Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz - 35

Violet came to on the floor of her shop to the sound of broken pottery tinkling. She lay frozen, eyes still closed, as memory came back to her. Sedgwick had Peri. Peri had—or was— the Eye of the Serpent. She had to stop Sedgwick, or he would bring Shadowfade back from the dead. She was out of time.

Her eyes snapped open to find Nathaniel sweeping dirt and broken pots into a neat pile. He’d folded his jacket and placed it beneath her head, she realized, though when she reached up to touch the familiar green wool, she saw thorns on the back of her hand.

Oh no.

Oh no .

Quick as a flash, she reined in the Thornwitch, returning to herself as he watched. She was Violet again, but it was too late. He knew—and not because she’d told him.

“Nathaniel—”

“Please don’t.” His voice was clipped, terse, back to the version of him she’d known in her first weeks in Dragon’s Rest, only worse because now there was something else in his tone she’d never wanted to hear from him: fear.

“I can explain,” she tried again. “Sedgwick, he’s got—”

“What is there to explain?” His sweeping grew frenzied, and he still refused to look her in the eye. Violet clutched the shredded remains of her shirt— his shirt—around her as he furiously cleaned her floors. “You are the Thornwitch, are you not?”

Her voice was small. “Yes.”

“You came here after Shadowfade’s death to, what, hide?”

“To start over.”

“As a florist ?” Disbelief was written on his features.

“Yes.”

He laughed, but there was no humor to it. “And the blight?”

She reeled. “What about it?”

“You’re the one causing it. Don’t bother trying to deny it. I’ve figured it out. Your magic is all over it, after all. Were you lying about your hands to throw me off the scent?”

“ What? No!” But a nasty seed of doubt was germinating in her heart. It was the second time today she’d been accused of being behind the blight, but something about Nathaniel’s words struck home. Her hands. That other spring of magic—what if it had never come from her at all?

With a sick feeling in her stomach, Violet searched her shop for a bloom that hadn’t been ruined and spotted a spider plant. She conjured a flower, a daisy, just like that day in the woods, only this time she concentrated on the spider plant too. The daisy sprung to her hand with a stinging tingle just like it had every time she practiced her new “good” magic. But her heart shattered when she saw the spider plant shrivel and blacken with blight. Violet had thought herself so clever, learning to use a source of magic that was different from the Thornwitch’s. But it had never been her magic at all.

Just as Nathaniel had explained to her, everything in the world had its own small reserve of energy. And Violet had been using the plants around her instead of her own magic, sucking them dry until there was nothing left but rot.

Magic had a cost, and every bouquet, every blossom, every sprout she’d grown for her shop had been paid for by the blight .

It was all her fault.

Nathaniel watched her prove his theory correct and nodded, as though checking a box on a list.

“I didn’t know,” she said, her voice cracking. “Nathaniel, you have to believe me, I didn’t know.”

He gripped the broom tighter and continued tidying her shop with stiff, wooden movements.

“I was right,” he said quietly, and the tone of his voice was worse than when they’d met, when he had disliked her. It was worse than disdain or annoyance or even the unreadable tone that had driven her mad in the beginning—this was disappointment, it was heartbreak, it was something shattering between them, and she’d caused it. “Shadowfade’s death did create a vacuum; I just never expected it would be you coming in to seize power and take advantage of us.”

“That’s not true!” Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. “I wanted to start over. I wanted a new life. I’m trying to stop Sedgwick before he—”

He stopped sweeping and glared at her. “Why should I believe you? How much of what you told me was a lie? Your sob story of growing up in a bad home, running away—you only left because he was dead, didn’t you? You only left because you knew you’d be hunted down like an animal if people knew what you were, what you’d done.”

“I was trying to find a way to tell you,” she said beseechingly. “But everything I shared with you about my past was the truth. I left some details out, yes, but I never lied to you, Nathaniel. I wanted you to know me.”

