Page 21 of The Filigree Key

“Good gracious,” Daphne exclaimed. The mare surged upright with a startled neigh, knocking into the shelves and causing an avalanche of yarn. “He turned me into a horse? His mistake! Who needs a shillelagh to cudgel his brains out when I have four suitable hooves?”

Flora, to my surprise, remained perfectly still, her beady black eyes so wide they were ringed in white. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the honey badger was vibrating with rage.

“I can’t touch my magic,” she whispered. “It’s there, but it’s locked away.”

Then, almost impossibly, her wide eyes grew even wider. “Poppy! Flint!” She drilled me with a vicious honey badger stare. “Tell me they’re not in that dungeon.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that. But they were alive when last I saw them.”

Her paws tightened into fists. “When I get my hands on my welding torch again,” she vowed, “no inch of that fae king will go unscorched.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

It took a little longer than I wished to calm my friends down after their memories had returned and longer still to convince them they couldn’t start the Redbud Rebellion this very second. Flora was all for outright rebellion, volunteering the might of the town, but Daphne and Shari were more cautious, hoping we could devise a plan that didn’t put thousands of innocent lives at risk.

“It’ll take more than the five of us,” I told them. “I know you all have concerns about Ame and Poppy and Lewellyn and everybody else, but I don’t have all the answers. I do, though, have the first steps of a plan to make everything right. But you, Flora, need to stop sharpening Shari’s knitting needles, and you, Daphne, need to stop pacing and hitting everything.”

Shari, to her credit, had finally released Sawyer and returned to her crochet, hooking and twirling yarn at a frantic pace.

“Don’t leave us in suspense, cider witch,” Flora said, butting me in the leg with her snout. “I can’t do magic, my rabbit and my fairy are in prison, and if I don’t get an outlet for all this rage soon, I’m going to chew on you.”

“No, you will not. Now wait a second. Daphne, would you ask Gerty if the coast is clear?”

At the mare’s request, the robin fluttered off. A minute or two passed that Flora spent grumbling, then the bird returned with an affirmative twitter that all was safe. I ducked out of the porcupine’s stick hut and headed off towards those moss-covered logs. The cat, the honey badger, and the horse followed after me.

“Sawyer, find me a cricket or grasshopper, something that hops,” I asked. “Not a frog.”

“Right.” The cat trotted off to root under the leaves and paw through the deadwood.

My knife had been stolen and transformed into Ossian’s faebane rapier, so I used a rock I’d found to scrape away a patch of thick moss from the log. At the log’s base, I collected the squishy black fungus and put that in my foraging bag too.

“Our first action must be recruitment,” I informed my friends. “I’ve already started with Brandi.”

“That essential oils bimbo from the Festival of Fall?” Flora asked. “The one who hexed your cider press? Who tried to steal your lumbersnack?” The honey badger faltered. “Jumping hop-toads. Arthur.”

The abrupt change in Flora’s demeanor derailed my calm like a stick thrown into a bicycle wheel. From Daphne’s gasp, I knew the two of them were picturing Arthur as he was now, a bear, beaten and humiliated and feared by everyone who was supposed to love him. Chained to a wall. My hands stilled, and suddenly I was blinking back tears.

By the Green Mother, Meadow, get a grip. Tears never solve—

But they wouldn’t stop. Now that I was safe in a forgotten piece of the woods and in the company of my true friends, I could finally grieve. Hunched as I was over the log, collapsing to the ground was only a matter of inches that didn’t hurt in the least. Sobs wracked my body; tears and snot stung my cheeks and nose as the late-autumn air chilled them against my skin.

Then something coarse brushed against my face—Flora. She’d climbed onto the log and positioned herself in front of me. The long black claws of her hind feet dug into the wood as if to anchor herself there, and she held paws out as if welcoming me into an embrace.

“You can’t risk being heard,” she told me. “Cry into my big fat belly, cider witch. It’ll muffle the sound.”

I did.

Dimly, I became aware of the honey badger’s vicious claws tenderly stroking my hair, Daphne’s velvety muzzle resting against my shoulder, then Sawyer’s familiar weight as he hopped onto my other shoulder and leaned against my head.

“That bear will never stop fighting for you,” Daphne murmured as my tears subsided. “And I know you’ll do the same for him, dear one. Now come, tell us how we can help.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “For everything. If I’d just confronted my family— If I’d never come here— I should’ve never made that bargain—”

“You played your cards the best you could from the hand you were dealt,” Flora said. “It wasn’t your fault your grandmother stacked the deck against you. And one hand doesn’t make a game. Now buck up, cider witch, so we can kick some butt.”

Nodding, I wiped my face clean with my sleeves. “Right. Recruitment. Brandi. I found her in the dungeon making the Caer powder that’s been helping keep the populace subdued. I told her how to sabotage it, and it’s already working. Mrs. Bilberry remembered what a dishwasher was this morning.”

“Huh,” Sawyer mused. “She actually came through.”