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And I broke the spell she’d laid on Darling.
Abruptly, my feline Familiar became the young man he’d so often imagined, with the lithe limbs of the noble fae, an expression of astonished and transported joy on his face as he examined his hands. It really sucked not to have thumbs, I knew.
“Get ’er, Goliath,” I whispered. Because I had nothing left.
Tall and strong, Goliath faced Titania down, blasting her with the cool numbing of his magic. She withered under it, her fiery power quenching under the vast reserve he’d accumulated from all those years of powerlessness.
She collapsed, but she wasn’t out, no. Instead her mind wormed away, darting off to burrow through the tunnels she’d made through the Veil, to find the changelings she’d seeded.
To pull the trigger.
She had to be stopped.
And I was dying anyway.
The cat inside me welled up and I fed her everything I had. My screams rang in my changing ears as she took shape from my failing flesh. Once and for all, I became the cat, leaping onto Titania, slicing her with lethal claws and piercing fangs. Crunching her bones with my powerful jaws as Goliath drained away her ability to heal.
Between us, we dragged her down the stairs, to the doorway to the dragon perch. My particular dragon friend waited there, as if we’d planned this. And maybe, on some deep unspoken level, we had.
The dragon took the screaming Titania from me like a sweetmeat offered on my palm. And ate her, swallowing her and her dreadful magic into her nullness.
Destroying her forever.
*
I paced theroom, sniffing the towels soaked with blood I recognized vaguely as my own. It felt good and right to be in my meant body. The ready response of quicksilver muscles, the flex of claws and my long tail adding balance. Gone were the pains the woman had suffered.
We were clean and whole. Strong. Invincible.
The noble fae conferred, watching me warily, uncertain if I understood their conversation. Afraid that I might attack.
I might, at that. Their fear pleased me.
Mostly I heard their words, but it bothered me most that the kitten seemed to be missing. I prowled, looking for it, while a human-smelling woman wept.
“Can’t you all combine magic to turn her back?” A human man wearing the stink of silver was arguing. “I can do it but I need the damn scepter, whatever she did with it.”
“We have more pressing problems. With Rogue gone, his lady incapacitated and Queen Titania destroyed, the magic grows unstable. The lesser fae and the humans are revolting. Someone needs to take control. Reestablish order.”
“The lesser fae and humans have always been revolting.” They laughed.
“Without Sorceress Gwynn, none of us can reach our children. Nothing else matters. You’re fools to worry about anything else.” The fae who spoke stepped into my path. He smelled of snake and something else familiar. Had he taken the kitten? I growled at him and he edged back in a satisfying way.
A little fae girl wrapped her arms around my neck. I didn’t want to eat her so much. “Don’t hurt him, Gwynn. He knows how to help you.”
“Goliath, come here,” the snake man ordered.
The one who helped me destroy the evil one with his magic sat down next to me, scratching my ears in a delightful way that made me want to purr. He seemed familiar to me and, in my mind, I saw us playing like kittens together.
“Inside out,” the snake man instructed. “Show her. If I can do it, she can.”
Kitten-man showed me how he’d been inside a cat—so funny!—and then came out. But no. I didn’t want to. This wasmyturn. The woman could stay inside. Besides, she’d lost the kitten. I would not have.
“It’s not working. She’s gone.”
Another tall fae strolled up. I flattened my ears. We hated her. Sure enough, she smacked us on the head. I swiped at her but she danced away and the fae girl I didn’t want to eat held me back.
“Wake up, Gwynn!” The mean woman snapped her fingers. “Or will you prove yourself the fragile human we all knew you to be? Our greatest failure.”
