Page 32 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The pot roast was succulent, the onion gravy thick, and the mountain of mashed potatoes it all smothered was garlicky whipped heaven. Late-season peas burst with a hint of sweetness and that yellow bread sopped up every delectable smear of gravy until our bowls were gleaming as if freshly washed.
Kian had had a conniption fit that we’d used the fluffy yellow bread as a gravy catcher.
“You don’t eat revel bread like that!” he’d shrieked, plucking the hunks of bread from the offending hands closest to him.
“You’re supposed to eat it plain, or maybe with a little apricot jam, to revel in the taste of the saffron!
You can’t get this spice anymore, not after the Blight attacked the Bitter Isles.
It used to be the rarest spice in the world, and now it’s extinct.
The blue crocus was indigenous only to that archipelago, and you’re eating this, this gift as if it were as common as rye! ”
“Sorry, Kian, yeesh,” Flora apologized. “We didn’t know.”
“ They have an excuse”—he swirled a finger at the rest of us—“but didn’t your mother ever tell you bedtime stories about the Bitter Brigands?”
The garden gnome stuffed a piece of plain revel bread into her mouth. “Of course. They’re like Vikings,” she told the rest of us. “But those were just bedtime stories. Just like revel bread. It’s delicious, by the way.”
“Of course it’s delicious. It’s got saffron and sugar in it!”
“Your cousin is obviously very happy you’re visiting,” Daphne said.
Kian flushed and hunched over his food, but he didn’t eat again. He just stared down at his portion of revel bread, nostrils flaring with each waft of steam that rose from its fluffy interior.
After that final piece of revel bread, a food coma had overtaken the garden gnome. Presently, she lay on the table with her full belly bulging like a bullfrog’s, snoring.
The Happy Hound continued to fill as the sky darkened, regulars coming in for ogre beer, fairy wine, or dandelion tea and Pot Roast Day.
It alternated with Brisket Day and Roasted Hog Day twice before the week ended on Hash Day.
All the scraps of leftover meat were cooked in bacon fat and served over crispy fried potatoes and onions smothered in leftover pot roast gravy and topped with runny-yolk fried eggs, donated by Lori’s brown hens. It was surprisingly popular.
All of this was revealed to us by Lori, who had filled Flora’s empty seat to chat while Ruben socialized and served. He’d insisted she “spend time with the female folk,” and since we were so openly interested in her, she was eager join us with her own ogre beer.
Shari, in particular, strained forward in her seat towards the human woman. Perhaps she felt a kinship with Lori, an empathetic bond between women who had endured similar ordeals. Lori had been taken by the fae and so had Shari, to different outcomes.
Instead of crafting, Shari stared raptly at the woman, listening to every word, every story.
Watched every puff of shape-shifting smoke.
At first Lori had blushed from the attention, then realized it was just Shari’s way.
Then she made the mistake (maybe) of mentioning her mother used to crochet.
It was one of the only memories she carried from her years in the mortal realm, that and the cottage garden and the old black hound dog.
Shari had immediately donated her entire project into Lori’s hands, having no spare crochet hook herself, and began teaching her.
Kian had stepped outside with a shallow bowl to begin the arduous process of convincing Fiachna to donate some of his urine so he could clean the mended lorgnette lenses.
Cody and Emmett had cut themselves off at one ogre beer, not knowing what the night would bring, and quickly grew bored with the “female chatter.” Well, Cody did, and goaded Emmett into joining him on a Senile Stroll. Snooping.
Daphne alternated her attention between her ward and me, thoughtfully providing a cover for me as I tinkered with illusion magic.
I’d had a lot of time to practice en route to The Happy Hound, but it hadn’t been quality time.
Rushed with threat of discovery, navigating uneven terrain, myriad worries nipping at the edges of my concentration.
Even now, in this crowded, boisterous common room with miraculously no one paying me any mind, I still struggled.
There was no way I was going to be able to maintain five illusions simultaneously and have the bandwidth to use my magic to defend or aid us should the situation arise. And if I’d learned anything in my time in Redbud, the situation would definitely arise.
Maybe you need to stop thinking like a Hawthorne and more like a primal witch , Violet’s voice suggested.
The thought had my fingers drumming along the edge of the table. Had my other fingers toying with the silver horned lion fused into the rectangle of variegated wood. As my thoughts wandered, my perception slipped into the amulet.
The vibrancy of living wood sent a zing up my spine. That zing turned right around and zipped into my toes at the touch of living silver.
At some time during my pondering, I must’ve rocked back on the rear legs of my chair. Now the front legs came crashing down and I yanked the amulet up towards my face in disbelief. How had I not sensed it before?
