Page 75 of The Filigree Key

“She is behind us, Meadow Ní Violet, further today after you master water. Come.”

The ride back to the sawmill was faster, even though the land tracked uphill. Gnawing on the corner of my bottom lip, I wondered, even if I mastered every element, if I would be strong enough to challenge him. Everything would be easier if I just let him go home to Elfame, but I couldn’t let his crimes against the witches of this realm go unpunished.

Perhaps I would regret that decision, but the souls of the women I’d seen in the portal’s memories, the lives of my family, my friends, my Arthur, and the people of Redbud deserved their justice.

I would be enough to overcome him. I had to be.

Ossian hadn’t come to a full stop before I wiggled off him, straightening my clothes with a few purposeful tugs. “I’m ready.”

With a close-lipped smile, Ossian gestured to Alec. “Bring the bags.”

Alec, gritting his teeth after being demoted to pack mule, slung a burlap bag over each shoulder. Holding my hand, Ossian led the way down the river’s edge. It was one of the only parts of the river that had a bank, this one populated by small pale river rocks and shaded by cedars. One intrepid sycamore stretched near horizontal in its fight to gain the sunlight over the river, and upon its bench-like trunk, Ossian sat.

The leader of the Brotherhood deposited both burlap bags on the pine needles at the Stag Man’s feet, sent me a glower, and joined the other Brothers seated at the top of the bank.

“Head into the water,” Ossian instructed. “Your fire element will keep you warm.”

The pebbles crunched as I sat down to remove my boots and woolen socks. Then I tucked the hem of my dress into my belt, revealing legs that had lost a little of their color from not seeing much of the sun these last few weeks. With slow, sure-footed strides, I waded into the brisk water up to my calves.

Fire element or not, this water was cold.

The heart of the oak tree ignited red, flooding me with heat.

I shivered, this time with relief, and shifted my stance so I could keep one eye on the fae king and one on the coursing river.

“Water is power,” Ossian instructed. With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the boulders and the path of the river. “It cuts its own course, and when it can’t do that, it changes.” He lifted his eyes to the spray launching off the rocks and the trees that had fallen into the river. “It is willpower at its core, always driven to complete its purpose—a river reaching an ocean, a thunderstorm releasing its rain, blood infusing life into the body.

“As a green witch, you have some affinity for water already. It’s in the very cells of the plants you grow, though you rarely tap into it as the source of its growth. It pulls nutrients through stalks, makes vines supple.

“Imagine this river as a capillary in a tree,” Ossian said, rubbing his palm against a smooth gray patch of bark. “Command its flow. Become its willpower. You will achieve mastery when you can extract pure water from this muck and direct it wherever you wish.”

Bending down, he fished an apple out of the open burlap bag and crunched down. “Begin.”

“You’re not going to get the key out?”

He shook his head, smirking past the bite of apple. “You won’t succeed so quickly, love, no offense. Do you know why it was easy for you to master earth and fire, besides,” he added quickly, “your affinity for them because of your heritage?”

I shook my head.

“Because you can cooperate with them. The true essence of water has no master other than itself. Because of that, you must dominate it. Such an aggressive trait is against the natures of green and hearth witches. You rely on harmony, working with the earth to grow at your command, with fire to bake your little breads.”

No Hawthorne ever makes little bread, I bristled. Except for rolls and biscuits, but those were in a different category altogether.

“Don’t pout, love.”

Oh, that wasn’t a pout on my face. Not by a long shot.

“And don’t fret. You will succeed, and not because you must. You will because you are a primal witch. The potential is there—you need only unlock it.”

As much of an abusive, narcissistic tyrant as Ossian was, he did know how to inspire. It was easy to be seduced by his charismatic fervor and encouragement, to be pulled along by his unflappable confidence.

My gaze shifted to the river. To be seduced and pulled along to your death.

The rubies dangling from my ears jingled as I shook my head to clear my thoughts and scattered flickers of red light that disappeared in the muddy water. Closing my eyes, I grounded myself through my feet.

It was a joy to do that again, a sense of both freedom and connection that would’ve swept me away from my purpose had I let it.

Dragging my senses from my feet squishing into the silty soft riverbed, I focused instead on the water swirling around my legs. Eyes still closed, I adjusted my stance so I stood parallel to the flow and felt a uniform drag against my shins. A pull.