Sighing, I drop my hands. “Okay, fine. You’re thirty years old, and you two arefirstcousins. This doesn’t change anything. The plan remains the same—we need to turn you back.”
“What plan?” Ash asks, suspicious.
“There is no plan,” Rowan says heavily. “We’re not doing it, Kit.”
“We are, because I’m not living with you for the next fifty years.” Then I look at Ash, pushing myself to my feet. “Where would we find a dust pendant?”
His eyebrows shoot up, and he looks so genuinely horrified, I almost laugh.
“What in the world could you possibly need a dust pendant for?” the councilman demands.
“Rowan can’t access his magic in his current state because he can’t use his wand.”
Ash laughs, and the sound is somehow both cocky and condescending.
I press forward. “So, he needs someone else to turn him back into his normal self.”
Ash smiles. “I hate to break it to you, Kit, but Rowan was never normal.”
This rivalry between them makes a lot more sense now.
“Neither a mage nor a high fae can do it because?—”
“Like magic repels.” Ash motions his hand like we can skip along. “I’m aware.”
“Okay, well. We have to turn him back with a different type of magic.” I cross my arms, standing a little straighter. “And we’re going to try to use mine. We went to see Rowan’s old professor today, and he said it might be possible, but we’ll have to siphon some of my magic into a dust pendant so that it can be tempered with another kind of magic and made stable enough to use.”
“No,” Ash says. “Rowan isn’t experimenting on you or your magic.”
“It’s our only option,” I insist.
“It’s not your only option. We just have to find someone with wieldable magic who’s compatible and wants to help Rowan lose his feathers.”
“Compatible?” I ask, not understanding. “Aren’t all other types of magic compatible?”
“No,” Rowan says. “Leprechaun magic mixed with high fae is…volatile.”
“There’d be nothing of Rowan left but a few singed feathers.” Ash raises his brows. “But look at the bright side, Kit—you’d be free of your unwanted house guest.”
“Ash,” I say sharply, and then I press my lips together, thinking. “Okay, so for wieldable magic, that just leaves…elves. Right? Fae, mages, leprechauns, and elves—no one else has wieldable magic, do they?”
“Brownies, gnomes, and dwarves,” Rowan says. “But their magic is limited and linked to the earth. And then there are the spectral races, but they certainly wouldn’t be helpful.”
“Okay. Then we need an elf.”
Ash snorts like I said something funny. “You’re never going to find an elf.”
“Why do you two keep saying that when Ryder lives in Moss Hollow? He’s an elf, isn’t he?”
“The only one more likely to blow up Rowan than Rowan himself is Ryder,” Ash says. “If he’s your only option, then Rowan might as well accept his fate.”
I sigh. “Fine, then it’s back to me.”
“Even if you siphon your magic, you’d still have to temper it with elf magic,” Ash points out.
“You don’t even think Ryder can do that? How hard can it be?”
Rowan and Ash exchange a look.
