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CHAPTER TWO

“Do you need to vomit?” Sawyer leapt out of the foraging bag the moment the bedroom door locked behind us. “Because I will totally watch your back if you need to puke your guts out right now. I’ve got spells. And claws. He doesn’t stand a chance if he comes in here.”

“Shh!” I whipped around, placed my palms against the wood of the door, and said in a voice much calmer than I felt,

“Form a hedge so full and thick, a wall of stone and stalwart brick,

to turn away eye and ear and make observation disappear.”

The Befuddlement Spell obscured anything heard or observed by prying eyes, as if the snooper were looking through fogged-over glass. The clever individual might suspect magic hinkery was afoot, but with these old stone walls and thick wooden doors, muffled noises were more believable.

Better late than never, I supposed, and I thanked the Green Mother I’d remembered the spell after Ossian had tampered with my memory. I turned back to the cat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to freak out for a minute.”

I stalked over to the bed, snatched up the closest pillow, smothered it against my face, and screamed my heart out. All that constricting anxiety, all that overwhelming anger, all that paralyzing despair, all my control—I emptied it all out into that pillow until the damask was damp from my screams and frustrated tears.

Then, a cold calm settled over me, and I removed the pillow from my face. I’d had my meltdown, and now it was time to act.

Sawyer, who had been keeping vigil during my emotional purge, hunched into a compact ball and tucked his tail in tight. His amber eyes were as round and bright as pennies. “Meadow . . . look what you did.”

A carpet of flowering vines radiated out from a circle around my feet, crawling over the floor and rug, up the four-poster bed and wardrobe and even the walls. Hundreds of small black-eyed Susan flowers, bicolored in orange and yellow, filled the drab bedroom like a sunrise.

I glanced down at my fingertips, still glowing green, and rubbed them wondrously with my thumbs. Gold sparks snapped and fizzled at the friction. “Whoa.”

The last time I’d lost control of my emotions and magic, I’d punched a dormant—possibly dead—elm tree in the middle of the Cedar Haven Forest. Its brittle bark and dusty heartwood had seized the invigorating boost, and to my knowledge, it was still rustling in the wintertime breeze with summer-green leaves.

“So, um, this goes without saying,” Sawyer ventured, batting at a bloom that just bounced back upright on its supple stem, “but you can’t do that again.”

I swept my hand through the air, the flowering vines vanishing a heartbeat later. Not a trace of compost or ash was left behind, as if they had never been. The absorption of green life essence required less effort than it took to blink, even faster than that day on the bridge when I’d sucked all those potted plants dry to defend Flora. “Whoa,” I said again.

“ Or that,” the tabby cat chastised. “Yeesh, you have me sounding like Ame now.” He shook out his fur. “Pardon the insult, but you need to be the besotted bimbo you were before your memories returned so Ossian—”

“ Ossian .” Thorns threatened to erupt from my very skin at the mere mention of his name. Guess I wasn’t as calm as I thought. “He’s killed dozens of women, Sawyer. Maybe even hundreds. The portal showed me when it returned my memories—their magic and the vestiges of their lives permeate it like blood. He took it all. All for the sake of going home and taking his revenge on his brother, if that story is even real and not laced with more of his lies.”

Suddenly overwhelmed with the need to get clean, I shucked my foraging bag, then that wretched white fox-fur coat he’d given me. This very coat had been given to every witch before me—a repurposed gesture of seduction. After hurling it into the farthest bedroom corner, my hands seized the choker of rubies around my throat—this collar —as their next victim.

“Stop!” Sawyer swiped the air between us with his claws. “If he sees you without those rubies, he’ll know something’s up!”

“But I can feel them, Sawyer.”

My shaking fingers skittered over the rubies on my ears, at my throat, that big quail-egg-sized one on my ring finger. They didn’t have any effect on me like they had before I had fully joined with my magic, except psychologically. I knew they were there and what they were trying to do. I felt naked, the Stag Man’s lips kissing my neck and shoulder, his unwanted hands roaming over my exposed skin in tantalizing caresses.

“They’re like wasp stingers, pumping his lust into me—”

My knees bruised as I dropped to the stone floor and upended my foraging bag. I shook out every witchy bit and bob, frantic to find that gleam of silver.

There .

I snatched up the Celtic shield and slipped its chain over my neck. It could’ve just been my imagination, or my desperation, but I felt the metal warm. The sensation of a phantom hand trailing the backs of its knuckles against my cheek filled my heart with peace.

‘It’s a protection amulet, coded to me. If you’re willing, I’d like you to wear it. To have a piece of me with you?’ I heard that deep and steady voice as clearly now as when he’d spoken those words in my bedroom.

The influence of Ossian’s rubies lessened to a mild annoyance as the bear shifter’s amulet erected a barrier around my heart.

“Oh, Arthur,” I moaned and pressed my lips against the shield. He’d told me he could feel my emotions through this little talisman, and I poured every ounce of love I possessed into that kiss. He had to know, even as a bear, that I would never stop fighting for him.

