Page 18 of The Filigree Key

Sawyer hissed, back arched and amber eyes riveted on the curtain door.

Shadows flickered across the dirt. Another shadow flashed across the nearest window.

Someone was coming.

Magic erupted from my body. In the seconds it took for the scuff of a foot and a hand to sweep back the curtain, green vines had snatched Sawyer, shoved him and his game hen into the foraging bag, and had it all stuffed out of sight behind the stack of firewood. A second set of vines had yanked a bolt of white cloth out from the shelves, along with a sample patch of lace, and deposited them into my hands.

“Blight me,” a familiar voice complained. “I thought we were sneaking out here to do something fun, not pick out Meadow’s wedding dress.”

“F-Flora?” I sputtered as the honey badger waddled inside. Her ever-twitching nose had her making a beeline for where Sawyer was hidden behind the firewood.

She was not so obsessed with sniffing him out to miss the opportunity to throw a condescending look at the fabric I held in my hands. “Ugh. And that lace would look terrible on you. Put it down.”

Another rustle at the curtain had me exclaiming, “Daphne!”

“Hello, dear,” the Arabian mare said, following the honey badger inside. “Gerty saw you and thought it best to alert us. She said you were, and I quote, ‘skulking like a fox on egg-laying day.’ She’s going to stay outside and keep watch, wondrous little robin that she is. And a good thing too. This place is almost as dreadful as Dunstan Forest. I still don’t understand why you don’t bunk with me in the barn, Shari.”

“And suffer all those mice nibbling away at my projects? I already have enough difficulty with the spiders.” She stabbed her crochet hook towards the apex of her hut where cobwebs clung. “No thank you.”

“There you are.” The honey badger pounced, dislodging a log or two from the stack. They rolled across the floor, knocking into the grate that balanced the kettle.

Shari whimpered as the kettle teetered, sloshing water into the flames and threatening to douse the small amount of heat and light it provided. Frankly, I think she was more concerned about the light going out rather than the heat, for then how would she craft?

Grunting, Flora hauled the foraging bag out by its strap. A quick flick of her nail had the zipper open, and a swat against the bag had the tabby cat tumbling out. The honey badger ignored the cat and extracted the game hen. “Come to Momma.”

“Hey, that’s mine,” Sawyer whined.

“You need to learn to eat faster, Stripes.” But she threw him a large strip of meat before crunching down on the carcass, bones and all. “This winter is going to be hard on us all. Whatever your witch did last night with that portal has got all the food running off. Blame her for your empty belly.”

Daphne gave the honey badger a forceful knock with her muzzle and snatched half the carcass away. As she pivoted to swing her long neck around to deposit it in front the cat, her haunches bumped into the shelves behind her. Spools of thread jumped like frightened frogs and crochet hooks rattled in their jars.

“Oops,” the mare said, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

The porcupine sucked in deep breath, mastering herself . . . only to lose it completely when Sawyer snatched up the carcass, darted between the mare’s legs, and disappeared under the cot.

“Don’t you dare leave a crumb under there!” Shari shrilled. “I’ll not have mice in here chewing away at my art when they’re done with the scraps! And the rest of you, stop moving! What are you all doing in here?”

Flora had the answer to that. “It’s this exact tight-squeeziness that makes this the last place Cern—”

“Don’t say his name!”

My three friends regarded me in surprise.

“Don’t say his name,” I said quietly. There was a reason why I’d referred to demons as Big Nasties while I’d been hiding in Redbud, why my family refused to call Arcadis by name unless they were speaking directly to him. Saying a powerful creature’s name drew their attention, and I didn’t want to draw Ossian here.

“No one would think to look for all four of us here,” Daphne finished. “And it seems sneakiness is the order of the day with Meadow ‘skulking about,’ as Gerty put it. You’re not trying to go to the farmhouse again, are you? And why aren’t you in Elfame?”

The porcupine jumped up, quills flaring. “No more questions until my crafts are safe!”

There was a lot of jostling, but with the mare lying down with her legs tucked under her and her back in the shape of a C to follow the contour of the hut, Flora enthroning herself upon the stack of firewood, me sitting cross-legged on the cot squashed against Shari, and Sawyer wedged under the cot, we all fit inside the hut. Barely.

Trembling, Shari glanced from one friend to the next, tried to loop another stitch, then wailed, “I can’t craft if I can’t move my elbows! Everybody get out!”

“Shari, dear, please take a breath,” Daphne encouraged.

The porcupine started hyperventilating.

Ignoring her, Flora sat back on her haunches and drilled me with her beady black eyes. “So, what are you doing here, cider witch?”