Page 31 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

When Kian didn’t move, Shari shoved her edge of the table.

“Gotcha!”

“You don’t get it?” Kian sputtered, looking at Daphne as if she’d grown a second head.

“Kian’s got ogre blood in his ancestry,” Flora explained when the junior scholar wasn’t forthcoming.

“Apparently diluted enough that it’s only reflected in his height and build.

That excessive height and musculature are rare for a high fae, but not unheard of.

But only high fae can be master scholars, and if anyone found out about his mixed blood…

” She trailed off to tiptoe for a sip of beer and let us fill in the blank for ourselves.

“Could I get a straw, please?” she hollered.

“No wonder you said coming here was risky,” I murmured. “You could be expelled.”

Kian turned miserable eyes to his opossum. “I’d lose everything, even Fiachna.”

The opossum whined and hunkered deeper into the overcoat.

“But that’s ridiculous,” Daphne exclaimed. “Who cares?”

Kian blinked, sitting ramrod straight in his chair as if he had been stung. The table rocked again.

“Dang it,” came Cody’s muffled voice.

“You… don’t care?” Kian asked her.

“Why should we? We’re all mixed here. I have a thimbleful of druidess blood, Quills is… different, Misty’s a witch?—”

“I’ve got some Shawnee in me from Great-Grandpappy,” Cody mentioned from under the table.

“And I’m just a white American male mutt.” Emmett took another long pull of beer, looking at Kian over the rim of his tankard. Then he wiped the foam from his lips. “We all get along just fine and we like you just fine, ogre blood or high fae blood or not.”

“If your ancestry can get you expelled,” Shari said, “then why does your cousin keep bellowing to the clouds that you’re his cousin?”

“Because he’s proud of me,” Kian admitted softly. “He thinks as you do. Runs his business that way too, as you can see.”

The mixed patronage of The Happy Hound were busy with their own companions, paying no never mind to us.

To them, we didn’t stand out, and neither did Lori.

Here, everyone, including a human changeling, were just folk.

There was no caste, no jockeying for status.

You could breathe easy here in the Seam, or at least in The Happy Hound.

“Have you tried explaining this to him?” Daphne asked.

“Many times. But he’s more ogre than fae and stubborn.”

“And free,” Shari murmured, helping herself to another cucumber slice. She handed one to Flora. The cucumbers grown here were as wide around as the garden gnome’s head.

“I understand why you don’t want to linger,” I said, “and we should keep moving as soon as we can anyway. How long do we need to wait before Ruben can ‘help’ us?”

“Nightfall. He can’t risk it in the daytime.” Kian slouched in his seat and tried to disappear deeper into his coat.

“So we have a few hours,” I summarized uneasily.

Kian might be right about no soldiers coming here, but Erusians and their zealous kin, the Blades, had obviously stopped by once or twice.

I checked my hood, drawing it up a little further but not enough to seem like I was purposely trying to avoid attention (because people always noticed that), and prayed for the best.

“Plenty of time,” Emmett said, pushing his beer aside and taking a cucumber slice for himself. “Beaver, you about done under there? I have some delicate work to do topside.”

“Done,” Cody declared, popping upright. With a smirk, he gave the table edge a firm push to no effect. “And that , ladies and gentlemen, is why I am a master carpenter. Take that, Bensen.”

“Yes, you’re very handy and important. My turn.

” Emmett withdrew a clean handkerchief from his pack along with a jeweler’s set of tools wrapped in velvet and a little squeeze tube of super glue.

Before Kian could protest, Emmett carefully retrieved all the broken pieces of the lorgnette and placed them on the handkerchief.

As Emmett worked on repairing the lorgnette, I turned inward to the bond with Sawyer.

“Sawyer,” I called, pouring every ounce of love I had for that little cat into the bond.

His reply was tinny and faraway, like he was shouting at me from across a canyon. I wasn’t sure if he’d even said my name or if it was just mew!

Images had worked before, so I sent him another of The Happy Hound tavern sign and the river beyond the pines. Nightfall , I impressed upon it, hoping he’d understand.

Drumming my fingers on my lap, I waited anxiously for a reply.

Sawyer sent the image of the waterfall and the rocks protruding from the pool. This time, there was a black cat sitting on the largest boulder, head cocked quizzically to the side as it stared at him with luminous green eyes. Was this the creature who had saved him from the dragonet? A faelene?

The edges of the image were fuzzy—a memory? The next image he sent was still of the black cat, trotting along on all fours ahead of him through a rhododendron underbrush. This image was sharply defined, and from the angle of the sun, I knew they were heading east.

Towards us.

“Green Mother watch over you,” I whispered to him.

Blinking, I returned to the present to find Ruben poised with a tray over his shoulder and a stunned look on his face. Apparently I had missed something, as the Redbudians all looked abashed.

“What happened?” I demanded. Had Cody or Flora run their mouths and insulted our host? Had Kian? Had Shari left to hunt Lori down and pepper her with uncomfortable questions? Surely Daphne and Emmett were blameless.

“You ate the centerpiece!” Ruben stared down at the empty plate where the sliced cucumbers had been. A smear of juice glistened on the white porcelain.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“They are meant for brightening up the atmosphere and releasing a cleansing aroma, not eating! Do you walk into someone’s house and eat their bouquet of flowers or barbecue their pet Comgall mice?”

“Mice as big as typewriters,” Kian supplied. He smiled at himself, saying, “Typewriter. One word.”

“Good gracious,” Daphne exclaimed.

“We don’t keep Comgall mice as pets,” Shari said.

“Bah!” Ruben slammed down the tray and stormed off, shouting, “I try so hard, Lori!”

Cody cuffed Kian’s head. “Why didn’t you say anything when you saw us snacking?”

“I didn’t know! I mean, I know we don’t eat snake melon here, but your eating habits are clearly different considering you didn’t know how to eat ink bulb beetle. And whatever is a centerpiece?” Slipping a hand inside his overcoat, he shifted Fiachna aside so he could access his notebook.

“He seemed awfully upset.” Daphne cast me a nervous look. “Do you think he’ll still help us?”

“Go make this right, young man,” Emmett told Kian.

“But I didn’t eat any!”

Emmett lowered his chin so he could stare at the junior scholar over the rim of his spectacles. Kian huffed a sigh and rose.

“In the meantime.” Cody made to remove one of the bowls of pot roast from the tray but aborted when Emmett said, “EH!”

We tried not to stare as Kian and Ruben discussed the matter of the devoured cucumber at the bar, Lori adding her opinion when they deferred to her.

Whatever she said—the definition of centerpiece, probably, since it didn’t seem to be a fae custom—helped clear the air between the two cousins, and Kian was told to stay put while Ruben disappeared into the kitchen.

He returned with a steaming loaf of yellow bread and shoved it into Kian’s stunned hands.

With a jerk of his three-bearded chin, he indicated that Kian should return to the table and eat while everything was hot.

Emmett lifted a hand in gratitude at the half-ogre then gave Kian a smile.

“You did good, son.”

The tips of Kian’s ears turned red and he hastily returned to his seat. “He’ll still help us. And he said to make it clear that the bread is meant for eating, not to replace the ruined centerpiece.”

Thank the Green Mother for that. I didn’t know a Hawthorne alive who could keep their hands off freshly baked bread.