Calmer, I rocked back on my heels and began carefully replacing all my possessions into the foraging bag. The amazonite pendant went around my neck, my magic immediately tasked to recharge it.

There was a gentle rustle as Sawyer padded across the rug. His head butted into my thigh, rubbed, then lifted so he could rest his chin against me as I worked. “You’re strong enough for this, Meadow. You have to be. There’s no one else.” He swallowed nervously. “What are we going to do?”

My answer was immediate, for I’d already made up my mind. “I made a bargain to open that portal—”

“ Wait .”

Sawyer launched from where he cuddled against my leg, springing over my lap and diving head-first into the plaster wall beside the bed. The upper half of his body disappeared into the wall, much like a fox after it’s pounced into the snow after a vole. When Sawyer emerged, shaking the dust and cobwebs from his face, that’s exactly what he held in his mouth.

A mouse. Whose beady eyes glowed blue with faelight.

There was a crunch, then Sawyer spat the little spy onto the rug. “Well that didn’t take long.”

“Why that deceitful, nosy—” I cut myself off before I could cuss, because I feared if I started, I might never stop. No doubt half the English dictionary could be used to describe Ossian, and when that was done, I’d move on to Gaelic. They had more creative expressions anyway.

I picked the dead mouse up by its tail and tossed it out the nearest window. Below, the yew bushes that grew in a hedge along the base of the castle swallowed it from sight.

The debate whether or not to send out a Scouting Spell ping was short—it would reveal to any of the other spies in the wall that I was aware of them and looking for them. The ones furthest from me and my vermin-catching cat would scurry on back to tell their master I wasn’t as enthralled as he thought.

Sawyer sniffed the hole he’d made in the plaster, ears twitching madly. “That’s it for now.”

“Good.” I pushed the nightstand over to block the hole and returned to the rug. “I made a bargain to open that portal,” I reiterated, “ not let him through it. He is not going home. Ever. He does not get to seduce and lie and sacrifice all those women and just go home . I’m going to Elfame to get the Samildánach to ransom Marten and he’s not coming with me. If a key is needed to open the portal, then I’ll just lock it behind me on the way through.”

“But, Meadow, he’ll just take out his anger on everyone here. When you’re in Elfame searching for the mirror, what’s to prevent him from destroying the town and everyone in it while you’re away? The bargain you made only protects your friends and family.”

He left it unsaid that neither he nor Arthur qualified, but I heard those unspoken words as clearly as if he’d screamed them directly into my eardrum.

That was very true, about Ossian releasing his rage against the town. I didn’t have a solution for that yet, just the conviction he was never going to get his happily ever after. There was a chance I could bring him to justice before the deadline, but what if I couldn’t? I needed a Plan B. In the meantime . . ..

“We’ll need allies.” I rolled the black tourmaline crystal between thumb and forefinger, diverting magic from the amazonite crystal to recharge this defensive measure. It had proven invaluable against Alec, though it hadn’t been able to save me from Ossian. I decided to give it some more juice, a more explosive effect. “They’ll defend this place until I can come back, if it comes to that.”

“What allies? The entire town’s been turned into beasts so he can control them.” Including those mousy spies in our bedroom’s walls.

“Not everyone.” I slung the foraging bag over my shoulder and lifted the cat into my arms. Cradled into the crook of my elbow, Sawyer looked up at me with hopeful, albeit nervous, eyes. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you before the world went sideways with that last assault of Caer powder, but Brandi is here.”

“ Brandi? ” the tabby cat screeched, doubling in size as his fur stood straight out. He thrashed, paws flailing, as if I’d just zapped him with a nasty bolt of static electricity.

“She’s in the dungeon below the castle,” I quickly explained. “She’s the one who’s been making the Caer powder and toirchim tonic that’s been keeping me . . . subdued. ”

“I’ll claw her eyes out! Then I’ll pop those ridiculous implants she has like pinatas! I’ll—”

“Under duress , Sawyer. She’s a prisoner, just like us. Just like”—I dropped the cat and jumped to my feet as a recently returned memory made itself known—“my family in the farmhouse! Oh my Green Mother, they’ve been trapped there this whole time, away from their hearth—”

My gaze fell to the gold censer on my belt and the dead coal inside. “Did they take the embers? With the Hawthorne ember in the hearth, they could replenish themselves! I mean, it’s not the same as grounding, but— Sawyer, I could free them! It’d not ideal, but we could expel Marten and remake the Circle of Nine with me as his replacement. We could defeat Ossian before—”

The tabby cat was shaking his head. “But if Marten’s expelled, the power of the coven that protects him still in the Unseelie Court will vanish.”

But of course. “Thistle thorns.” My boots scuffed against the stone floor as I began to pace. “But I can’t leave them there. Ossian might not be able to harm them because of our bargain, but the Brotherhood reports to Alec, and that monster does whatever he wants.” The vengeful part of me wished Arthur would bite Alec’s other forearm off.

