Page 11 of The Filigree Key

I let him stew and hopefully squirm a bit as I took my time replying. “It felt warm. Like when you step into a forest pool that’s been heated by the sun all summer. I smelled the freshest grass and flowers, like the air itself was so clean it could amplify any scent instead of dampen it. I heard—”

The music of the portal. Its song that had lured me into accepting the memories embedded in its bindings.

“Yes?” Ossian pressed.

“Birdsong,” I replied, stabbing the stack of waffles so viciously the fork drove all the way down and scraped against the plate.

“What kind of birds?”

“What does it matter?”

The game hens cracked in Ossian’s fists. “Were they herons or nightjars or finches?”

“I’m a green hearth witch, Ossian, not an ornithologist.” I abandoned my breakfast so I could lean back in my chair and increase the distance between us. “And it’s not like I heard much before we were blasted halfway across the field. Why? What did you experience?”

The Stag Man wet his lips as he regained his composure. He dropped the game hen pieces onto his plate and wiped his hands free of the grease and juice. Then he extended his left hand to me, palm down.

The skin across his knuckles and the backs of his fingers had lost its bronze tint. It was no longer flawless or supple, but cracked, lifeless, and gray. Like frostbite.

I didn’t offer to heal him, instead folding my hands in my lap. “What does this mean, Ossian?”

“That Callan has turned my home against me. Even if you were to unlock the portal, I suspect my brother has placed more spells on the opposite side to deny my return. It means that extra precautions must be taken.”

“And why aren’t you as angry as I think you should be?”

The Stag Man’s lips turned into an ugly smile, and he jerked his chin towards the grizzly bear. “I released a lot of my frustration before you got here. And, after hearing your side of events, I realized all is not lost. I have you, Meadow Ní Violet.”

The possessive tone made my skin crawl.

“And him.”

I yelped in surprise as Ossian’s “extra precaution” stepped out from behind the dais. The Brother reminded me of Drake, that blond brute of a magic hunter who’d been sent after my family in Hawthorne Manor. Tall, heavily muscled, his blond hair buzzed in a military cut, and fae-like markings covering his skin. Far more markings than I’d seen on any other Brother, I realized, even Ossian’s pet, Alec.

And his eyes were blue. Faelight blue.

“Shane,” the fae king explained, “will be our bodyguard, here and in Elfame.”

I swear he said bodyguard, but I heard mindless minion. Maybe even sacrificial lamb.

Ossian straightened into a regal posture and declared, “We shall marry before crossing into Elfame. When we consummate our marriage, your magic will flow into me and disguise my essence from Callan’s spells. Then we shall enter the immortal lands and I will take back what is rightfully mine.”

CHAPTER FOUR

It was one thing being engaged to my enemy. It was another thing entirely to actually marry him.

“P-pardon?” I sputtered.

“Are you not pleased, love?” The Stag Man finally tore into his breakfast, devouring strips of hen and barely chewing. It was too reminiscent of the half-heart’s tentacle-esophagus that had guzzled away my elders’ magic. I looked away, repulsed.

“Only yesterday you were beside yourself with happiness,” he continued, “but now I am met with—”

I couldn’t let him finish that sentence and breathe life into a word that might later convince him I was no longer under his sway. “It’s just I wanted the fairy-tale wedding. You know, in the actual land of the fairies?” I mustered my best pout. “And what witch gets married in the winter? Not to mention the new moon has passed us by, so we can say goodbye to that auspicious omen. And how can we plan a wedding so quickly?”

“With ease. All they entail is the female offering the male a fruit, the male wrapping his cloak around the female, and a few blessings spoken in Faerish. Fae weddings are not as elaborate affairs as mortal ones—”

“It’d better be!” I screeched, lurching upright. Green witch weddings were simple garden parties with an extra helping of ceremony on top, but he didn’t need to know that. And he didn’t know that an elaborate wedding was just the distraction I could make use of to enter Elfame without him.

“It seems I’m doing all the work here.” I paced along the length of the blue-flamed fireplace, channeling my cousin Rose when she was having a temper tantrum. I forwent her elaborate cussing but embraced all the wild arm-waving. “Bond with my magic, summon and anchor a fae portal, now charge a key with four sources of primal magic—while you tinker in your silversmithy and hunt down a hobgoblin terrorist for weeks without success and beat up on chained grizzly bears when your brother pisses you off.”