Page 51 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

Surprisingly true to his word, Ler had brought his captives with him.

The cowled air wielder restrained Daphne with a collar of air cinched tight around her neck and the twin Erusians each held their captives at thorn point.

Instead of knives, they had elongated thorns into blades from the brambles they wore wrapped around their arms. Lori, disheveled and streaked with soot, looked scared out of her mind and screamed something behind the hand that covered her mouth.

She struggled, eyes begging us to help her, until the high fae pressed his blade harder against her throat.

Shari, on the other hand, didn’t move a muscle. Her frightened expression of yesterday morning was gone too. If anything, she looked simultaneously irritable and contemplative, like she was working through a particularly tricky crochet technique. Except she had no craft in her hands.

“Quills,” I cried, fighting back a spike of panic, “are you alright? Mare, Lori?—”

“We had a tea party,” Shari answered before her captor pinched her to remain quiet.

“Shari has a plan,” Sawyer told me down the bond. His voice was focused, like he was concentrating on deciphering an ancient text. “It’s a diversion. We’ll have to do the rest.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’m reading Daphne’s lips.”

The clever woman hadn’t forgot.

Ler, who’d been prepared to gloat, immediately sobered at the sight of the high lady of the Green Court.

His fellow Erusians muttered greetings and bowed from the waist as they were able, yanking their captives down subserviently with them.

Such a groveling bow would’ve undermined Ler’s authority in this hostage exchange, so he only inclined his head to her in greeting.

The Green Mother was immediately offended, and the warmth I’d felt from her became frost. Upon her shoulder, Bonny released a twittering tirade.

The Green Mother lifted a hand for silence.

“If you think that mark on your chest excuses this slight against a high lady of Elfame, you thought wrong, Ler Mac Sailchis of the River Court.”

He seemed startled that she knew his name, but I bet the high lords and ladies of Elfame knew of the immediate relatives of their fellow sovereigns. While Ler was only the third son and thus forgettable—by his opinion—the high lady clearly thought otherwise.

“My business is with the mortal witch, my lady,” he said. “If you would stand aside, for your own safety.”

“Of all us gathered here, only two need not be afraid for their own safety, whelp.”

Ler’s placating demeanor vanished with a clench of his jaw.

“My lady, please,” I whispered.

“Do you stand with this wretch?” Ler demanded of the Green Mother. “That is an affront to the laws of Eru Herself! You disgrace?—”

“Do not speak of Eru as if I was not there when She was making this world,” the high lady snapped. “I am more Her daughter than you will ever be Her son.”

Well thank the Green Mother—both of them, I guess—that she was on my side.

“Please, let me handle this,” I pleaded, pulling away and stepping out in front of her. The last thing Ler needed was a bruised ego that he would then take out on my friends.

The Green Mother clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth in a mannerism eerily similar to my grandmother.

“A sapling cannot grow in the shade of its parent tree.” She glided a step away and clasped her hands in front of her stomach.

Her expression smoothed, her eyes cool. “I will not interfere in this matter.”

“I’m here, Ler,” I said loudly, gaining his full attention. “Let’s do this.”

“You’re late, witch. I should’ve slit that Tainted One’s throat for that offense, but your faelene persuaded me otherwise.”

“Domestic shorthair,” Sawyer growled. “You’d think with such pointy ears you’d be able to hear well. Guess you’re just an idiot.”

Thistle cackled.

I stepped forward abruptly before Ler could do more than glower at my cat. Sweeping my cloak out to the side, I revealed the pouch tied to my belt. It was so blue it rivaled the depths of the sea.

Greed glinted in his smiled. “I see the rumors were true and you did not disappoint.” Ler held out his hand. “Hand it over. And yourself.”

“My friends first.”

The high fae rolled his eyes. “At the same time.”

“Fine.”

And it was fine. Because I wasn’t the tapped-out witch from yesterday morning—I’d learned that lesson.

Power in reserve meant nothing compared to the power I had at my immediate disposal.

I’d only used half of the magic contained in the second bleached tourmaline crystal during my foray into the Twilight Court.

The moment I realized Ler and the Erusians had returned, I’d sucked the rest of that crystal’s magic into my core.

Besides the hunger that seemed to be the story of my recent life, I was very fresh.

When I drew even with my friends, I would sweep them to safety and then pour my entire core into the fiercest magical butt-whoopin’ those Erusians had ever received.

