracked amethyst. Whisker's blue eyes went round. He took the stone in both hands. He weighed it. "A keepsake from a keeper," he said. "That closes the ledger." He tucked the half-stone into his belt. "Cream on the step. Every moonrise. Miss a night and I come inside." "I won't miss," Rosemary said. He tipped his hat and walked off into the garden. The cat purred against her chest. Rosemary shut the door. Damien was watching her. The other half of the pendant lay on the table between them. "You gave him half of her," he said. "I kept half," Rosemary said. "And I kept you." Damien took the half-stone off the table and closed it into her hand. He did not let go.