Read Online To Bear an Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler - Free Book Online Page A

laundress’s fabled sheets. Finally he said, “Damn me,” and sat down hard on the floor next to Bromwyn. “This is bad.”
    “Indeed.” Her voice was a bare squeak.
    “So I’m stuck babysitting the fairies.”
    Fire bubbled in her stomach. How could he sound so flippant? So careless? But then, he was careless, wasn’t he? Her eyes narrowed as she silently raged at her friend. It was Rusty’s carelessness that had gotten him into this situation, his mad desire to steal his way out of his birthright that had put him right here in her grandmother’s cottage.
    Rusty had done this to himself—but she was tied to it.
    “Yes,” she snarled. “You are the Guardian. Nature help us all.”
    He ignored her bluster, which made her want to scream. Eyes on her grandmother’s note, he asked, “What’s this part about you keeping your magic?”
    Her face twisted into a grimace. “None of your concern.”
    “Now, Winnie—”
    “Do not ‘Now, Winnie’ me!” She glared at him, and somehow she managed to lower her voice. Barely. “You do not study magic. You know nothing about the Ways of Witchcraft. It is not your concern!” She realized that she was shouting, so she clamped her mouth shut and fumed.
    His gaze burned into hers, and she saw unspoken thoughts dancing behind his eyes.
    “ You are my concern, Bromwyn Darkeyes.” He snorted and shook his head. “You don’t want to tell me, fine. What sort of friend would I be if I didn’t at least ask about your witchy things?”
    Bromwyn swallowed the lump in her throat. Rusty truly cared about her. He had no casual contempt of her way of life, no easy talk of “deviltry.” He was so very different from Brend, from the man she was bound to by a promise she had not made but was required to keep. Brend might protect her, as her mother insisted he would, from threats unknown, but he would never care about her. It would be a loveless marriage, filled only with uneasy stillness and cruel silence.
    As if to mock her, Jessamin’s words echoed in her mind: Life is cruel, Daughter. And fate is crueler still.
    She blinked away a sudden rush of tears.
    Stop that! she scolded herself. This is not the time, not the place! Not that it ever would be. She was as trapped in her upcoming marriage as Rusty was in his upcoming role as Guardian.
    Turning her head, she dabbed at her eyes.
    “Oh … hey now. Don’t go and cry like that.”
    She felt him put his arm over her shoulders, and now he patted her awkwardly.
    “There there, Winnie. It’ll be fine. You’ll see. Please don’t cry.”
    “I am not crying,” she said, angrily blotting her tears. “Witches do not cry.”
    “No,” he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “Of course not. Witches also melt in the rain, and they live in candy houses. I’ve read the stories.”
    She smiled through her sniffles. “I wish the candy houses part was true.”
    “But not the melting in the rain?”
    “It would make bathing rather inconvenient.” She sniffled again. “Thank you. I am all right. Just … feeling overwhelmed.”
    He squeezed her shoulder. “Completely understandable, as I’m feeling the same way.”
    They both climbed to their feet, and Bromwyn took the note back from Rusty. As she reread it, her panic returned. Her test, here and now.
    Was it as simple as her keeping her temper in check? By Nature’s grace, was that it? If she refused to get angry, would that be enough?
    No, she realized, for her grandmother specifically mentioned she also had to think clearly while among the fey. Granted, that could be nothing more than good advice all around. But the last part of the note was truly problematic: Bromwyn was supposed to remember “what the fey value most.”
    As far as she knew, that was a toss-up between human children and human flesh.
    She crushed the note in her fist. As ludicrous as it seemed, Rusty playing Guardian was clearly part of her test to be a Wise One. Should she fail, though, it