Page 5 of A Beastly Court

Scriiii—

“Ha!” I shouted, blasting upwards with a bolt of green magic. It was all I could manage these days—that curse was worse than the parasite ring or bracelet had ever been—but it was effective.

Plaster erupted as a hole the size of a clementine appeared in the cathedral ceiling directly overhead. My fingertips glowed as I summoned the energy for another bolt. Not to kill whatever fell on my lap in the bed, but to stun it and give it the tirade of the century. Then I would evict it. It was a beast after all, and all beasts—except cats—were sacred to Ossian.

But nothing fell from the hole. There was the scabbering sound of retreating claws, and then my bedroom was silent save for the quiet rain of plaster dust.

“Next time I won’t miss,” I hollered at the hole. Then I gave my duvet a hearty flick to launch all the debris out of the bed and onto the rug instead. Flopping back on the down-feather pillow, I gave the predawn gloom of my room a hearty sigh.

Stone, hardwood, plaster, heavy drapes, a four-poster bed, diamond-pane windows of leaded glass that were thicker on the bottom than they were at the top—the castle was something out of the Tudor era. I still couldn’t remember why for the life of me I’d happily moved in here with Ossian after fleeing Hawthorne Manor. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the architecture?

Why couldn’t it be a cozy little cottage with a wood-burning stove in the woods by a creek?

A spot on my forehead right between my eyes throbbed whenever I tried to remember too hard—Grandmother’s curse had lingering and painful effects. But what did it matter if that last few months were a little hazy? Four things were perfectly clear.

One: I had freed my family of the magic-stealing curse on the grimoire. Ha-cha!

Two: I had fallen in love with Ossian. Handsome, alluring Ossian with his jewel-green eyes and luscious mouth and sculpted everything. He was something wild, something forbidden, and the bond between us was something I’d never felt before. It was an ache so powerful I felt like I would die without him.

Three: Grandmother, incensed and incapable of accepting my relationship with a non-witch, even though Ossian was a fae king, had disowned me and placed a barrier around my magic so I could never reach my full potential. Cursed me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the curse had also locked away a portion of my more recent memories behind a dark cloud that swirled like a maelstrom in my mind.

Four: I had sixteen days until I had to summon and open the portal to Elfame.

Grandmother had declared it was my obsession with the high fae king that had led me into making that bargain with Ossian, but she was wrong. I needed to go to Elfame, though I couldn’t remember why thanks to the curse. That need was what drove me every morning, afternoon, and night. Despite my tenacity, there was still a distinct possibility I’d fail. And from my limited knowledge about these types of Fair Folk contracts, the consequences of my failure would be dire. For me.

Well top of the morning to you too, Miss Doom and Gloom.

Groaning, I rubbed the crust out of my eyes and flopped onto my side to glare at the glowing Hawthorne hearth ember where its censer rested on the adjacent pillow. Runes prevented the censer from growing hot and setting the silk and down stuffing on fire, and the little chain that connected it to my foraging bag that I stuffed under the bedsheets with me at night kept it from wandering off. Not that it was sentient or anything, but if there were mice or squirrels nesting in my walls, you could bet it was only a matter of time before such a creature started snooping where they didn’t belong.

Not for the first time, I thought about hurling that censer out the window and letting it shatter against the courtyard. Or at least dent and spill the ember onto the flagstones to gutter out in the dew left behind after a cold night had thawed itself with a new day.

“For your protection, Meadow,” Grandmother had told me. “It burns hot and fast, so use it only when all else has failed you.”

I snorted. The ember hadn’t protected me from her curse, though ironically it had been the key to start freeing my magic. One day last week, after my second failed training session with Ossian and he’d stormed out of the castle muttering curses at my grandmother, I’d dumped the raw ember into my cupped palms and pleaded with the Green Mother for deliverance. I’d so wanted to please him, to liberate myself, to not die from failing to uphold my end of the fae bargain.

On contact, the ember’s yellow flame had flared a brilliant green, magic pouring into me and down my arms and into my chest. It broke like a green wave against the chain mail net over my magic, the whole curse shuddering. Then, around the roots of the oak tree, the leaf-like links of the chain mail flashed white and dissolved. They became as a cloud of glittering white motes that then vanished in an unseen wind. The freed roots flexed and flared like fingers released from a fist, and for the first time since Grandmother had cursed me, green magic came to my fingertips when summoned.

Since then, the ember had resigned itself to death and me to the uphill battle of uncursing myself one link at a time. It was doable, but fatiguing and inefficient, not to mention slower than molasses in January. I’d never free myself before the winter solstice at that rate.

I’d tried reviving the ember in the hearth of the great hall and the one in the kitchen, but the blue flames of both seemed intent to reject both it and me. When I’d turned to the little fireplace in my own bedroom, which seemed cursed to never light, the dry wood had (unsurprisingly) refused to catch. With its magic nearly spent, its flame so tiny that an errant breath might snuff it out if it wasn’t protected by the censer, why did I still keep the ember around?

Because it’s the only link to your family, a tiny voice answered.

“You mean the family who abandoned me?” I snarled aloud.

And they had. Mom, Dad, Marten, Otter, Aunt Peony… the Circle of Nine had all turned their backs on me and followed Grandmother home to the manor. Not even Boar or Rose or Lilac had reached out in the days that had followed. It was like I no longer existed.

That would have broken me had it not been for my friends in Redbud. Gracious Daphne, quiet Shari, charismatic Flora. Even that cantankerous curmudgeon Cody and kind old Emmett. However, despite their affection, something hollow remained in my heart. An ache that never lessened, a hole that never closed.

But it was always more manageable when my friends were around or when Mrs. Bilberry let me spend some time in the kitchen baking something flaky and fattening.

My mood brightened. If I excelled in my training today, maybe Ossian would let me see them or let me sling some flour and butter around again. The male was awfully strict when it came to how I spent my days. “We’re on a deadline,” he’d often remind me.

Thrusting off the bedsheets, I snatched up my foraging bag and padded across the rug and then the freezing stone floor to the adjoining bathroom.

The castle was very old, but someone had updated it along the decades and installed running water. It never seemed to heat properly, though, my only choices being freezing or scalding hot. I slung my bag on the hook meant for a hand towel and hunched over the copper sink—there was no iron in this castle—the piping groaning as I twisted the hot-water handle. The faucet sputtered, refusing to eject the hot water I asked for. There was no point in waiting, so I splashed it all over my face and yelped with the cold. Ossian allowed only two fires in the castle, and fae fire at that, and those were in the kitchen and the great hall, the place I avoided the most. That meant everywhere else was varying degrees of lukewarm, cold, and frigid.

I was the sole occupant of the east wing, except for the vermin nesting in my walls, and had nothing but quilts and coats and my own body heat to banish the chill. Ossian offered to keep me warm every night, but my old-fashioned morals kept him from my bed. Even despite his theory that consummating our fated mate bond would release the curse on my magic.