Page 12 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

“It came to our shores from across the sea, poisoning everything it touched. Consuming it. Death was its wake. True death, Misty Fields. No life has ever regrown where it has touched, despite the Green Court’s best efforts to revitalize the land.

We lost the Court of Shoals before we could drive it away.

” Mindful of the iron cuff, she took hold of my arm.

Her fingernails pinched down to add weight to her next words.

“ Drove it away. We did not win anything but a respite, contrary to popular opinion. It lurks, waiting for a time to return.”

The high lady clicked her tongue behind her teeth in a bitter sound.

“The Green Court is safe within the center of the continent, so what does it care? The Court of Beasts is too proud to think we weren’t wholly victorious, and the Solstice Court views the Blight as nothing more than a blip of discomfort in our history books.

The Sky Court suspects but won’t do anything without guidance from their stars—who are silent—but the Court of Tides knows better.

The strongest of us can sense the path of water hundreds of leagues offshore and what waits there.

Yet what would constant fearmongering achieve without hard evidence?

The other fae cannot detect what we can.

How we are one current shift away from disaster. ”

In the pause that followed, I ventured softly, “But you’ll be more prepared?—”

“Prepared to drive it away again?” she interrupted. She gave an unladylike snort, which was still the most elegant snort I’d ever heard, if snorts could be described as such. “It should’ve never even gotten a taste of our shores. My lord and I, we could’ve— If I hadn’t been?—”

The high lady trembled, her fingernails jumping into her palms as her hands turned into fists.

She shook with anger, the tips of her pale ears turning red.

Her feet were no longer quiet along the path, stomping as she led us ever deeper into the forest. No doubt she was imagining crushing Ossian’s skull under her heel with each step.

“I know,” I said softly.

She whirled on me, ready to berate me how I had no idea what I was talking about, a verbal barrage she’d undoubtedly unleashed on many before me, and then she remembered. I did know. I could empathize. Because I had lived it too.

Her eyelids fluttered shut as she sucked in a calming breath. When she opened them, the wrath had been replaced with purpose.

“My lord drove away two blights upon Elfame,” she said.

“I will not have either of them returning if I have anything to say about it. And I do.” She paused to address the entire party: “Let us pick up the pace. We must be at the boundary before dawn. Quiver, here. Mare, if you please,” Shannon prompted Daphne, her fae hearing having picked up our codename discussion.

“You’ll move faster if you were unburdened. ”

“I’m not that heavy,” Flora protested.

Regardless, the quicksilver-colored fairy hound circled around and waited for Daphne to set the gnome upon his back.

“Hold on, but don’t pull out his hair,” Shannon reminded her. Then she clicked her tongue and Flora seized Quiver’s scruff with a yelp as he bounded away.

“Laoise, you have Coon and Beaver,” she instructed, “Orla, Mare; Agnes, Quills. Give Stripes back to Misty, Quills.”

Shari scowled as she reluctantly returned my cat, giving his neck a final scratch before backing away. Sawyer thoughtfully purred even louder at the farewell, the calming sound soothing away some of the sting of Shannon’s order.

The fae linked arms with their assigned charges and hurried away. There were a few startled cries, along with Cody’s “Jehoshaphat!” as the humans adjusted to their new marching pace, but they quieted quickly under threat of mallaithe, faelene, and whatever other dangers might be lurking nearby.

That left Shannon to guide my hand into the crook of her elbow and for my free arm to hold Sawyer tight against my chest. The high lady ran, pulling me along as if I weighed nothing, Arrow loping easily behind us.

“Now, the Samildánach,” the high lady whispered into my ear.

How she could navigate this dark forest at a run, haul a witch, and carry on a meaningful conversation was beyond me, but since I didn’t need to worry where to place my feet, I could concentrate on listening.

“The Samildánach has been a plague on my family since its creation,” she said. “My great-grandfather didn’t just pour silver into a mold and meld it to a piece of reflective glass. He poured his ambition into it, his desire, his obsession.”

Intent is nine-tenths of magic , I couldn’t help thinking.

