Page 40 of A Beastly Court

“Gah!” I shouted, throwing up my hands.

My frustration echoed off the arched ceiling of the foyer to no avail. Spinning on my heel, I faced the east wing and marched towards my room. At least there was one offender who wouldn’t escape me so easily.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I’d forgotten about the owl.

The beast lifted disdainful blue eyes at my appearance, ruffling its feathers in annoyance.

Well I beg your pardon for coming into my own room. Then I clamped down on my frustration, chewing on my bottom lip. I couldn’t very well interrogate Sawyer with the owl here. It had obviously recovered from this morning, as it was perched on its stand on the fireplace mantle. A few feathers were out of place, and it looked to be sulking as it hunched away from the fading light emanating from the western windows.

No, not sulking. It was still sleepy.

With a burst of speed, I snatched the barn owl from its perch and hurried to the nearest window before it could bite me. It certainly had enough wits to screech at me, its blue eyes wide like two full moons. I kept my own eyes slitted and my face turned away as I unlatched the window and shoved it open with my shoulder in practiced movements.

“You were a good birdie,” I lied, “but your services are no longer required. Byeeee!”

I stuffed the bird out the window, yanked it shut as its talons raked angrily against the glass, latched it, then slapped the drapes from their tiebacks. The thick burgundy fabric swept over the diamond-pane glass, blocking the furious barn owl from sight.

It took only a moment to do the same with the rest of the windows until the bedroom was shrouded in darkness.

“Is it safe to come out now?” Sawyer ventured from the foraging bag.

I didn’t trust myself yet to speak to him, so I kept my hand clamped over the zipper so he couldn’t force himself out, then summoned my magic. It sprang so willingly, albeit a little sluggishly, to my hand that my heart fluttered with happiness. It was short-lived, as I had an interrogation to attend to. Pinching the wicks of the candles in the candelabra with glowing fingers, I lit the candles with green flames that quickly turned yellow. After setting the candelabra on the nightstand, I unzipped the bag and dumped the cat out onto the bed.

Sawyer landed easily and spun around to face me, his luminous amber eyes shining with delight. His whiskers twitched with matching excitement, and he sat back on his haunches like a begging dog, lifting his paws in the air. “I can do spells!” he exclaimed. “I’d forgotten, of course, but check this out! Lumosa dilitare!”

Without consuming any extra wax, the candleflames expanded three times their original size, flooding the bedroom with light. It was enough for the excited tabby cat to see the severity on my face and for his own delight to falter.

“M-Meadow?”

I lifted two glowing green hands. I couldn’t summon battle magic yet, but the vines that wreathed my hands could become thorny and cutting with a thought.

“I trusted you,” I hissed. “I trusted this Ame. And what did I get for it? A setup!”

The tabby cat hunched himself into a tight loaf in the middle of the bed, tail tucking in under his body. “What are you t-talking about?”

“The embers!” I shouted. “‘Go to the farmhouse by the apple orchard to recharge the ember.’ Well that’s just fine and dandy, until there was a booby trap where I couldn’t get it back!”

“I didn’t know!” Sawyer cried, his gaze flicking from one of my glowing hands to the other as the vines snapped and writhed. “I swear! Ame would have told me.”

“Would she? She’s a cat. And so are you! Maybe Ossian was right to banish your kind from his court.”

“But I’m your cat!” He stood up straight then, sticking out his chest to show off the inscription on his moonstone collar. It was still on the side that read SAWYER, but the intention was understood. “And I can prove it. I didn’t just remember I could do spells in that farmhouse!”

He flung out his paw in clear demand that I take it.

I glared at him, caught in a tempest of whether or not I should believe him. I was about to threaten him with repercussions if he should try anything when I realized it was moot. With two-thirds of my core free, he was no match for me, magic cat or not.

And I so wanted to believe him, to know I had a friend who would stick with me through thick and thin, one that Ossian didn’t know about and couldn’t take away from me.

Clenching my teeth, I grabbed his paw.

“Animus ligare brevis,” the tabby cat intoned.

Something foreign yet familiar touched my mind. If I hadn’t been so used to Ossian’s presence—welcomed or not—I would have recoiled instantly. But my heart, my spirit, understood this to be Sawyer. And recognized him. Not as a recent acquaintance, not as a long-lost friend, but as intimately as I knew myself. On the trunk of my recently freed oak tree, an amber-colored rune flared to life. While not bright, it matched the exact color of Sawyer’s eyes. When I spared the stunned moment to examine it, I discovered it not to be a rune at all, but a silhouette in his exact likeness. Had it been there all along, imprinted on me and just waiting to be acknowledged? Or was it simply the spell he’d cast?

Whatever the explanation, it took only a second to relax my guard, to welcome him, before my mind was flooded with memories.