Sounds of muttered distress were coming from around the corner. Hecate stopped and peered over at the offending area. It didn't sound like one of the students. She caught a glimpse of dark fabric moving around the brambles and walked around.

'Ada! What are you doing?'

'Ouch! Picking blackberries. There's a fine crop over here.'

'There are blackberries here?' The thick dark purple dress was unfamiliar. In the late summer sun, Ada looked red in the face.

'I've been doing it since I was a child. This is my blackberry picking dress. It repels thorns well enough and doesn't show the stains. Pretty warm though.'

Hecate was astounded. How had she not wondered where the blackberries had come from? Every year since she'd worked here, for the first week of the autumn term there were blackberries on the breakfast table.

'Why don't you do it by magic?'

'Takes the fun out of it. Anyway if there are particularly tall branches, I use magic to bend them. Then I pick them.'

'Do you want some help?'

Hecate effortlessly leaned over and plucked some berries to put in the cauldron. Ada's smile showed appreciation.

'That would be lovely, thank you.'

They worked together in comfortable silence for a while. Hecate had never thought of plucking berries, only herbs and plants.

'I hadn't realised you picked the blackberries yourself.'

'A nice farewell to summer and a good way of getting my mind away from the madness that is to come. Ouch!'

Her right hand was swathed in a leather glove, the other, fingers were stained with blackberry juice and tiny scratches. She popped a particularly good berry in her mouth.

'Amazing that you have enough berries to cover breakfast after eating all of these.'

'Any section I can't get to will have to wait until the next day. This forest doesn't run out until the season ends.'

She leaned up on tiptoes and held up a beautiful blackberry to Hecate's lips. Hecate ate it to please her, surprised to find the sun-soaked sweetness very much to her liking. It tasted slightly different than it did at breakfast. Or was she imagining it because Ada was giving it to her? She impulsively kissed the biggest scratch on Ada's hand, enjoyed the shining gaze directed at her. She would join Ada blackberry picking every year now.