Page 55 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

After we were assured that Rhydian’s claws would encroach no further into the carriage and possibly impale its passengers, the conversations began anew.

Similar to Lori’s experience in Elfame, prolonged exposure to the magic of these immortal lands had stirred and strengthened my friends’ abilities, particularly Shari’s.

There had been clues all along—Lori’s smoldering blunt, the candles at The Happy Hound, the fire in the skillet, even the woodsmoke scent of the thread that bound us—but they hadn’t fully manifested until she’d been kidnapped.

Or rather, when she realized the reality and responsibility of her rescue had rested in her own hands and no one else’s.

Not in Flora’s, nor mine, not even in the hands of the white-cloaked figure from her past. Not this time.

“I’ve been feeling this pressure building up inside me since we arrived.

This… attraction to fire.” Shari looked down at her hands in her lap, fingers clenching and unclenching.

“I never wanted this, but there’s no changing the past. I knew I wasn’t worth saving, but Daphne and Lori… They’re innocent. Like me, once.”

“You’re wrong, dear.” Daphne turned and slipped her hand over one of Shari’s fists. “You are worthy. Of living, of saving, of everything.”

“But I’m tainted,” she whispered. “This power, it isn’t mine.”

“Tainted?” the Green Mother asked sharply.

“Quills has Unseelie blood,” I answered. “Through, um, exposure. She was not born one of them.”

When the high lady shifted on her bench, I added loudly, “And I am the shield that defends her.”

She met my granite gaze, thought about it, then inclined her head in acknowledgment.

“We’re all her shields,” Flora said stoutly. She jumped from where she balanced on a bench back to Shari’s shoulder and held on to the woman’s ear to keep her balance. “Against whatever and whomever.”

The Green Mother eyed the garden gnome. “Ironweeds,” she muttered lightly.

“And that power is yours, Quills,” I told her firmly. “You didn’t steal it like a magic hunter, didn’t sell your soul for it like a warlock. It evolved with you, so it is yours to use, or not.”

We would discuss it later, but I wondered if she felt pain similar to what I would experience if I didn’t freely use my magic.

To keep it bottled up inside, a part of you that you never allowed to flourish?

It was like caging a wild animal away from fresh air and sunlight and starving it of food and freedom…

which would prove deadly to everyone when it was finally unleashed.

Shari unclenched her fingers and lifted clear brown eyes to meet mine. “Will you teach me, Misty? To control it? Don’t think I didn’t notice you giving me the time back there to master it. Even so, it was more luck than it was deliberate.”

I knew nothing about Unseelie magic, but I did know a thing or two about magic in general that seemed to be universal truths. The details, we would work through together later. “Absolutely,” I promised. “You can start right now.”

“In the wooden carriage?” Daphne protested.

A small laugh. “It’s not like that. I’ve been instructed by both powerful witches and high fae.

And I’ve learned there is a third method to wielding magic, and it’s the one I prefer.

The fae tell you to master it. The witches tell you to summon it.

Both treat their magic like it’s a servant or a dog to do their bidding.

I’ve learned here, through my own struggles, that it’s more like a cat.

” I stroked though Sawyer’s striped fur.

“It must be tamed with love and patience in order to bloom to its brightest potential.”

Leaning forward, I enclosed Shari’s hands with my own.

“I meant what I said: your magic is yours . Do not be afraid of it. It is a part of you that you have ignored or suppressed for a long time, so it will feel foreign. But foreign is not bad. Just misunderstood. So just sit back and get to know it like it’s an old friend you haven’t seen in a while. ”

“I think I can do that.”

She smiled that closed-lipped smile and leaned back in her seat, hands folded lightly in her lap.

No fingers twitched for a crochet hook and yarn.

They didn’t pick at loose threads at her cuffs.

Her fingernails didn’t scratch compulsively at her arms. Shari Cable, for the first time since I’d met her, finally seemed content to just be .

For the next half hour, Lori extolled Shari’s cleverness.

The quiet crafter had observed and exploited every little detail of their captors’ habits, preferences, prejudices, interpersonal relationship dynamics, everything .

It’s how she’d found the uninterrupted time to harness her Unseelie hellfire.

And on the second day, after Daphne’s capture, it was how she’d manipulated them into essentially hosting a tea party while they waited for sundown.

