Page 60 of A Beastly Court

Thud.

My heart swelled.

It was a slow drumbeat, but it was there. Cursed as it was, my magic was finally and truly awakening, growing into what it was always meant to be.

Hardly daring to breathe, I allowed the oak tree’s wooden pulse and the one of my own heart slowly come into synchronization.

“You are becoming,” a proud voice told me.

I think I gasped, and Ossian’s disembodied voice said quickly, “Don’t be afraid, Meadow. Keep trying.”

He hadn’t heard. That voice had been just for me.

Forgetting the voice, forgetting him, I focused on those two hearts beating as one.

I felt joy, true joy, for the first time in my life.

And hope.

Grandmother may have stunted me, may have cursed me, but true daughter of Violet or no, I was obeying—reveling—in the one rule that governed Nature: growth.

I had its rhythm now, knew this oak tree’s heart as well as I knew every stripe on Sawyer’s fur. By the Green Mother, this was so much easier than wiggling my toes in time to the flexing of the roots. This was something I could truly feel, not just anticipate, even though it had taken me more time to achieve.

Slowly, though I was not afraid of losing my connection to the oak tree’s heart, I reached for the white aster. Then, unlike any time before, the plant surrendered its life energy. I wasn’t siphoning in the traditional sense. Like had called to like, and the aster was answering my need for green magic. It funneled straight through me, back into the heart of the oak tree, and the glow of its bark brightened. A pulse of power rippled up its trunk into the trapped canopy, and a glittering white mist filled the air as a section of chain mail simply vanished.

Dumbfounded, I watched the mist dissipate. One single plant had never done that before. It was incredible. I felt incredible.

Triumph radiated from Ossian’s presence, and he urged, “Again!”

Without opening my physical eyes, I moved on to the next plant, an entire cluster of variegated pansies. Their petals were thinner than Sawyer’s crepe-like ears, though just as fleshy, just as vibrant with life. It all went to my oak tree, surrendered as before, and another section of Grandmother’s curse vanished.

The fae king’s cheers sounded far away as I communed with the oak tree, reveling in its wooden pulse that thrummed down into my bones. This was our victory. We were taking back our freedom.

“Try more than one at the same time,” Ossian urged.

In a slow arc, my physical hand swept over not two or three, but over the entire crescent of remaining pots. Every mum, cock’s comb, sedum, pansy, and flame-colored celosia donated their green life energy, the power thundering through my body and into the oak tree’s heart.

The bottom-most leaves shivered in their newfound freedom, showing off their luscious green tops and golden undersides.

“That’s,” Ossian began. “That’s… Why is it—”

His presence vanished, and while I wanted to linger and bond more with my tree, Ossian’s aura had been red with anger when he’d left. Pressing my forehead against the trunk, I muttered, “The male’s hundreds of years old and still has the temper tantrums of a child.” I sighed. “See you later, friend.”

When I blinked, returning to the physical world, I found Ossian upright, pacing, and glaring down at the terra-cotta planters, each now crowned with shriveled brown stalks. For a moment, I was afraid he’d truly examine them and discover my deception, that I hadn’t drained them entirely.

“Ossian?” I ventured, my voice barely loud enough to be heard above his pounding footfalls.

“Why is more of your magic not freed?” he demanded. “I told that honey badger to bring in the exact kind and number of plants as last time. You freed more of the curse then without even being bonded to the oak tree. What. Happened?”

Last time I ran away from the castle to a farmhouse that’s not on any map and harnessed the magic of two hearth embers. “U-uh, I…”

He stopped pacing, standing directly in front of me, barely restrained anger roiling off him like heat from scorched pavement. “Well?”

“Well, I had the ember last time—”

The fae king cut his hand through the air. “The ember had no power other than what it gave you to jumpstart your magic’s freedom. There has to be another reason.”

I wasn’t going to say one word about the farmhouse, about Flora and Daphne’s involvement, and certainly nothing about Sawyer being able to donate me a trickle of magic here and there as necessary. “I don’t know!” I cried, lurching to my feet. “Maybe it’s the plants? I mean, they’re all the same species as before—mums, asters, and the like—but maybe not the same colors? I had purple aster and orange mums before and, thistle thorns, Ossian, it’s December! How vivacious can they be?”