Page 17 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER TEN

The panic attack Kian was experiencing from the distance between him and his treasured books subsided when the grassland helpers and I ran to catch up. Ran being the intent, but bushwhacking being the actual act. The tall grass rose past my knees and was as thick as sea otter fur.

As such, the humans leading our charge across the prairie were tiring quickly. Without warning, Cody dropped to the ground.

“Beaver!” Emmett cried, falling awkwardly to his knees and seizing his friend’s cowl. “He’s had a heart attack!”

“No, I haven’t,” the old carpenter snapped, “and stop shaking me or you’ll give me a concussion. I’m just plumb tuckered out.”

Daphne sank to the ground, flapping out her skirt so it wouldn’t tangle in her legs. “I think we could all use a rest. And some water, too.”

Shari was already digging around in her pack. Flora was helping, as her little doll-purse pack had nothing but a package of dried fruit, a handkerchief, a box of matches, and the butterbur balm. The high fae had greatly underestimated her strength.

“Here? I-in the open?” Kian looked around at the seemingly endless prairie.

The grass had turned yellow-green with the change in season and rolled away from us in the wind like ripples across a lake.

Here and there, wildflowers with hardy frost-resistant blooms still dotted the landscape in pink and white.

Encompassing it all was a sky of endless blue with nary a cloud in sight.

“Are we expecting to reach the Fire Grove before nightfall?” I asked, withdrawing my canteen.

“Ideally,” the fae male replied, running a hand through his hair and looking off towards the north where the fringe of red forest didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

“I suppose since we are mostly a company of mortals, it will take another day.” He chewed on his bottom lip.

“Perhaps we can charter a covered carriage from one of the hunting lodges there.”

“Carriages need roads,” Shari pointed out, “and the high lady said to stay off them.”

“My back cannot take a cross-country ride in a carriage with crap suspension,” Cody added. “Pass.”

Kian gave the prairie another worried look. “I don’t suppose you could use that wind magic of yours to whisk us across?”

“The high lady said to avoid using magic unless necessary,” Daphne reminded us, allowing me to save face. “These scarecrows are already pushing it.”

At least they looked like something that could be found in Elfame. Maybe.

“Do you know something we don’t?” I asked Kian. Sawyer hadn’t raised an alarm; in fact, he was off hunting lacewings and dragonflies for a snack.

The fae male dropped into a crouch but still towered over the tips of the tall grass by a good two feet. He was careful to keep his balance lest he actually touch the earth and get his soft hands dirty, and thus, his books.

“This is the Court of Beasts,” he told us as if we were all dumber than a flock of fruit flies. “ Beasts . This is not the Solstice Court with its libraries and fine, thick walls.”

“Don’t get out much, do ya?” Cody mused.

Kian shuddered.

“The high lady said the beasts will ignore us,” Daphne said soothingly, tapping her amulet.

“ Most of them,” Kian pointed out. “And it’s not the most I’m worried about. It’s the— Ah!” He lunged, scruffing Sawyer and hauling him out of the tall grass. “What are you— Spit that out immediately!”

Sawyer instead slapped his paws over his mouth and crunched down on the last bit of dragonfly. Blue juice stained the cat’s tawny chin.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Kian shouted, giving my familiar a shake. His fae strength overdid it, and the tabby tomcat’s amber eyes rolled in his head like loose marbles. Sawyer promptly hurked blue dragonfly paste into the tall grass then yowled.

“Let go of my cat!” I cried, already on my feet and battle magic bursting from my cuffs.

Alarmed, the junior scholar obeyed, and Sawyer landed on wobbly paws. With hands raised and fearful eyes fixed on my glowing hands, Kian backed away. Sawyer coughed once and sprang away to the safety between my ankles. He snarled at the male, and Fiachna hissed.

“He should not have done that,” Kian said gravely, hands still raised.

“And you should know better than to treat him like that,” I snapped. “By the Green Mother, are all you fae so insensitive to those smaller and weaker than you?”

“Misty.” Flora scrambled up onto Daphne’s shoulder and cast a wild look across the prairie. “That name has meaning here. Don’t use it again.”

I ignored her, my ire still on Kian. For a moment when he shook Sawyer by his scruff, it was Ossian I’d seen, not the gentle junior scholar. It took more than one deep breath for me to calm down. To realize as much as I was angry with him, he was equally terrified of me.

What was it that Shannon had said? ‘True magic wielders, as you might call them, are fewer than you think.’

“I’m sorry.” The battle magic vanished, the runes darkening on my cuffs. I forced my expression to smooth and folded my hands flat against my stomach in a peaceful gesture. “We are like children in our understanding of this place, Kian. We need your patience.”

And for me not to overreact.

He slowly lowered his hands, then shot a disapproving look at my cat. “Not even the faelene eat draigflies,” he scolded.

“Don’t know why.” Sawyer licked a paw and wiped his whiskers clean. “Tasted pretty good until you made me puke it up.” He glared. “I only do that with hairballs.”

“Are they poisonous?” I asked quickly, ready to send a healing boost into Sawyer just in case.

“No. But they’re draig flies.” He said it like we all should understand the implications of that word. We didn’t. So much for treating us like children. Maybe they had a higher understanding curve?

Flora rolled her eyes. “Stripes, just the beetles from now on, okay? Are those okay to munch on?” she asked Kian.

“Better you munch on them then they munch on you,” he replied.

“I don’t like how he said that,” Shari whispered to Daphne.

“Let’s just hurry up,” Kian said. “I don’t like my books exposed to these outside elements and there’s more to go over.” He stood and checked on each of his books, making sure the grassland helpers weren’t staining their pages with sap.

