Page 47 of The Filigree Key

“Tea?” she offered blithely.

Quicker than lightning, a blur sprang over the bookish doorstop, streaked across the area rug that suppressed the bulk of the cold radiating from the stone floor, and leapt up onto the end table. Sawyer sank his teeth down into the biggest ham biscuit on the plate and bolted out of the room, leaving nary a crumb in his wake. The whole chicken he’d started devouring last night and again this morning clearly hadn’t made much of a dent in his hunger.

“Horrid beasts, cats,” Grandmother muttered.

I sank onto my knees in front of her. “Grandmother.”

Her ivy-green eyes flickered over my face, taking in every nuance. “You’re yourself again, aren’t you, child? Thank the Green Mother for that.”

“What are you doing here?”

The Hawthorne matriarch sniffed. “What’s it look like?” She gestured to the prison cell, which was far more cozier than it had any right to be.

The twin bed wedged in the corner had a thick mattress and thicker quilt; there was that shelf of books; an actual vinyl record player with a fluted horn; a wicker basket of needlework under the end table; the stuffed velvet armchair; a brazier of magical coals that flickered with blue flame; even a little door crammed into the adjacent wall that—from the potpourri dish positioned nearby—was her own private privy.

“I’ve sacrificed myself for the family,” she answered. Her bony shoulder slumped with a resigned sigh. “So long as I stay here willingly, they will not be taken and drained.”

“But the bargain—”

“He is the master of illusion, Meadow, he’s got other wiles and trickery at his disposal.” She brushed her fingertips over her mouth, as if remembering something. Or a sensation.

Back at the farmhouse, when our lives had just started going sideways, Ossian had used his glamourous lust on both of us. He could take as much magic from her without suffering any consequences of the fae bargain so long as she was consenting.

“Cursed fairy loopholes,” she muttered.

“And that shackle on your ankle. Is that a Mabian binding?”

“My own creation,” she admitted reluctantly. “So I don’t succumb to my baser instincts in a moment of weakness.” She jerked her chin at the dizzying wards on the back of the door. “Far more effective than all that bluster.”

“Could they . . . trap him? Dad said they’re some of the toughest restraints at a witch’s disposal.”

“Perhaps. But they’re a weaving, Meadow. Magic you know nothing about.”

I fished out the Hunting Spell monocle from my foraging bag and handed it to her. My friends and I had woven a handful of spells together to create that monocle almost out of pure grit alone. Worldly, sagacious, blasé Iris Hawthorne’s mouth actually dropped.

Before she could inspect the crystal further, I plucked it from her stunned hands and secreted it back into the bag.

“What are you planning, Meadow?”

“Can they trap him, Grandmother?” I repeated. A plan was forming to imprison the Stag Man and I needed to know if it was worth pursuing. Right now.

She wet her lips. “Yes,” she whispered. “If you use enough of them.”

Leaning forward, she told me quickly all about Mabian bindings and how a witch inexperienced with them could bypass the actual weaving for layering, something I did know about. And the best part was I’d already filched everything I needed from Brandi’s worktable. Well, all but one ingredient, but I knew where to find that in spades.

When the lesson concluded, my grandmother looked worn out and slumped back in her velvet armchair.

Shifting forward, I placed my hand on her knee. Her knobby, atrophied knee. “I’ve already sent help to our family. Sawyer placed a ward-dissolving potion around the farmhouse. They have the embers; they’ll be able to free themselves. And I’m close to Elfame. I’ll make it in time. I will get Marten back.”

Hope rekindled in my grandmother’s eyes. She lurched forward, grabbing my shoulder in that familiar talon-like grip. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what strength is left in me. If I fall, you must take my place—”

I stood abruptly, cutting her off. Take her place in the Circle of Nine? Take her place as matriarch? I was certainly strong enough for it, stronger than any Hawthorne since Violet. But that would mean returning to the manor, giving up everything I’d gained in Redbud. When I’d fled Annesley Valley with the cursed grimoire, that had always been the plan.

Before Sawyer. Before my life in this little town. Before Arthur. Before the truth.

“Meadow,” she began tersely.

“I promise to do what is right, Grandmother. I will not abandon our family.”