Page 65 of A Beastly Court

“Yep!” the honey badger agreed, a little too brightly in my opinion, but then again, nothing in the last few seconds was making any sense.

“What was?” I asked, starting to shake. Thistle thorns, I felt so confused, the phantom pain of those claws dragging through my brain making me clutch my head. Sure I hadn’t just imagined all that! The golden haze of our fated mate bond insisted I was.

“A trial by fire,” Ossian said. “One more strategic than the one Alec gave you.”

Sitting on the wagon tailgate, the one-armed man simply shrugged, obviously having no remorse at locking me inside the great hall with the unchained grizzly bear.

“How did you…?”

“I’m the King of Beasts, Meadow. A master of illusion and mimicry.” The fae king’s voice softened as he continued, “You needed a push, love. I started to doubt that the plants would ever grant us the results we needed, and when I confronted Flora about it, she suggested this little ruse. Your friends all agreed. They knew you would do anything for them and perhaps that was the incentive you needed. It seemed so.”

I whirled back to my friends, tears welling like someone has just sledgehammered a hole straight into a watermain. “Is this true?”

In eerie unison, all three nodded.

“How… how could you do this to me?” I sobbed, shuddering. “I thought— Thistle thorns, I thought—”

I covered my face with my hands, trying to keep the tears back, but they just flooded down my cheeks in anguish-filled waves. By the Green Mother, I’d thought Ossian was going to kill Flora. I’d put myself between them, prepared to do whatever necessary to protect her. It’d been so real. My fingernails raked against my scalp, leaving trails of fiery pain in their wake, but that was okay. I had to feel something that was true, something that was undeniable.

“Love, don’t do that.” Ossian gripped my wrists, his touch warm and gentle.

“Get away from me!” I screamed, shoving him away. I skirted around my friends then, the honey badger, porcupine, and white mare all turning with unnerving synchronization, worry etched on their faces. “Stay away from me,” I told them all, sprinting for the castle and the sanctuary of the east wing.

Huddled in my bed, the covers thrown over my head like I was seven again and hiding in a blanket fort, I fought to get a grip on reality. Sawyer wormed his way out of the foraging bag and wiggled himself under my shaking fingers, his purrs coaxing my rapid heartbeat to slow.

“Sawyer,” I whispered, “what was that? Was it all a lie? An illusion like Ossian said? Oh Green Mother, I’m so lost.” My hands pawed at his fur. “I can’t feel you inside anymore, not like before. The cat silhouette on my core, it’s gone.”

“Fae magic,” the cat muttered, tensing. Then he forced himself to relax. “It wasn’t permanent,” he soothed me, though there was an ache in his voice.

He snuggled closer, wedging his head under my chin and purring even louder than before. He licked my throat, the swipe of his coarse tongue startling. “But this is. This is real, Meadow. This is always real.”

Fresh tears slid down my cheeks, but this time, they were filled with gratitude. I buried my face into his warm little body and wept with abandon, truly knowing that the little cat would watch over me as long as I needed him to.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“I thought I’d find you here,” a soft honeyed voice observed.

Sitting on the settee in the late-afternoon sunlight slanting in from the glass dome of the atrium, it wasn’t exactly like I was hiding. I didn’t look at the fae king, preferring the view of the wight swirling around like trapped smoke within the cloch. With a small movement, I reassured myself that my foraging bag, and the little cat inside, was tucked out of direct sight between my thigh and the armrest.

Ossian sat on the far end of the damask settee, but it wasn’t an exceptionally large piece of furniture so there was a serious risk of our hands touching. They didn’t.

“Am I so predictable?” I asked in a hollow voice.

I hadn’t been able to stay in my room long after my tears had dried. It was too closed-off from everything else, too alienating, and while I hadn’t wanted to be discovered, I hadn’t wanted to stay cooped up either. That had ruled out the rose courtyard, too, so I’d come here where at least the sky seemed a little closer.

And before his unwelcome arrival, I had been exploring my newfound bond with my magic, testing its limits. We were no longer witch and oak tree, but something in between. I felt at peace with it, though I was no longer naïve to think I had reached my limit. Violet had shown me another aspect of my magic that had not yet come to pass, but, for now, I was content with what I had achieved. What I had become.

Even if I hadn’t liked how I’d gotten there.

“You’re mortal, Meadow,” the fae king answered, still in that soft, lulling tone, “which means you are obsessed with one thing every moment of your waking existence. Your freedom. Your freedom to live your life as you wish it. And that cloch represents it.”

I didn’t comment, and I ignored the golden haze swirling around my listless thoughts.

“Have you touched it yet?”

I shook my head.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Meadow, to truly know if you have finally freed yourself of your grandmother’s curse?”