“Leaving out an ingredient in alchemy could mean the difference between a harmless solution and a dangerous explosive. It’s still a lie, Violet. You lied. To the whole town, to me . You—”

“I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now!” Violet blurted. “I didn’t want to be the Thornwitch anymore. I just thought—” She shook her head, feeling foolish. “I didn’t want to be a villain anymore. I wanted to be good.”

She shrunk beneath the force of his glare, feeling stupid and small and wrong in a way she hadn’t felt since Shadowfade was alive. For a solitary moment, she hated Nathaniel for shoving her back into this role. Desperately, she whispered, “I wanted to tell you.”

“Tell me what? How you’ve killed people? Destroyed their homes and livelihoods? Violet, I spent years in the Crucible serving an organization that made me complicit in terrible things, but I left. I didn’t just stand by and allow it to happen.”

“I left too!”

“Once he was already dead.”

“ Yes, because I killed him! ” Violet clapped a hand over her mouth, and Nathaniel stared at her in shock.

There it was. Her secret.

It was the first time she’d said it aloud.

“Karina the Tempest killed Guy Shadowfade,” said Nathaniel slowly, his voice low.

Violet swallowed. “I’m the one who sent for her. I told her how to get past the castle wards. But in the end, when she had us cornered, she wasn’t strong enough. He was going to kill her and I—” She choked on the words, remembering her hand on his back and the way her dagger-sharp thorn had burst through his chest. She remembered the way his blood had splattered on the Tempest’s shirt, and the betrayal in Guy’s eyes. His gaze had darted to the Tempest and right back to her.

Run, petal.

They’d been his last words.

She’d fled, and he’d haunted her dreams, his voice present through her waking moments ever since. He thought she’d been in danger, she realized much later. Even after she’d betrayed him— killed him—he told her to run. He wanted her to get away.

One way or another, Violet would have been responsible for Shadowfade’s downfall. She just hadn’t expected it—hadn’t wanted it—to be done by her own hands. Because she was a coward. Because she’d loved him.

Yet even after all that, even with confirmation that he cared for her too, at least a little, she couldn’t bring herself to regret what she’d done. She’d killed a man—the man who’d raised her, who’d lied to her and forced her to do terrible things in his name, but also the man who had encouraged her to learn more about plants and given her space to garden and showed her not to fear her power but to embrace it. She’d killed him, and as much as she would always mourn the aspects of him that she loved, she wasn’t sorry for ending the monster that Guy Shadowfade had become.

Violet wasn’t sorry for trying to start over afterward, for trying to do what he couldn’t, or wouldn’t: change.

“I killed him,” she repeated, her tone even this time. “I have lived every moment since that day knowing what I’ve done, not just in the end but in the years that preceded it. I live with that , Nathaniel. I will keep living with it for the rest of my sorry life.”

He was still staring at her, only now instead of outright anger, his face was a blank mask, and that was worse. Would he hate her forever? Drive her out of town? A tiny voice inside Violet asked if he would forgive her, but she banished it, knowing she couldn’t allow that thought to take root.

“If Sedgwick brings him back, he’ll harbor no fond feelings for me, never mind all our history together,” she continued. “I stood by and let him be a monster for far too long, and I did monstrous things in his name. I know that. It took me too long to understand what he was turning me into, what I was becoming, and believe me, I know that too. But don’t tell me I didn’t try. Don’t tell me I did nothing.”

When he didn’t say anything, she swallowed, their eyes still locked on each other. It was striking Violet again that she would have to leave, and this would already be the hardest goodbye she’d ever had to say. There would be no hope of forgiveness. After all, how could she expect him to forgive her when she couldn’t forgive herself?

“I want to fix this,” she said quietly. “I will do what it takes to prove to you I’m not the Thornwitch anymore. But you have to listen to me: Peri is the Eye of the Serpent, and Sedgwick has taken him. He’s going to bring back Shadowfade. We have to stop him. And after we do, I’ll—I’ll leave Dragon’s Rest. You’ll never have to see me again, but please believe that I want to stop him. And I need your help to do it.”