“So the Samildánach became more than just a portal between realms. It seemed almost to have a will of its own, and as my great-grandfather aged, he became more susceptible to its influence. All the direct male descendants fell prey to this voice at the fringes of their minds. Great-Uncle Ronan was so afraid of what it could do that he set sail from the River Court and never returned. He abandoned his court to turn privateer. No one abandons their court, especially not members of the sovereign family. So my father, after seeing what it did to all the males before him and fearful for what it might to do him and his sons, Ler especially?—”

I shuddered. The fae male was already a whack job who did not need any help furthering his neuroses by a perverse mirror.

“—he gave it into his cousin Beryl’s safekeeping. The females of our family, especially from the different branches, seemed less influenced or even immune to the mirror’s call. Beryl was Lady Muriel’s attendant when the Court of Shoals fell.”

“I’m sorry.”

The fae shed no tears. “In the smallest of silver linings, it was a blessing. Because of the Blight, the Samildánach has been lost to those who would abuse its power and my family was freed from the shackles of its obligation. Until now.” She sighed.

“Legend said it would always find its way back to the Sailchis line. If you are successful, Misty Fields, you must ensure it never comes into my family’s possession again. ”

Abruptly, Shannon halted. It was only her arm clamping mine against her body that halted my forward momentum, otherwise I would’ve pitched over the edge of an outcropping.

The forest simply stopped, revealing a lowland pasture topped by a great swath of star-studded sky.

The three moons I’d seen hung low, and blue smudged the eastern horizon.

My friends were all catching their breaths as the fae attendants congregated around some wild blueberry bushes.

Quiver dropped his haunches and shook the gnome from his back.

Abandoning Flora on the outcropping, the fairy hound returned to his mistress with a spring in his step.

The gnome promptly sneezed, earning her a foul look from every attendant for endangering their high lady.

Something—the longbow, actually—told me she could take care of herself.

A moment later, seven packs were extracted from the blueberry bushes, one of them gnome-sized for Flora. Actually, hers was just a child’s satin purse, but the strings were long enough to act as shoulders straps.

“Blight me, I hope there’s a hanky in there,” Flora said, sneezing again. “This, this is why my ancestors left Elfame. Cursed hay fever on steroids. It’s either that or all the animal dander in this court.”

“Shhh!” Laoise chided her.

Rolling her eyes, Flora smeared more butterbur balm across her nose like it was warpaint and stuffed the jar into the satin purse.

The attendants clustered together, forming a kind of triangle with their backs to each other. Clearly none of them were comfortable this far from the castle seat and its lesídhe guardians.

Meanwhile, Shannon strode from one end of the outcropping to the other, clearly looking for something. She rose her voice above a whisper to softly call, “Scholar?” Even she was tentative to use the fae’s true name for fear of discovery. Who knew who was listening?

Nothing but the rustle of a morning breeze answered her.

Its coolness raised goose bumps across my arms and caused Sawyer’s fur to fluff, but it was nothing like the bitter cold back home.

The seasons were milder here—as evidenced by most of the trees retaining their leaves—or perhaps non-existent other than a slight change in temperature.

“Where is he?” Agnes whimpered. “Dawn is nearly upon us!”

“Useless waste of a fae,” Orla commented, picking grime out from under her nails and flicking it away.

Laoise ground her teeth. “He’s not even a master in his own court. We should’ve never trusted him, Shannon.”

The high lady’s lips flattened into a displeased line. “Find him, ladies, or this endeavor will fail before it has even begun. Agnes, the amulets. The rest of you, put on your packs and gather here.”

We did as we were told and crowded around the high lady like kindergarteners about to receive juice boxes and pretzels from our teacher.

But what she drew out of the sack Agnes had given her were wood-and-silver pendants on corded necklaces, not snacks.

Each wooden rectangle bore silver overlay in the shape of a horned lion’s face.

The amulets hummed with magic. She handed one to each of us, except Sawyer, and we dutifully slipped them over our heads.

“These are obscurity amulets,” she explained quickly as the eastern sky lightened from blue to a watery gray. “They will alter your appearances, dampen your scents?—”

“You look the same,” Emmett told Cody. “Smell the same too. Ugh.”

“Why did I have to get the janky one?” The old carpenter smacked his amulet against his palm like there was internal clockwork that needed knocked into place.