Page 40 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

I set the snoozing Sawyer down at Thistle’s feet, and she placed a protective paw on his shoulder. Slowly, for I was barely awake myself, I tramped through the trefoil with what I hoped was a pleasant smile on my face.

“Good morning,” I greeted wearily, stopping a good distance away. By the Green Mother, these horses made Clydesdales look like ponies.

“Offer your hand, Misty,” Daphne said.

I leaned forward, palm presented, and prayed no one mistook my fingers for carrots.

This close, the matriarch of the Manann mares was not just white. She glowed with an inner luminescence, and her mane and tail were like satin. Enbarra sniffed and snorted, gusting warm, damp breath across my hand that felt like sea spray.

“You see?” Daphne told the horse. “Such a kind girl, just like I said. She’ll grow a fat padded harness that won’t chafe. And no bits. Y’all know the way.”

“That’s right,” I assured them.

Enbarra snorted again and threw up her head.

She turned around and looked over her shoulder at us with beautiful sea-green eyes.

She nodded to a horse that hadn’t joined the rest of the herd at the top of the hill.

Compared to the luminescent white coats of all the others, this one’s drab gray hair was shocking.

She balanced her weight on three legs, the fourth dragging in the yellow flowers.

Enbarra neighed to the lone horse, receiving a soft sigh in reply.

“Oh,” Daphne said, her bright tone fading away. “Liath is injured and has been for some time. Enbarra will only help if you first help her. They’ve tried fae healers before to no effect.”

“But they’re fairy horses,” I protested. “ Immortal horses. If the fae couldn’t heal them, can a witch? Even on a good day when I’m not running on fumes?”

Daphne gave me a helpless shrug.

“Tell her I need a minute.”

Trudging back to the others, I gestured for them to gather round.

“I have to heal a horse named Liath if they’re going to help us.

Not to sound heartless, but do I even bother?

” Time was slipping by way too fast to add any more side quests.

And we still needed to regroup with Emmett and Cody and get back to the portal in time.

After I found the Samildánach, of course.

“That depends,” Flora said. “What kind of magical expenditure are we talking about? We all saw you heal Snack when he was a bear with Faebane sticking out of him like a pin in one of Quills’s zombie voodoo dolls.

It’s the same pure primal magic you used to charge the amulets.

Fabulous hair choices for you all, by the way.

Except you, Kian. But it still could’ve been what attracted the Erusians to The Happy Hound.

That was a small amount of magic. Doing this will be like sending up a signal flare like that time in the moonflower milk bath that led your family to you. Times a hundred.”

“The high lady said no,” Shari said, shaking her head. “Probably for this very reason.”

Kian tapped his chin. “I suppose it depends on whether or not they can wait around for us while you’re in the Court of Shoals and then transport us back to the Court of Beasts faster than we can do it alone on foot.

Diverting inland and traveling through the Marsh Court put us way behind schedule.

You’ll still need to breach the Court of Shoals and find the mirror.

The latter half will be easy, but entering the court might take longer than expected. ”

“If the Manann mares agree to help us,” I said, “and with them being so sacred to Elfame and the Court of Tides, would the Erusians dare attack us while we were in their company?”

The junior scholar grinned. “They wouldn’t dare. They might be fanatics, but they still have a code. While they can draw upon Elfame’s magic to achieve a goal, it must be for a righteous cause and it must all be given back. There is nothing righteous about attacking one of Eru’s sacred creatures.”

“Seems it might be worth the risk,” I summarized. “Or at least asking?”

The question was shouted up to Daphne, who replied after a brief caucus with Enbarra, “Yes!”

“Well isn’t that unexpectedly generous of them,” the garden gnome mused, impressed.

“Liath must be very important to them,” Shari said.

“Manann mares are not prolific,” Kian said, reading from a book he’d dug out of his coat. “Each member is therefore treasured.”

“So I guess we’re doing this,” I asked them. “Right?” This wouldn’t be like the River Neave, where they’d left the entire decision up to me. We were in this together, so we had to accept the risks together.

Kian was all for it, but Shari looked around nervously and Flora stood with her arms crossed over her chest, fretting.

“I guess we’ll find out if your primal magic was the reason the Erusians attacked The Happy Hound.

Doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice.

Again. ” But this time, her frustration wasn’t aimed at me.

“Okay. Stay on your guard.” I traipsed back up the hill. “I’ll do my best,” I told Daphne in passing, navigating the slope to the gray horse at its bottom.

Enbarra gave another neigh in which I hoped relayed very clear instruction that I meant no harm and that I was not to be kicked, bitten, or otherwise stomped on. Liath eyed me with cloudy sea-green eyes, tail whisking in apprehension.

“Easy,” I murmured, though I wasn’t sure if she could understand English. I placed a hand on her shoulder, flinching when she flinched, then let out a whoosh of breath. “Easy,” I repeated, as much for me as for her.

I hadn’t been around many horses, other than Daphne when she’d been a talking mare and the gelding held under Ossian’s sway.

Like the other Manann mares, this horse was in an entirely different league.

She was so tall at the shoulder that Arthur couldn’t have looked over it, even standing on tiptoe, and her silver hooves were the size of Mrs. Bilberry’s serving platters.

Eyes as large as goose eggs tracked my every move.

Swallowing nervously, I slid my hand from her shoulder across her back and down her flank.

Even though she was watching me, I wanted her to feel where I was.

And from that touch, I realized from the squishiness of her flank that the muscle there had atrophied.

Lowering into a crouch, I got a good look at a swollen leg and maybe an abscessed hoof.

There was definitely something wrong with it; unlike the silver of her healthy hooves, this one was the color of wrought iron.

With my low magic reserves and even lower energy, how was I supposed to heal that ?

The trefoil released a confetti of tiny yellow blooms and the faint smell of sweet almonds into the air as I flopped down onto my butt. Taking a deep breath, I forced away the weariness that was tugging my mind towards sleep and ran through a mental checklist of ideas.

I’d learned from my time in Redbud, specifically the Crafting Circle ladies’ friendship, Arthur’s devotion, and my fight with the silver mallaithe in the Cedar Haven Forest, that I had more assets at my disposal than I usually remembered.

I could spare a minute to examine this from every angle instead of jumping in on instinct.

My first thought was bittersweet: You’re a coven witch, first and foremost.

My coven. My family. A coven witch draws not only on her own power, but the power of her circle and their grimoire.

Well, no coven, no grimoire.

But I had other sources of power. The amazonite pendant. Thistle thorns, I’d been so tired I hadn’t enough thought to drain its reserves until now.

I also hadn’t tapped into it since its last charge, and it was quite powerful. But was it powerful enough?

As I lifted a hand to rub the blue-green gem like a worry stone, my fingers brushed against something coarse hidden beneath my shirt.

My bra pockets!

Inside were the Illuminate matches, the shrouding and Caer powders, the Hunting Spell monocle, and three bleached rainbow tourmalines!

“Rainbow tourmaline is like a cloch, Meadow,” Ossian had told me that day in the throne room after I’d mastered water magic.

“Capable of storing many times more than what another crystal can because of its structure. And when it’s full, it locks because the stored potential is exponentially greater.

One piece like this when fully saturated holds the magic of your amazonite pendant if it was the size of a watermelon.

Properly unlock a full rainbow tourmaline crystal and you have enough magic to grow an entire year’s worth of crops for a fae village.

Crush it, and the results are far more… explosive. ”

I shuddered at the memory of his silken, warm voice, of how his touch and power had made me tingle with anticipation and desire. Despite his allure, the Stag Man was nothing but a rotten apple: shiny, beautiful outside but spoiled to his very core. A very intelligent rotten apple, though.

Liath snorted warily as I fished around in my bra to extract the smallest tourmaline. Stripes of the palest purple and green streaked through the cloudy white stone. Then, I paused.

Shannon had said wielders had been born with more of Elfame’s magic, and Ossian had taught me that a fae and his magic were one and the same, that there was no division between body and magic.

The fae couldn’t ground themselves like mortal witches could and draw up extra reserves.

Perhaps that’s why the fae healers had failed—they simply weren’t powerful enough on their own merit to heal the horse.

But Kian mentioned that the Erusians could take excess from Elfame if their cause was righteous.

Healing one of its sacred animals certainly seemed to fit the bill.