Page 27 of A Beastly Court

After one gulp, I spewed the tonic across the table.

“Meadow!”

Snatching up my napkin, I smothered my mouth—and spit into the linen—and gave Ossian a horrified look. He wore such a disgusted expression that a jolt of alarm zinged down my spine.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “But that”—I shuddered—“was vile. Did you change the recipe?”

“It’s the same as it’s always been,” he snapped. And just like that, the golden aura surrounding him intensified.

At the edges of my mind, something encouraged me to relax, to submit, but I shrank back as he snatched up the goblet and practically thrust it into my face. “Now finish it.”

Shuddering, my body refused to comply. I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

The veins in his neck bulged as he set his jaw. “Do not defy me.”

“Then don’t make tonics that taste like burnt pineapple vinegar! Why do you even make me drink those?” Until now, I’d never even thought to ask; I’d just accepted it.

“It’s a nutrient supplement; I’ve explained this before.” Ossian yanked the goblet back and added three spoonfuls of sugar into it, giving it a vigorous swirl. “It’s to help with your magic. Now try it again.”

It was almost as unbearable as before, but I forced it down, mostly because I didn’t like the way Ossian was looking at me. The sweet high fae from earlier was gone—only the King of Beasts remained. Then I heaved, but a quick clamp of my hand over my mouth prevented it and the breakfast I’d already eaten from joining the unsweetened tonic on the table.

“Good.” Ossian produced the customary little crystal from his belt before returning to his food. “Now charge that and finish your breakfast. Long day ahead, as you’ve said.”

Finish my breakfast? Not likely with my stomach roiling like it was. What was in that tonic? I masked a downward glance to the cat hidden on my lap and nudged my food around my plate with my fork. Sawyer had unlocked some of my memories and bolstered my magic—was my reaction to the tonic his doing as well? Ossian said the tonic was for my wellbeing. The very thing my familiar, for that’s what Sawyer was even if we didn’t have the traditional bond, would be concerned for, to the extent of protecting me by any means possible. If those two facts were true, then why were Ossian’s tonic and Sawyer’s defensive magic at odds with each other?

More nauseated than before, I massaged my chest over the hollow spot in my heart, the hollow piece Sawyer had managed to partially close just this morning. Ossian had never been able to do that, not even with our fated mate bond. There was still something missing.

Beside me, at the head of the table, a fork clattered to a plate.

“Meadow,” Ossian said.

It took me a few seconds to actually dignify his prompt with a response. His rudeness and aggression still stung. Ossian held a hand out to me, that golden aura shining from his skin, persuading me into complacency.

“You know I only want the best for us, yes?” he asked, voice soft. “That’s what that tonic is. And when you refused, it felt like you were refusing us.”

“No!” I protested. “No, not at all.” I slipped my hand into his, but the warmth didn’t flood down into my toes. It only got so far as my lap where Sawyer was digging both paws into my legs now, head craned up like a hungry baby bird.

“Good. Now, the crystal.”

Dutifully, albeit a touch begrudgingly, I charged the rose quartz and let him reach forward to retrieve it so I could get back to my breakfast, my stomach snarling as if I hadn’t just eaten two servings of eggy avocado toast already.

“Now that that’s settled, let me show you this.” He moved his plate to the side and withdrew a folded piece of brown parchment from one of the pouches at his belt. Smoothing the parchment out, he used the salt cellar and the sugar bowl to pin it flat to the table.

“It’s a map of Redbud.” A very detailed map of Redbud. As I craned forward to get a better look, I dropped an entire deboned breast down into my lap for the famished little beast.

The entire court was laid out in detail on the parchment from the various businesses in the town square to all the forests and fields and rivers. Even the outlying hamlets, down to the very house, were drawn as tiny triangle-topped squares. There was an icon in each field, too—mainly pumpkin, corn, wheat, soybean, cow, a grassy tuft representing hay. Nothing was missing, not even the depictions of the wells in the hamlets.

There were a bunch of X’s marking the map, and Ossian touched on a few of them with a fingertip as he explained, “Tethering a fae portal to this mortal realm requires a great natural or primal source of power beyond that of the witch performing the spell. Vast expanses of sky, volcanoes or old mountains, ancient forests, fast rivers…”

“This river’s pretty fast,” I said, pointing to the river that cut through the Cedar Haven forest. “And it’s in a super old forest to boot.”

“No.” Ossian winced. “That land has been contaminated by an Unseelie half-heart. You can feel its aura from miles away. A Seelie fae portal will not come there.” He tapped a few places unmarked by an X and said, “These are worth investigating. But not without this.”

From another pouch on his belt, Ossian withdrew a decorative silver orb very much like the golden censer attached to my foraging bag, except it had no latch and it housed a dark amethyst within.

“So this is what you’ve spent so much of your time in your silversmithy making?” I asked. “This little thing?”

“That, and other things. Charge that crystal for me,” the fae king said.