"I'd suggest taking that, then -- far less work for the lot of you," he said. In spite of that, though, he reached for his keys again, unhooking another one to pass to her. "If you should change your mind, though ... it's on the far end of town, just before the woods. Very old, very hard to miss."

He dropped his hands into his lap. "And as for all of this ... if I plan on blaming anyone, it'll be your human friend or, barring him, myself. I hadn't actually been expecting anything to happen that night in the clearing -- powerful as I must seem to you, I'd been trying for centuries without much luck. If I'd known it was possible and not just the whimsy of an old man, I would have thought to get my hands on some Hawthorn then, and not just to prevent anything else from slipping in."

Considering that the last words he had spoken to Anna had been part of a heated argument, it was a miracle she hadn't been hostile towards him. Hawthorn would have kept her from doing the same to him as Samuel had done to them, on the chance that she was, as well as keeping Samuel from coming over in the first place.