Oh right, we’d been too busy escaping. I wanted to slap myself for keeping such a narrow focus, but better late than never, I supposed. Cupping the amulet, I?—
“Cheers!” Daphne cried suddenly, shoving my tankard at me and clinking it with hers. Her blue eyes blazed with unspoken meaning.
The massive glass full of ogre beer hid the amulet, or at least distorted it from view. Of course. It wouldn’t do to go flashing these amulets around for anyone to see.
I took the tankard with a grateful smile, then drank heavily.
Daphne’s blue eyes widened as she finished her small sip and slowly lowered the heavy vessel to the table.
Seemingly inebriated, I pushed the empty tankard towards the center of the table and slumped down to rest my forehead on my arm in succumbence of my drunkenly ways.
I might very well succumb to that ogre beer, the bubbles already tickling my mind, so I had to work quickly.
Shielded from view, I lifted the amulet from where it dangled between my knees.
Living wood. Living silver. These amulets hadn’t been hewn from deadwood, but grown from seed and crafted.
The silver was alive unlike the silver of my home realm, humming with energy.
They fed into each other like the components of a closed circuit with a catalyst.
With my forehead pressed against the edge of the table, I risked lighting an Illuminate match under the table.
Wild fae magic permeated the whole, but element-specific magic concentrated in the horned lion’s open mouth.
The catalyst—Callan’s earth magic, and a little trickle of water magic too.
A lesser affinity? Strange. I thought fae were only born with one affinity.
It had to be Shannon’s—a small, helping hand, but aid nonetheless.
A Hawthorne would find a weakness to exploit, or simply blast the magic apart and replace it with her own. A primal witch like me would find the route of compromise—a vine weaving around every obstacle and even embracing them as structural support as it pushed onward to more light.
Growth .
An opalescent glow came to my fingertip like a pinprick of light. Not green or red or blue or white of its composites, but true primal magic. The core of everything in Elfame. In my world, too.
My lungs stilled for this precipitous moment; my heart slowed. Gently, my glowing fingertip pressed into the lion’s mouth.
The amulet shivered in my palm like a newborn kitten experiencing the first caress of its mother’s tongue. Leaned into me, into the magic it recognized above all others.
Like called to like.
A smile spread wider and wider across my face as the glow at my fingertip brightened.
The magic raced down the veins of silver, glowing like streaking comet tails.
The living wood drank, filling every cell.
It was effortless; the amulet accepting my magic easier than Callan’s.
He had command over the beasts and forest, but my purer magic superseded his.
The living wood and silver recognized it and obeyed.
When I lifted my head from the table, Flora was staring at me. “Why do you have blonde hair?”
I swept a hand under my hood, bringing my braid over my shoulder. The illusion layered over my hair indeed presented my locks as the color of summer-ripened wheat instead of the brown of fertile soil after a healthy rain.
“Guess I got carried away,” I murmured, running my thumb over the lion’s face. My magic had bolstered the true intent of the amulet: obscurity. Not just from beasts that might hunt us, but anyone , including those who wore the same amulets.
“Do I still look… th-the way I should otherwise?” I stumbled over the words, catching myself before I could say like a fae in case the actual fae of this establishment heard me over the din and music. Doubtful, but you never knew.
“What great pointy ears you have, Grandma,” Daphne mused, mimicking the protagonist of Little Red Riding Hood .
“I didn’t need illusion magic at all,” I whispered excitedly. “I just coaxed the amulet into accepting my magic instead of C— the high lord’s. Well, not coaxing, exactly, since it seemed really eager, but?—”
“See if you can make me a redhead,” Daphne interrupted in an excited whisper, leaning close like we were sharing girlish secrets. “I’ve always wondered what I’d look with fiery hair.”
As I shifted in my chair to block the display of magic from any onlookers, Flora admonished us, “Not now! Why do you think I woke up out of my food coma? I sensed your magic, Misty. Not earth or fire or water or air. But pure primal magic. The stuff that makes all the rest possible. Like a cache. And if I felt it, who else might’ve sensed it?
And what are you doing to the candle flames? ”
“I’m not doing anything!” But the candle flames were indeed larger than they had right to be, especially the ones closest to Shari. I carefully slid the candelabra further from the quiet crafter, lest she accidentally singe herself.
“You need to be more careful, cider witch,” Flora pressed. “We’re in Elfame now, not Redbud.”
There was a thunk of a dropped tankard and an acrid swarm of smoky wasps.
“What do you mean you’re in Elfame now ?” Lori demanded.