Page 31 of The Filigree Key

“Milady,” the woodchuck exclaimed.

‘You are mine, Meadow Ní Violet, body and soul.’

It’d been one thing to scheme to take my magic for himself—that had been his intent behind teaching me to bond with my magic like a fae instead of a witch, so he could eventually have access to it and amplify his own power.

It was another thing entirely to take my magic and then kill me.

“Anything of Violet Ní Dara?” I croaked. She had seen the death trap that awaited for her in a marriage with Ossian and had managed to get away. Perhaps I could be as wily as my ancestor and do the same.

“The sister to the Green Mother herself? Um . . ..” As deeply as Roland furrowed his brow, as tightly as he squinted his eyes, the storyteller couldn’t remember a single thing about one of the most powerful females in Elfame history. “No.”

Another effect of Ossian’s illusions, no doubt.

“What about magical artifacts, Roland, any stories you know about them?” I asked, that strange antler I’d seen on the bear’s collar coming to mind.

“Plenty,” the woodchuck gushed, relieved for the change in topic.

“Anything like this?” I fished out a smoldering stick from the cook ovens and drew the double-pronged bone thing I’d seen on Arthur’s collar. No sooner had I finished the charcoal drawing than Roland smudged it out with his foot.

“Milady!” he chastised. “Are you trying to get us both into trouble?”

“What is it?” I pressed.

“Where did you see it?” That question sounded more like it was meant to satisfy his own curiosity than have anything to do with the nature of the bone.

“Roland.”

He threw up his hands. “It’s a heretic’s fork, milady, and you want nothing to do with those. It’s usually bone or antler taken from a fairy and inscribed with runes. It’s powerful, arcane magic, milady, and not for the likes of either of us.”

“But what do they do?”

“They change or suppress things, and that’s all I know about it.” He flung a look over his shoulder as we both heard voices filtering down the passageway ramp. More hobs, most likely en route to pick up the silver platters with my breakfast.

“Stay away from those,” he told me sternly, shooing me away. To the passageway: “Got the door open, fellas!”

I didn’t budge. “How do you stop one? Can you break it?”

“You can’t break a heretic’s fork,” he snorted. “And I don’t know anything else, other than if you see one, you get away as fast as you can, or you bury it where not even a tree’s roots can find it. Now git, lass.”

I nestled my bubbling sourdough starter back in its corner out of the way of the incoming hobs and threaded my way back through the pre-breakfast mayhem for the stairs. Slowly. I had a lot to think about.

Ossian’s plot to kill me was a problem for another time. He couldn’t do that until the key was charged, so I focused on the heretic’s fork. Roland had seemed pretty certain that I couldn’t break it. But there was more than one way to skin a cat (sorry, Sawyer). Placating the pixies had taught me that. Nullifying the scorch marks on Flint’s chest, too.

What if the runes inscribed into the bone could be etched away? Like with an acid? That witch’s butter potion had proven caustic enough as evidenced by Sawyer’s tail. It was a ward dissolver, after all. But was it strong enough? Since this was old fae magic, I had my doubts.

Although . . . I’d heard a tale from Aunt Hyacinth when she’d returned from her sabbatical that in sleepy Savannah, Georgia, there was a certain flower emporium that employed a special kind of land snail that was a voracious slug eater. In addition to its gastropod and foliage diet, it was fed a supplement to increase the acidity of its saliva—the better to attack other harder-shell pests like aphids and beetles.

And wouldn’t you know it if witch’s butter combined with three of the ingredients I knew to be on Brandi’s worktable were the perfect substitute for that supplement?

“Mrs. Bilberry,” I announced shrilly—more from excitement than anything else. “I want escargot and freshwater mussels for tonight’s supper. Is that possible?”

“They’d have to be garden snails, milady,” the cook apologized. “Not the big fat ones you’re accustomed to. Is that alright?”

“Perfectly fine. I want them fresh. Like, alive. And I want to inspect that freshness before supper.”

I’d never doubted her cooking before, so she looked a little affronted but still agreed.

“Fantastic. Well, keep up the wonderful work, everyone,” I said, darting into the stairway.