Not that I needed the rapier to assist me, but Ler and those others bastards had no idea how lucky they were that that sword lay discarded on the ground.

“No tricks, witch,” Ler warned as his fellow Blades wrangled Daphne, Shari, and Lori forward.

Yeah, like he didn’t already have a backstabbing backup plan already in motion.

We’d each only taken a few steps forward before the ground trembled at Ler’s feet.

“I said no tricks!” he roared.

“It’s not me!”

Flora popped out between his boots, soil clinging to her cheeks and not a red, runny nose in sight.

Surprised, I darted a glance to the trefoil hedge where I’d last seen her. It’d been nothing but a screen to hide the hole she’d made to burrow underground. Like a mole. A mole who couldn’t read lips and didn’t know Shari already had a plan.

“Ha!” she crowed, slamming glowing green hands against Ler’s boots.

Trefoil stems climbed up his legs and jabbed him repeatedly with their yellow falcon heads.

With an indignant screech, the high fae snatched the garden gnome up by her leafy overalls. “How dare you attack me, pest.” He gave her a shake that made magic boil to the surface of my hands.

“Watch it,” the air wielder snapped at me, jerking hard on Daphne’s leash in warning. She turned a glare on him vile enough to curdle milk.

The earth wielder twins followed suit, jabbing their thorns under Shari and Lori’s throats, just in case they decided to get uppity too. Lori whimpered but Shari just kept her eyes shut, mustering herself. For what?

Ler laughed, stepping free of the trefoil stems. “You were never even a threat, gnome, and now you’ve sacrificed the only scrap of safety you had. Distance. What were you possibly thinking?”

“What was I thinking? Obviously I was thinking I was going to get away with it.” Flora whipped the thorn sword out of her belt and buried it into the meat of Ler’s hand between forefinger and thumb.

Ler howled and flung her away. The gnome landed on a magic-padded bed of flowers. “Looks like I did, sucker! Ladies, what are you waiting for? Start swinging and kicking! Jugulars and junk, chop-chop!”

Snarling, Ler ripped the vicious thorn out of his hand. “Kill them all!”

“Do that and you get nothing,” I shouted. Even as the magic oak tree was on the verge of transforming into Death’s Sword, I knew it didn’t have to be this way. Didn’t want it to be this way. Why couldn’t Ler just take the treasure and vanish?

“Because he’s just like Wystan,” Sawyer answered my thought. “Blinded by his own ego and greed and deaf to reason.”

Just as I was about to summon my magic, the air wielder doubled over with a cry.

His leash yanked on Daphne’s neck, dragging her down.

She used gravity to help drive her elbow into the wielder’s back and knocked him to the ground.

His control over his magic vanished and the druidess popped up on spry lean legs.

She snatched up Flora and sprinted for safety.

“Misty,” she cried. “What are you waiting for? They need your help!”

“Yeah, kick his ass already!” Flora urged.

“Meadow,” Sawyer whined. My friends were his friends, and he’d have to answer to Ame if he let anything happen to Shari.

“Stay put,” I said. “Thistle too.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with Daphne. What she couldn’t possibly see as she bolted away with Flora in her arms was that Shari was taking control.

At some point in Ler’s captivity, the quiet crafter had changed.

It was my responsibility as her friend to give her as much time as I could to let her grow.

“What did you do to him, witch?” Ler yanked a platinum sword from its sheath, keeping his poison-tipped daggers in reserve. “An attack on an Erusian is an attack on Eru Herself! She will want blood for this!”

You were already going to give her my blood and magic, you moron.

“It’s not her,” Shari said in a clear, calm voice.

Confusion contorted Ler’s features for only a moment before it was replaced with outrage. The twins frog-marching their captives suddenly yelped as a ferocious gurgling sound ripped from both their stomachs. Their grips wavered, thorns pricking throats and drawing red.

“Lori!” Kian threw down his arm, releasing his quill with a magical tailwind. Like a dart, the ink-stained point buried into the eye of the wielder who held the thorn blade at her artery.

The twin jerked back with a cry and dropped to his knees, clutching his face.

After a kick to his stomach, Lori seized his brother’s hair and gave it a vicious twist. Weakened by the same gastric distress, he barely resisted her as Lori tore him free of Shari and hurled him to the ground.

Then she shrieked, high-stepping away from them as if they would suddenly rally and lunge after her.

She didn’t stop until she collided into Kian’s overcoat and he wrapped his arms around her.