Then she’d commented on something incendiary that set three of the Erusians snarling at each other and provided the perfect opportunity to spike the teapot with the pokeweed juice.

“ And I discovered how Ler had been tracking us.” Shari lifted a familiar rectangle of wood and silver from around her neck.

“The amulet?” I asked, leaning forward to take it.

“Ler had one too, kept it in his pocket most of the time. But I saw him take it out and press his thumb against the lion’s mouth. It glowed blue and stayed that way for a time, like those rings the high lady’s attendants were wearing.”

As if everyone had the same thought at the same time, we all yanked the amulets off our necks and threw them into a pile on the carriage floor. Fiachna and Thistle hissed in surprise as our physical appearances changed as rapidly as if we’d just peeled masks off our faces.

“Quills,” Flora announced, “now is your time to practice fireball.”

“Not in the wooden carriage,” Daphne protested again.

“And they’re evidence,” I said, scooping them up. Upon inspection of the amulets I hadn’t tampered with, I found only two had the additional water magic tacked onto them. I squirreled them all away into my pocket for later.

“Callan didn’t send Ler after us,” I explained, “or Fionn would’ve known. Ler also didn’t know what I was after in the Twilight Court. He was tracking us for his own gain, but how did he know to do so? He wasn’t there in the inner grove when I told Shannon we were here for the mirror.”

“So there’s a traitor in the Court of Beasts,” Kian surmised.

“Whatever takes the target off our backs, I’m all for it,” the garden gnome said, cracking her knuckles.

With that matter tabled, everyone wanted to know about the Twilight Court.

There was much to tell, but I was quiet a long time while I decided the best way to go about it.

As I leaned back into the corner of my bench, mulling, I looked down at the cats lounging in the crooks of my arms. Both were relaxed, but their purrs had stopped the moment Kian had mentioned the fallen Court of Shoals.

Two pairs of bright eyes, one green, one amber, drilled into me.

Thistle knew many things about the Blight, and I had shared other discoveries with Sawyer.

Both of their warnings were still fresh in my mind.

And it wasn’t lost on me that their slinky bodies, and my sleeves, were hiding the secret of the butterfly tattoos.

I wasn’t ready to share about those yet, as I’d barely had the time to reflect on them myself.

“I’m tired,” I began.

“Boooo!” Flora immediately cut in.

“I’d rather tell it all when Coon and Beaver are back with us, so I don’t have to repeat myself.” It was a good excuse, and it would give me time to think.

“That’s fair, I suppose,” she grumbled.

“You mentioned a mirror twice now,” the Green Mother prompted. “From what I can infer, it sounds like this Coon and Beaver were aware of the goal of your quest?”

I nodded. “I was seeking the Samildánach. And I found it.”

Kian blushed as I gave him a wink; I’d only been successful because of his diligence.

“The Wandering Mirror,” the Green Mother said. “I just thought Ler was a raving fanatic and lunatic, but you truly discovered the Eternal Door.”

Tensing from her carefully light tone, I wondered if she would try to take it from me. It was a powerful artifact, after all, and had led to the Battle of Lough Arianrhod. I didn’t understand the severity of that battle, but it lived fresh in Callan’s mind.

“It’s to ransom my brother,” I answered.

“Your brother,” she breathed. From the way her posture changed, it was evident she’d never thought I would have siblings. That her sister’s descendants in the mortal realm were prolific and powerful. The suspicion that she would try to take the mirror melted away.

“And you survived the Twilight Court,” Kian reiterated, his beautiful eyes intent on my face even as his hand scribed away in his notebook. “Do you have any insight as to how? Is it because you’re mortal? Is it because you’re a witch? Is it because the Blight didn’t recognize you as prey?”

I purposefully did not look down at Thistle. She’s been right all along: my magic and body were different than a fae’s because I’d been born in a land of dead iron.

Flora leaned over and poked him with her thorn sword. “Are your ears stuffed? She said she’d tell us everything when we’re all back together again.”

“But—”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I answered, empathizing with the fae’s insatiable curiosity. I could relate.

Kian beamed and took that as an okay to proceed with more questions. Thistle thorns. “Your cat got very agitated a few times, but he refused to divulge why, other than you were incapacitated at one point. Did you run into any trouble there?”

Lots. “Well there was the whole throne-room-missing thing?—”

“After that. He was fretting for almost a full day before Thistle went in search of you. We all were.”

Muriel’s shadow.