Page 56 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

“I’m a very fretful boy,” Sawyer snapped.

“Would you be so calm if it were Fiachna in there trying to avoid death-dealing shadows and finding treasure for a madman and going on a wild goose chase for an artifact a certain junior scholar could give absolutely no details about but still insisted he find? All while a castle was crumbling around you?”

Thistle demonstrated her solidarity with a hiss.

Kian flushed and busied himself with his notebook.

“Thanks, little cat.”

Sawyer rubbed his head into my ribs. “I got you.”

But the junior scholar was not to be deterred for long. “Oh! Before you sleep, I almost forgot. You returned across the Field of Black Stars at a breakneck pace, far faster than a human is capable of. That had to be magic. How was that possible in a magical dead zone?”

Thistle thorns. Just as sweat threatened to break out across my palms, I remembered the tourmaline. It was safer to divulge its secrets than my own, right? I withdrew the second crystal, now empty and once again a beautiful purple and green. “I had a portable magic cache.”

“May I?” At my nod, Kian plucked the crystal from my fingers. “ Fascinating. You can store magic in this? My lady”—he leaned forward across the bench to offer the tourmaline to the Green Mother—“look at this!”

“You can’t?” I asked. Perhaps it hadn’t been safer after all.

The junior scholar shook his head and bent back over his notebook. “Fae crystals are not empty like this. Except cloches, of course. Regular Elfame crystals’ cups are already full, as the saying goes. But Earth crystals… Wow.” The scratching of his quill became frantic.

Someway, somehow—probably via seducing a witch—Ossian had learned the secret of storing magic into crystals.

He’d probably reacted the same way as Kian had to this discovery—ecstatic.

It had been this very nugget of information that had saved his life in the mortal lands.

How much sooner would he have passed on if he hadn’t used his gemstone necklace to maintain his immortality?

After her own examination, the Green Mother returned the tourmaline to Kian. The junior scholar extracted his willow charcoal stylus and began sketching the crystal’s likeness. “May I keep?—”

“No,” both Flora and I answered at once. She gave me a meaningful look that said we would be discussing many things later, on our side of the portal.

Disappointed, Kian handed the crystal back without any fuss. I suppose he would’ve protested more had he known exactly what he was giving up, but I knew his clever mind would figure it out sooner rather than later.

“You said you were tired, Misty?” the garden gnome quipped loudly, glaring at Kian, who had his nose in his notebook. “You should get some shut-eye. In fact, I think we could all use a good night’s sleep.”

The junior scholar lifted his hand. “I have a few more quest?—”

“No you do not,” Flora said. “At least none that can’t wait until the morning.”

Kian glanced at the high lady of the Green Court as if asking her to intercede on his behalf. Garden gnomes were citizens of her court, after all. But she simply shrugged, offering the explanation of “Ironweeds” and nothing else.

The morning—where exactly would we be in the morning?

We had only a single day to retrace our steps to the castle seat of the Court of Beasts, and that was going to be the easy part.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would need to appease High Lord Callan or battle my way to the portal, or both.

Before I could ask the Green Mother for a travel itinerary according to Rhydian’s past flight history, the ancient voice boomed into my mind,

“We will arrive in time, Meadow Hawthorne.”

Sawyer squeaked as he had the first time Rhydian had deigned to speak mind to mind with me. The tabby tomcat stuffed his face into my elbow and whined. Thistle hissed, wings snapping into existence at her shoulders.

“Can you tone it down?” I asked with a wince. “I think your voice is cracking my bones.”

“As it should be.”

“You’re scaring my cat. And his faelene friend doesn’t like that.”

Rhydian adopted a quieter tone. “Is this better?”

“Very much. Thank y ? —”

The dragon growled.

“I appreciate it. But what does ‘in time’ mean?”

“We draig do not bow to the concept of time as you humans do with those wrist watches I saw in your memories.”

“Midnight,” I said flatly. “Will we be back before then?”

“We should arrive when the nightjars cease their song.”

I huffed out a short breath.

Sawyer joined the mind-to-mind conference call. “Thistle would like you to be more specific.”

The red dragon seemed to clear his throat. “Perhaps an hour, to use your term, after sunset.”

Fantastic. “We need to make a stop at The Happy Hound in the Seam,” I said. “It’s on the banks of the River Neave. Do you know it?”

“All are aware of that den of boisterous noise. Its only redeeming quality is that ogre beer. But a stop will delay the arrival time, Meadow Hawthorne.”

Thank you, Dragon GPS. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”

The carriage swayed as the dragon altered his course with a teeth-rattling crack of his wings. When its occupants released their white-knuckled grips on whatever they’d seized hold of, all eyes flicked to me.

“We’re headed for The Happy Hound.” I paused for an incoming comment from Rhydian. “Should arrive sometime in the morning.”

At mention of the half-ogre’s establishment, Kian’s quill paused and Lori brightened.

Shari turned to the changeling and, in a very Daphne-like way, melded her hand over hers.

Lori interlaced her fingers and squeezed.

With a gentle rustling of gowns, the four women on the bench leaned in towards one another to rest heads on shoulders.

I slouched a little more in preparation of sleep, Thistle and Sawyer readjusting themselves more comfortably in the crooks of my arms.

From the third row, Kian cleared his throat and addressed the Green Mother. “I’m still quite awake, and I haven’t vomited from motion sickness for quite some time now. Would you mind, my lady, if I interviewed you about your red draig friend? For the history books, of course.”

“Certainly,” she answered. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know so long as it’s information I’m willing to share.”

Fae , was all I could think before I drifted off to the sound of Thistle and Sawyer’s purrs.