Page 30 of A Beastly Court

“If you’re this winded now, we won’t make there and back to the farmhouse before nightfall,” Sawyer said doubtfully.

“I… will… make it,” I forced out, sucking in another breath of crisp air.

“Your spirit says one thing, but your body is saying another. Maybe this is just your warm-up day? Like, preparing to travel five miles?”

“I can walk it in like two hours.”

“Yeah, maybe if it was entirely flat terrain, which is isn’t. This is Southern Indiana, remember? Hills galore. Two hours there, two hours back, however long it takes you at the farmhouse to do your thing… that doesn’t leave a lot of time. The sun sets early nowadays.”

I snatched the bag and hauled it around to my front so I could glare down at the tabby head poking out of its top. “If you are my friend as you say you are, then you’re doing a poor job of reassuring me.”

Instead of looking chastised, Sawyer swiveled around in the bag then, whiskers twitching and ears pricking.

“We are going,” I insisted.

“Shh! Someone’s—” He wrenched his head back into the bag.

If he thought he could just suck his head down like a gopher into its hole, he had another thing coming. I wrenched open the zipper to regard the cowering cat fully. “I might not get another chance!”

“Meadow, who are you talking to?” a voice exclaimed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Daphne!” I gasped.

The white mare swiveled her head to examine me with a bright blue eye as a robin flew from where it perched between her ears. I glared at the bird as it twittered and returned to its nest in the yew bush. “Tattletale.”

“Be glad Gertrude is. Sir Alec sent a scout ahead to herald his and his men’s return. What if he sees you out here? Flora’s speeches are inspirational, but Cernunnos said—”

“First, it’s just Alec—he’s most definitely not a knight—and second—” I never got the other half of my protest out because Daphne’s nostrils flared before she threw up her head with a trumpeting neigh.

“Do I smell a cat?” Her front hooves pawed at the air in fright. When she landed, her teeth snatched the foraging bag and yanked.

I tumbled to my knees as the strap slipped from across my chest, and the foraging bag joined me on the grass a second later, ejecting the cat with a flurry of stripes.

“Daphne!” A feral honey badger darted into the little colonnade of cedars, her fur standing out every which way. “What’s with the neigh of panic? You said you’d only be gone a second— Jumping hop-toads,” Flora shouted. “Is that a cat?”

She bared her teeth with a snarl, her tail pointing straight to the sky, the muscles in her shoulders bunching. “Get away from our cider witch, you filthy feline.”

Despite her greater size and strength, Sawyer flattened his ears and arched his spine with a ferocious hiss. I scruffed the tomcat before his challenge could really piss off the honey badger and stuffed him into the foraging bag, clutching it tightly to my chest.

“Quiet,” I snapped. “All of you! Do you want the whole castle to hear?”

“I told you to sneak out of the castle, not get beheaded for consorting with a cat!” Flora fired back.

With only his head sticking out of my foraging bag, and his ears still plastered against his skull, Sawyer hissed again.

I flicked him on the top of his head. “Don’t make it worse. Daphne, Flora,” I introduced, forcing calm into every word, “this is Sawyer, my cat. And as my friends, I’m hoping you’ll keep quiet about this.”

“Your cat?” Flora demanded, shoving her nose right into his face and sniffing. To his credit, Sawyer knew one whisker twitch out of line and the honey badger would have his head in her jaws. He stayed perfectly still as she examined his collar and tag. “‘Sawyer.’ Huh. Well, I’m a little surprised you actually followed my suggestion and snuck out, cider witch. You’re usually such a rule-follower. You, Stripes, did you encourage her on this little fieldtrip?”

“I did,” he said stoutly.

“Ooo.” Flora sat back with a grin, waggling her eyebrows. “I think I like you. Even if you are a cat.”

“What’s the meaning of this, dear?” the white mare whispered. She tossed her head up to look over the yew bush at the castle before continuing. “There’ve been no cats in the Court of Beasts in, in forever! How is it that you now have one?”

“I-I think I’ve had him since before I met Ossian,” I said. “The memory—” I clutched my head as the maelstrom fought my attempt to search deeper.