“Alright,” Emmett said. “Before we get a move on, everybody circle around and dump out your packs. Let’s see what we’re working with here.”

To the pile we made in the center, Emmett unloaded his own private satchel that his raccoon self had brought over from Redbud.

Mostly trinkets, but also his travel repair kit and some nice jewels he’d brought from his shop.

Maybe they would be as valuable here as they were back home.

There were also a few of Cody’s tools inside—either he or the old carpenter had learned from the times the magic hunters had disarmed him at the castle door.

As the sorting began, Daphne said, “This too.”

We all watched, confused then amazed, as she began unweaving the elaborate braid Shari had fashioned for my faux wedding. A crochet quill slipped out, then a tight ball of pale gray yarn.

With a relieved whimper, Shari immediately snatched up the crochet hook and the yarn and began crafting.

“You used her braid as a smuggler’s hold?” I exclaimed.

“I wasn’t going to flee the castle barehanded,” the quiet crafter said defensively.

“There’s more,” Daphne said. She released a silver spoon, a wedge of cheese wrapped in beeswax cloth, a lump that looked like a ball of black lint, a bar of chocolate, and Shari’s bottle of hard apple cider.

“ Finally .” Daphne shook out her mane of white hair, then rolled her neck to relieve her tired muscles.

“Is that a bottle of hooch?” Cody asked, sitting up excitedly.

“What’s hooch?” Kian quickly retrieved a little notebook and a quill from his coat pocket.

I ignored them and lifted the black lump from the pile.

A flash of light lanced in the sunlight as I smeared the soot away from the metal clip.

It was the tiny crocheted bat holding a peach that was looking a little more gray than pink.

“But… Alec threw this into the fire.” After he’d raided my room, he’d thrown everything into the fire except my clothes.

“He threw it at the fire,” Shari corrected. “He has bad aim when he’s mad. Found it tucked away in a sooty corner and figured?—”

She silenced as I lurched forward and gave her a fierce hug. Her hands, squashed against my chest, ceased their crocheting. One wiggled loose and gave me an awkward pat-pat on the back.

Alec and Ossian had taken everything from me—every scrap of my life that I’d built in Redbud. Every trinket and memory. But this one piece of friendship made manifest had survived. As small and battered as it was, it gave me a surge of hope that everything else could endure too.

I released Shari with a muttered apology—she wasn’t much of a hugger—and clipped the bat onto my cloak. Right at the shoulder where it had first connected me to my new friends at the corn maze.

Emmett broke the spell of my quiet hope when he smacked Cody’s hand. The old carpenter had been reaching for the cider. “We ain’t on the front porch on a Sunday afternoon. No day-drinking.”

“What about the chocolate?” Cody grumped.

“We’ll save that as a victory treat when we finally get out of here. Now let’s see what we’re really working with here.”

With practiced efficiency, the antiques dealer sorted everything and redistributed it amongst the packs.

We each got a few packets of dried foodstuffs like lentils and fruit and a canteen (except for Flora).

What looked like a med-kit went into Daphne’s pack, and Emmett and Cody volunteered to carry the two bedrolls.

Shari carried all she’d smuggled into Daphne’s braid, plus the vial of pokeweed juice I pulled out of my bra pocket.

Out of all of us, she was the most vulnerable.

Emmett could throw his weight around, if necessary, Cody had spite and vinegar in his veins instead of blood, Flora was, well, Flora , Daphne could wield any stick like it was a cudgel, and Kian had size on his side.

Shari was already starting out here on a back foot: the pills she’d relied upon were back home.

She had nothing here but her fragmented mind and her friends to keep the terrors away.

A vial of pokeweed juice was a little thing, barely an assurance, but she accepted it with the gravity she would give a sword.

The parceling went quickly after that. Flora kept what was in her child purse, despite her protests that she could carry more.

None of Shannon’s attendants had thought to prepare a pack for Kian, but he was laden with his books and opossum anyway.

That left everything else to me, who had a magic oak tree to draw strength from: a long-handled skillet, an equally long-handled spoon, four earthenware bowls—apparently the fae hadn’t bothered to count—a kindling box, another box of matches, packets of herbs for seasoning, the jar of salt, and an extra canteen.

I was sure there was more in there, but Emmett had moved with such speed and efficiency—and I was scanning the prairie with my sparkle vision—that I didn’t catch it all.

“There’s some kind of mammal here,” I announced.

“They look big. Might make a good meal if we can catch a few tonight.” I promptly turned off that extra vision, my stomach churning as the thought of using it to easily track prey flitted across my mind.

Only in an emergency, I told myself. Otherwise, it seemed merciless.

“Did you sense anything else?” Flora asked. She sniffed the wind and promptly sneezed. Cursing her allergies, she yanked the handkerchief from her doll purse and got to blowing.

Kian, in particular, seemed on pins and needles to hear my reply.

“Nothing but bugs.”

He sighed in relief and sent a surly look in the direction Sawyer had wandered, clearly still miffed the cat had had the audacity to eat a lone dragonfly.

“Let’s eat this cheese before it goes bad,” Emmett said, giving it a sniff. “Mortal food in an immortal realm, you know. I think it’ll pair just perfectly with these crackers and some of those dried figs.”

“But not the chocolate or the booze,” Cody snarked.

“Should we walk and eat?” Daphne prompted, rising and taking hold of Kian’s rope. The others did the same.

“Ah yes, finger foods and a jaunt through the hostile countryside,” the old carpenter grunted. “Sounds lovely.”