Chapter 12
Despite Mistress Ainya’s foreboding words, nothing dreadful came to pass in the weeks that followed our visit to her cottage.
As promised, I began taking lessons with her. My afternoons alternated between roaming the Darkwood with Neeve and Thorne, and spending time in the cailleach’s sunny cottage. Once a week, Neeve accompanied me to continue her own study of herbalism.
I did not enjoy those lessons nearly as much, and so shirked my reading—perhaps more than I should.
“Which is better for headaches, Rose?” Mistress Ainya asked as we sat outside in her fragrant garden. “Tansy, rue, or willow?”
Drat. Instead of studying the herbal she’d sent home with me, I’d devoured the latest volume in the Red Rohan series—a thrilling set of adventure books I’d recently discovered in Cas
