Page 36 of A Beastly Court

My heart stuttered, and before it could beat again, the farmhouse ember vanished from sight.

Nothing but a cold, flameless hearth lay before me, smoke coiling upwards from the charcoal like strands of wispy gray lace.

I blinked, refusing to believe my eyes, then my pulse roared in my ears.

Both embers were gone, as if they had never existed. I had sprung the last trap my grandmother had left for me.

“Thistle thorns!” I screamed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I stared at the dormant fireplace without truly seeing, the tongs shaking in my white-knuckled grip. I’d had my future right there, and now it was gone.

“Gah! What is that?” the tabby tomcat cried.

Blinking, I scuttled away as the ashes in the fireplace started moving. An invisible hand was writing in all capital letters, P-R-I-M-A-L—

Primal? What in the name of all that was green and good in this world did that mean?

“Meadow,” the cat pleaded.

“Shhh!”

The invisible hand was writing again—a W—then Daphne’s shrill whinny wrenched my attention away. “Meadow!” she screeched. “They’re too close. I… I think I smell Cernunnos too!”

“These southern fields here have my particular attention at the moment. But I’ll also let the orb guide me.” With how the farmhouse and the embers had reacted to me, it was no wonder his magical homing device had diverted him.

But the writing—

Sawyer clawed at my ankles. “Meadow, come on!”

With a hiss, I dashed the furious tears from my eyes and replaced the tongs. It had to look like I’d never been there. Then, on instinct, I snatched up a dead coal and threw it in the censer, snapped it shut, and jammed its hook down on my belt.

I wrenched the back door shut, replaced the braided rug, and raced out the front, the tabby tomcat at my heels. The door squeaked as I closed it behind us, either protesting the violent tug shut or complaining that I was leaving so soon.

On the opposite side of the white picket fence, Daphne pawed at the ground, a robin fluttering above her head. “Quickly now, dear!” she trumpeted. “We must flee!”

I paused only for a moment to scoop Sawyer up and drop him into the bag, then I was dashing down the garden path. The three big pixies from earlier rose at the sound of my haste, the big one Dart quickly interpreting the situation and racing upwards to scout the sky. It chimed in distress, pointing westward, the very direction we had to go.

I didn’t bother with the garden gate—I braced myself on the gate post and vaulted over it, stumbling on the landing but not enough to twist an ankle. The two other pixies, Flit and Zip, I remembered, zoomed to my shoulders, clinging to the fabric there with their slender fingers. Daphne held still for only the time it took to get on her back before she surged forward into a gallop. Gertrude the robin would’ve been left behind had I not plucked her out of the air and cradled her gently to my chest.

“They’re coming from the west, upwind of us,” I shouted into Daphne’s ear. “Quick, head for that forest east of the apple orchard. We can use it for cover.”

The white mare served to the right, hooves thundering through the dead wildflowers as she sped to the forest. Zip left my shoulder then, zipping here and there like a dragonfly over the trampled stalks and grasses. In the wake of its passage, the flattened foliage rose, obscuring the hoof prints.

It’s hiding our trail!

The magic proved strenuous for the pixie who should’ve been hibernating, and at the edge of the field, it lost altitude and disappeared into clover, exhausted. On my shoulder, Flit let out a flute-like wail but didn’t go after its kin.

Once concealed in the trees, Daphne slid to a halt, her chest pumping like a bellows. I slid off her back to alleviate the strain, releasing the very agitated Gertrude, and after Sawyer muscled his head free of the foraging bag, we all looked out from the cover of the cedars and spruces back towards the farmhouse.

“Do you see him?” I panted. “Do you see Ossian? Smell him?”

The mare shook her head. “I can’t smell him now, but—”

“Quiet now,” Sawyer hissed as the Brotherhood came into view.

Alec and the Brotherhood weren’t so cliché as to be riding in on matching black horses, but they themselves were dressed all in black and the intimidation effect was just potent. I was too far away to discern what they were shouting at each other, but a portion of them dismounted to investigate the house while the others circled the property.