Page 34 of A Beastly Court

“Okay, fine. We’re family.”

“If we’re family, I wonder why you didn’t want to bond with me.”

He sniffed. “There must be something wrong with you. That I don’t remember at the moment.”

“Or you’re just afraid of commitment.”

“Nuh-uh! I’m a cat. Just because we value our independence doesn’t mean we have commitment issues, thank you very much. And why are we picking on me? Aren’t you here for your ember?” If his shoulders had been jointed differently, he would’ve crossed his arms over his chest. Petulantly, too.

“Right.” I turned back to the little ember in the fireplace. “You look like you’re struggling. How about some more wood?”

I reached around to the stack, selected the biggest piece I could grip with one hand, then laid it on an angle over the red cedar. Then I chanted the words of the first spell I had ever learned:

“Smoke of ash, the Mother’s bones,

form protection ’round this home.

Cloud the sight of evil eyes,

grant us growth and keep us wise.

May goodness reign within these walls,

Our family strong when trouble calls.”

Beneath me, the hearth stones shuddered and the farmhouse groaned. The tiny yellow flame of the farmhouse ember licked the underside of the log just once, then exploded into a full-fledged fire.

Sawyer and I yelped, falling back and away from the heat. The tomcat pawed frantically at his face, snuffing out his smoldering whiskers. In the fireplace, the fire had already devoured the log I’d given it, and I hastily added another, then another, and soon half the stack was gone and the fire had relaxed into a more normal consumption rate.

“Woah,” I breathed.

“No kidding,” Sawyer said, jumping up into the window to peer outside. “Look at that! The delphinium ward has been reactivated.” A shimmering blue shield rose from the tips of the blooms in an arc above the house, becoming invisible upon its completion. “It’s official. Meadow, this really is your farmhouse.”

More importantly, this was my hearth.

I leaned in, spreading my chilled hands wide and letting them soak in the heat of real fire, not that strange blue fae fire Ossian had burning in the castle. Some past trauma or fear crippled him from ever permitting a fire he couldn’t control burn inside its walls, but here, in this farmhouse, his rules didn’t apply. I wiggled my fingers in the fire, the flames lapping against me like the tongues of excited hound dogs. “I think I missed you,” I told them.

“No time to gawk,” Sawyer told me from the windowsill. His tail had started to flick. “Someone might notice all the smoke coming out the chimney of an abandoned house.”

The cat was a smart little thing.

The chain’s hook released from my belt with a little snick, and I cupped the censer in my hand, easing open its lid with my thumbnail. The Hawthorne ember was pathetic, much more than the farmhouse ember had been.

Now what? The Hawthorne ember needed its own hearth, but Ame had told Sawyer I could revive it here. Since this was obviously my house from another life, and I was a Hawthorne by blood, maybe this hearth, and its own ember, would accept it?

“Here goes,” I muttered, dropping the Hawthorne ember into the flames.

The fire blazed. The flames clawed at the chimney chute, and harsh yellow light filled the entirety of the room.

Sawyer crouched in the window still, making himself small, his eyes wide. “Is that a good thing?”

I’d lifted a hand to shield myself from the light and heat, and when I lowered it, I found both embers sitting side by side like old friends. “No way.” It should be impossible and yet… I’ve done this before.

The farmhouse ember had scooched over on its log to give the Hawthorne ember room, and the two greedily devoured what wood remained on the grate; I hastily refilled it, then sent Sawyer outside to look for more.

“There’s a pile over here by the fence,” he called from the open back door, returning with a large stick that he spat out on the floor beside me.

I used that stick to poke the logs, which divided into two halves, one for each ember. In just a few moments, and an entire stack of wood later, the Hawthorne ember was a vibrant sunflower-yellow, healthy, whole, and brimming with power.