Page 37 of Destined Dawn

Winnie rolls her eyes at me. “We’re talking about Pip, right?”

“I honestly don’t know. Familiars are meant to protect magicals from danger, aren’t they? And while I love Pip to bits and he’s a great friend and everything,” I shrug, “he hasn’t exactly stopped me from landing in trouble.”

Pip snorts in an outraged manner and Winnie laughs.

“Yeah, he’s not exactly the best guard dog but I still love him to bits.”

“Me too.”

Winnie picks up the wooden spoon and stirs the potion.

“They say familiars are spirits that take an animal form – occasionally a human one,” she says.

“Like a ghost?”

“I don’t know. It’s not really my area of expertise. And I think the practice of familiars died out long ago.”

We both look down at Pip who is now chewing on my shoelace. When the lace tickles the back of his throat, he gags and spits it out.

“Charming,” I mutter.

“We still need that Cloudpuff,” Winnie says. “Do you remember where you saw it?”

“Yes,” I say, “I’ll go fetch some now. I could do with some fresh air.”

“Alone?” Winnie says as I head towards the door, Pip trotting alongside me.

“No, Pip’s coming too.”

“I don’t think that’s a good–” Winnie calls after me, but I’ve already grabbed my coat and am out the door.

A walk on my own out here in the empty landscape might be just what I need to stop my head from pounding and line my thoughts in order. And not just about my mates but about my mom’s vision too. My mates seem to think her vision was correct, that what she saw is already playing out. Christopher Kennedy will come for me. He won’t stop until he’s destroyed me. But there’s this niggling feeling inside me that that isn’t it. That we’ve misunderstood, missed something. And I can’t shift it.

The winter sun creeps over the horizon as Pip and I walk away from the mansion and across the fields, heading in the direction the beast took me yesterday. The sky turns slowly gray above us and the air bitterly cold. I peer down at my pig wondering if I should have insisted he wore that cardigan Winnie found him.

I haven’t told anyone else about what else my aunt revealed. About Pip. About having to let him go. Because that isn’t happening and I’m scared that if I tell them about that part, they’ll insist that I have to. And then we really are going to fall out.

“Are you cold?” I ask him.

He snorts, shaking out his body and trotting on ahead of me. In the distance I can see the tall stalks of Cloudpuff growing beside a ditch. I plunge my cold hands deeper into my jacket pockets, crunching them into fists and picking up my pace. I only need a couple of the giant plants but the stalks are thicker than I realized and when I fail to snap them in half, I’m forced to use my magic to sear through the woody stems. I lay the first stalk, with its small white winter flowers, across my lap, and tackle another. I’m half waythrough slicing the stalk when something niggles at the periphery of my awareness.

Magicals.

I snap up my head and peer out towards the horizon. The sky is covered in a thick blanket of cloud and the light is murky but I swear I can see movement – the tiniest dot of movement out there.

Automatically, I clutch my aunt’s locket, resting against my clavicle, thanking my lucky stars I was sensible enough to wear it.

Pip’s snuffling in among the tall plants, his nose wet with dew. I hiss his name and beckon him close, remaining in my crouched position as I watch that dot, my senses primed that way too.

The dot grows bigger and bigger, multiplying into two, three dots, and soon it’s clear those dots are people. Three people, one dressed in the long dark cloak of an enforcer.

Friends or enemies? I don’t know. But I need to warn the others.

There’s someone coming!I yell out in my mind and then through my bond, hoping one of my mates will be up by now and might hear me. Then I pick up Pip and start sprinting back towards the house. No magic comes hurtling over my head, no sign at all that I’ve been seen, and when I reach the crumbling wall that marks the boundary of the garden belonging to the old mansion, I meet Azlan striding quickly my way.

I grab his arm.

“You’ll be seen,” I hiss at him, twisting my head to search for the magicals – one woman, one man and the enforcer still walking this way.