“It’s too risky. Getting to the farmhouse the first time was a miracle, and we were almost caught anyway. And Ossian won’t let you out of his sight now, not when you’re the literal key to him going home.”

“But someone must go.”

Sawyer’s ears flattened against his skull, tail lashing. “Forget it! The last time you sent me away, you almost got killed by a silver mallaithe. And when you ran away from me, you got a fistful of Caer powder to the face that almost erased your personality. It was only my— ”

He shut himself up then, tucking his tail in tight and looking away.

But he’d said enough. “You tried to bond me,” I whispered. “The Soul-Bonding Spell, that’s what Ame had called it. It’s why I had the cat silhouette on my tree. You saved me, Sawyer.”

“Yeah, well, you’re important to me or whatever.” He smacked his lips and twitched his whiskers. “And I didn’t even do it right. It was supposed to bind our spirits, not etch itself onto your magical core.”

I wanted so desperately to scoop him up, to cuddle him and thank him properly, but everything about his body language told me not to touch him. He clearly had conflicting emotions about his actions, and why wouldn’t he? For as long as I’d known him, he’d refused to be a witch’s familiar, despite his talent, and yet he’d made the choice to throw that conviction away to save me. And if the world were fair, he’d get the time to truly examine what that meant to him, but we were in enemy territory where the luxury of introspection did not exist.

We could only act.

“What about Ame?” I asked quietly, changing the subject.

“I don’t have a way of contacting her,” he admitted. “She’s like she’s always been—just pops up whenever it suits her.” He shoved off his haunches and started pacing, following the same track I had. “We need a beast we can trust.”

“We have one.” I grinned, my heart swelling. “Shari. The Stag Man’s magic never subsumed her completely. She’s always had one foot outside his illusions.”

“And Flora and Daphne! They already resist his reign.”

“We must be sure. Their little mutinies—Flora’s snark and Daphne helping us to the farmhouse—never undermined his ultimate goal. A true rebellion to defend Redbud will.”

“We’ll need more than a honey badger, a horse, and a porcupine for a rebellion. ”

“We’ll get it.” I nodded, as if the affirmative gesture would manifest the reality. “I’ve already tasked Brandi to sabotage the Caer powder and make it less effective. The populace should be starting to wake up.”

“ If she did what you told her to do,” Sawyer said sourly. “There’s not a brave bone in that witch’s body. She’ll always take the road paved by fear and selfishness.”

“I don’t agree, actually. You didn’t see her in the dungeon, Sawyer.” My teeth pinched the corner of my lower lip as I thought. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to double-check. And mix up a counter-potion for that insufferable toirchim tonic.”

Which I was scheduled to ingest in the next few hours. While I was strong enough now to defend myself against attacks from spells and other magics, counteracting an ingested potion was another thing entirely, especially the ones that physically did you no harm.

I hastened to the bathroom, retrieved the cup I used to rinse the toothpaste from my mouth, and got to rooting around through the various bottles and vials I kept in my bag. There had to be something in there to mitigate the toirchim tonic’s effects. Nullifying was completely out of the question—I didn’t know much about the manufacture of either toirchim tonic or glaze, so subverting it directly was impossible.

The best I could do without a cauldron or a hearth to prepare a proper potion was create a coarsely ground powder in the bottom of the cup using the blunt end of my hairbrush as a pestle. It was a stimulant, blended with a sachet of rabbitfoot clover tea, that would amplify my personality (enough, I hoped) that when my system was hit with that tonic, everything would even out. Maybe.

The cup clinked against the ceramic countertop of the sink as I set it aside to drink in the true morning, when the sun crested the horizon. Sawyer was already on the bed when I returned from the bathroom, front paws propped on the headboard and head cocked as he listened to the walls for more spies. When he curled up on my chest after I’d burrowed under the covers, I knew we were safe for the time being. At least, as safe as we could be.

I removed the moonstone collar from his neck and shoved it under the mattress. With as much sneaking around as I suspected we would have to do, he couldn’t have a pretty collar catching the light and giving us away. Besides, if he were caught, we were both screwed anyway, collar or not.

Then, with a deep breath, I relaxed into the lulling rhythm of stroking his fur. This would be the first time my dreams would be mine, uninfluenced by Caer powder.

Except they wouldn’t come. I was too wired, my blood too hot, to find the peace of dreams. Seeing Sawyer with his amber eyes already slitted and seconds away from sealing shut just pierced me with jealousy.

Needing something to do but unwilling to leave the bed and disturb my cat, I found the Celtic shield pendant and rubbed it vigorously between forefinger and thumb. Maybe I could transfer my anxiety and restlessness into the shield and actually gain a measure of sleep before I had to wake up in enemy territory.

The phantom hand returned, the knuckles gentle as they traced the contour of my cheek. I had no idea if Arthur’s influence was real, but I had to believe it. The caress repeated, mimicking the languid strokes I’d given Sawyer . . . to the same effect. I drifted off, in the presence of the two I loved most in the world, with confidence in the upcoming day.

I had a plan, I had power, and I had the patience to employ both to defeat the King of Beasts.