Chapter 187

Russo’s POV

Since there were now five of us, we ended up having to call for a van. I offered to take the middle row and sit next to the window so that Lisa was doubly hidden. Outwardly, I said it was for her safety, but inwardly, I was thrilled. Being in the seat together meant that we were virtually unobserved. And it allowed me the opportunity to take her hand and hold it between our legs where the others couldn’t see and give us a hard time about it.

I rubbed our fingers together, enjoying the sensation of her skin against mine. And though we hadn’t talked about it, the little ways she was letting me touch her led me to believe that if I asked, she would be interested in something more with me.

Could we end up having a relationship with one another?

That idea made my stomach turn over and squeeze. I’d never had a relationship, so to speak. I was living with the witches and wizards before. I’d spent too much time drawing a hard line between them and me. I knew the Huntsman was out there, and I knew that he would be the downfall of my kind. I let that isolate me, feeling sorry for myself.

But now that we were all staring down the barrel of that same fate, somehow the idea that I didn’t have to face that alone, that somebody else knew how I felt, made connecting with someone in a real way much more appealing. Clearly, Lisa was drawing comfort from me as well.

Conversation in the car stayed pretty quiet, but as we got into town, Helen leaned from the back seat and asked Lisa. “Where would you like to stay? I have a little place by myself. You’re welcome to stay with me. I have a spare bedroom.”

She shook her head. “No offense, Helen, but I don’t want to be that close to you. Not because I don’t want to be your friend, but because I want to stay off the Huntsman’s radar as much as possible. I can’t help you if he gets a hold of me. And I don’t trust him to ignore someone staying with you. I have a feeling he would try to use me to get to you, and what good will I be to any of us then?”

“Good point,” Helen conceded. “I suppose you could stay with Randy or Russo.” She shot off apologetic glances at us both. “Sorry to volunteer you, boys. I hope you don’t mind. Lisa doesn’t know anyone else in town, and there’s no one I trust more than the two of you.”

I squeezed our joint hands between our legs and said a silent plea. “She can stay with me,” I said aloud, trying not to make myself sound too eager.

“That’s probably better,” Randy agreed. “Since I am probably going to be spending much of my time with Justin, helping him as his beta.”

“Are you okay with that?” I asked Lisa, just double-checking.

She nodded her head. “I’d like that, thank you. Is there an apothecary or an herbalist in town that we can stop at before we go back to Russo’s house?” Lisa requested. “There are a couple of hard-to-find herbs that we’re going to need for the ritual. I want to see if they have them because if they don’t, they’ll need time to order them in.”

“There’s an herbalist who also does naturopathic healing,” Justin suggested. “They can probably get you what you want there. Russo, your place isn’t too far a walk from the shop. Is it okay if we just drop you, and you can walk Lisa back?”

“That works for me.” I agreed.

When Justin, Randy, and Helen dropped us off at the apothecary’s, they left with the promise that they would see us again soon, and suddenly I was all alone with Lisa. She fished around in her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, some of the notes that we had been taking back in the library at Juden’s mansion.

She opened it up and studied the list. “I think it’s the spring mallow that’s going to be the hardest to get,” she said. “The instructions for the rite don’t say whether or not the mallow needs to be fresh. If someone has it dried or preserved, we should be able to get it. But if it needs to be fresh, then I don’t know what we do, considering we’re in the middle of winter.”

She Bit her lip, nerves showing plainly on her face. “You know what the recipe said about substitutions. We can’t afford a single mistake.”

I took her hand in mine and squeezed it reassuringly. “I think we’d best go for dried spring mallow. We don’t want whatever they preserved the other sort in to interfere since the stakes are so high. But I can’t imagine that dried isn’t an acceptable substitute.”

I smoothed a thumb across her jaw, trying to relax her as much as possible, given our dire situation. “After all, did Solomon live wear spring mallow would be very easy for him to just go pick? Does it even grow in the Middle East?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

I nodded. “So, if it’s a plant that he wouldn’t have been able to get, then how would he have managed his demons if he had to get fresh spring mallow? Do you think he jaunted off to Northern Europe or Northern Russia every time he wanted to control his demons, waiting until spring to do it?”

Lisa let out an unsure laugh. “I suppose not. All right, if we can’t find the mallow fresh, we’ll get it in dried form.”

I peeked over her shoulder, letting my chest brush against her back. Something about her called me to be near her. She leaned into me ever so slightly, tipping her head back so that her hair brushed against my shoulder.

“Anything else that might prove tricky?”

“These.” Lisa pointed to three herbs on the list. “They’re going to be special orders because they come from other continents, and there’s no climate that will grow them naturally here. So any apothecary in North America would have to import them.”

I shook my head. “Wow, Solomon must have been one incredible king to have all of this stuff coming into his country even thousands of years ago.”

She nodded her agreement. “Yeah, they had some pretty incredible caravan routes in antiquity. I’ve often thought it would have been an amazing adventure to live back then.”

This drew a laugh out of me. “You wouldn’t have wanted that. Even if you were lucky enough to be born in a place that didn’t burn witches, you’re a woman. You would have been married off to some man of your parent’s choosing and kept at home, breeding for him.”

She turned to scowl at me. “That’s the thing about history. Those poor women they burned were never real witches. Real witches don’t get caught.” Lisa gave me a pointed stare. “As a fae, you ought to understand. It wouldn’t have gone any differently for you since you use magic, too. They would have considered you a practitioner of the dark arts.”

I crossed my arms. “I suppose I wouldn’t have let myself get caught, either. Both our kind did pretty well for themselves. After all, it took a demon to nearly wipe out our entire races.