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I knew we needed to get that crystal, but if we were about to fight werewolves and deal with witch traps, I really needed to eat something. And oddly, Lucian brought it up before I did and he did it in a way that didn’t make it seem like we were stopping just for me. I appreciated that because so far, I was the only one of us who hadn’t gotten some cool new power.

A bird flew down and landed on Liam’s shoulder. They seemed to be having some kind of conversation and we could only hear Liam’s part of it.

“Really? I’ll pass the message. That’s rather badass. And thank you. You’re all fantastic.”

The bird flew off and Liam turned to us.

“So, they are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. They knew this was about where we’d need to stop and eat before we went after the crystal and they set up kind of a picnic through the clearing. Also, one of those animals goes together with Sage, but she’s got to woo it first because it’s not like a dog who wants to be domesticated.”

“What is it and how do I woo it?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. Part of the wooing it wants is you to figure all that out. It’s smart, and it wants you to prove you’re smart.”

“I can do that,” I said, even if I had no idea where to start.

“She also said to eat the bread the fairy gave you with what they foraged and your familiar stole some fruit from the fairy orchards because they are kind of a klepto. That’ll keep you balanced, even if you don’t have a label to read. That’s not the animals guessing. Your familiar is connected to you and they were the one who passed that message.”

I shrugged as we sat down to eat. Khalid started a small fire and managed to cook up the foraged mushrooms and herbs into something pretty good considering we had very limited ingredients.

The bread Saffron gave me was delicious. It was dense and almost like cake and bread had a baby. I had an idea. Whatever my familiar was, they had to be related to fairies too, and they needed to eat. Clearly, they had no problem stealing. Was it stealing if they were an animal? It wasn’t like they had thumbs or jobs to pay for it.

The fruit they stole wasn’t like anything I’d eaten before. It had to be cracked open like a coconut, but you could do it with your hands. There was a sweet liquid inside that I drank and the flesh tasted like the few times I had custard.

And even I knew it was fucked up I was eating things I didn’t know the sugar or carb count for because I’d never heard of them before just because some bird told Liam another animal told her I should. Sue me, I trusted the unknown animal.

So, I didn’t eat all the bread and fruit. I walked over and left some of it on a rock for my familiar. I didn’t know the first thing about wooing a magical creature. I wasn’t even allowed to have a pet growing up because Blue Matthews was the kind of psycho that hated dogs. They hated him, as well. He had this weird thing about women with cats, so they were out too.

“That’s a good offering,” Liam said.

“Yeah, I don’t know much about that. Blue’s church thinks candles and incense is too pagan.”

It was weird how I’d easily slipped into calling him by his first name. He wouldn’t have stood for that growing up. He was big on titles and respecting elders.

“My Da thinks if you don’t do the candles and incense then your prayers don’t work. He’s also a murderer, so you probably shouldn’t listen to him.”

“Aren’t you?” Lucian said.

“Not like my Da,” Liam muttered.

“How are you feeling?” Khalid asked.

“Actually, better than I have in a long time, so if anyone is planning retribution on the fairies for kidnapping me or shooting them with an arrow, Saffron really helped me. And so did Liam’s friends, so thank you.”

“They appreciate your thanks. I don’t know which one is yours and if they can only communicate with you, but they all like food and they won’t touch what you left since you meant it for your familiar.”

“Listen, I don’t feel any magic powers, but I do feel stronger. I’m not sure I can take on a werewolf and I don’t know the first thing about magical traps, but I’m actually feeling good enough to try.”

“I’d feel better with Doris, but me, too.”

“Who’s Doris?” I demanded.

I didn’t have any right to ask that. He probably would have cut that man’s dick off for anyone and I was reading too much into it.

“My switchblade. Relax, she’s a sexy thing, but she’s not a redhead with legs for days,” he said, winking at me.

Ugh. Liam just had this way of making me blush.