His silence pierced her as if one of her thorns had grown inward, digging through her heart rather than bursting through her skin. “Say something. Talk to me. Please.”

The spell broke, and he twitched away from her. “I…I can’t do this.”

“You can’t do this,” she repeated lamely.

“I need time. To think. To…” He trailed off, his silence so complete that Violet swore he could hear her heart breaking. That was it, then. She was too monstrous for Nathaniel, for Dragon’s Rest. Lies about her mother aside, there was truth to what Shadowfade had tried to teach her—there was no use in showing people who you really were. They’d only abandon you once they knew the truth. She was the fool who had chosen to delude herself otherwise.

“Right,” she said finally. Sedgwick was right—Shadowfade had broken them, made sure that by his side was the only place they would ever belong.

For a moment Nathaniel hesitated, clutching the broom like he wasn’t sure what to do with it, but then he leaned it against one of the shelves that was still standing, and with one last look at her, he was out the door.

Violet crumpled the moment he was gone, leaning over her counter and crying long, deep sobs while Bartleby wound his vines through her hair and around her shoulders without even pretending like he was attempting to strangle her.

She felt alone and lost, her worst fears confirmed. Nathaniel knew the truth, not just about her identity but the terrible thing she’d done, the thing that would bring the entire world crashing down on her. She’d be hunted for being the Thornwitch by the Queen and anyone with a taste for vengeance or glory, yes, but Shadowfade’s supporters would kill her for being a traitor. Nowhere was safe for Violet.

And apparently, no one was safe with her either.

The blight was all her fault. She was the reason for the rot in Wingspan Green and the fallen cherry tree downtown and the wreck that had become the Feldspar farm’s crops. Her intentions had been good, but her own ignorance had caused harm.

Despair crashed into Violet like a wave at highest tide, when all three moons were full in the sky. No matter what she did, what she told herself, where she ran, she would always be a villain. The Thornwitch would never leave her.

And now, if Sedgwick successfully brought Shadowfade back, she’d have no choice. If Guy didn’t kill her for what she’d done to him, he’d force her back into service, especially now that Sedgwick knew she could be extorted. All it would take would be a threat against one of her friends here in Dragon’s Rest, and Violet knew she’d be helpless.

He had the Eye of the Serpent. He had the spell. Nathaniel needed time, but the clock had run out: every moment she stayed here moping was another moment Sedgwick had to prepare.

Perhaps it was a futile endeavor, but Violet’s life was over. She would never be Violet Thistlewaite, the florist, ever again. Rough Around the Hedges was done. Nathaniel would tell everyone else, and she would be finished.

A clattering at the door drew her head up hopefully, but of course Nathaniel wouldn’t have returned. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk this out. No, it was a letter in the mail slot, fluttering to the floor.

Violet approached it with shaking hands, knowing there was only one piece of post she was waiting on, and there it was, a seal marked with forked lightning and a sword—Karina the Tempest.

The missive was short:

You cannot keep calling me like a dog.

You’ve done this before.

You can do it again.

Be good, and don’t make me regret this.

—K

That was it, then. The Tempest wouldn’t come to help.

Violet shut her eyes and clenched the letter in a tight fist. She had nothing to stay for and no one to help her. There would be no hero coming to save them. No knight in bright armor with a team of laughing, glorious companions riding to victory.

And Violet? She was the Thornwitch, dammit, a villain proper. A monster.

But she was powerful. And determined. And heartbroken and angry, and protective as hell over the people she’d come to love. The Tempest was right—she’d done this before. She’d killed Shadowfade, and she could very well be the one to make sure he stayed dead.

Whether they loved her back or hated her for existing, she would help the people of Dragon’s Rest. The people of her home .

Like it or not, she was all they had.