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Ignoring the insult, I held my hands over the earth, letting magic spill through my fingers. I ignored Helian’s whistle when a soft bed of grass sprung up along the shore. No doubt he was poking fun of my measly garden, but it was enough for Demon, which was all that mattered. Demon poked his head out of my bag, scanning for threats before hopping out and munching on grass, the skin on his back twitching with happiness when I added a few yellow flowers.
Then I took a thread of magic and tossed it toward the lake, smiling as a vine grew out of my fingertip and stretched, thorns sprouting as it twisted and turned toward the water, disappearing beneath the ripple it had made with aplunk.
As soon as I felt the tug, I squeezed the vine shut, and it retracted back toward me, dragging with it a strange green fish with a large mouth and long, fleshy whiskers. It flopped on the shore, its maw opening and closing as its chest heaved. I then threw out the vine and caught another fish, not that I cared to feed Helian, but I didn’t feel like fighting with him over my only fish.
“How did you do that?”
I looked over my shoulder at Helian. “I’m a green witch, or have you forgotten?”
He shook his head. “No witch can make vines like that.” He motioned toward the vine growing from my finger. “It takes days for most green witches to grow a few blades of grass.”
“Nonsense.” I laughed. “My skills are rudimentary at best.”
“Who told you that?”
I turned to fully face him, slightly alarmed by the steel in his eyes. “My father.”
He arched a brow. “You mean the mind spinner who faked your death and took you from your family?”
I swallowed, resenting him for reminding me my ‘father’ was an impostor. “Yes. His name was Thorin.”
He folded muscular arms across a broad chest, looking down at me as if he was lecturing a child. “Thorin was lying to you, Anya. Most green witches can only heal the common cold in the time it took you to heal me. It takes them days to mend broken bones.”
A vision flashed before my eyes, a young woman with gray eyes and pale skin like mine, lying in the throes of death, the smell of sickness permeating the air. She was calling my name, and I was trying to reach her, to heal her, but strong hands pulled me away. I blinked, and the vision was gone.
“How old are you?”
I gaped at him for a moment, remembering where I was, still reeling from that vision. “Thorin said I was twenty-three.”
“You don’t look older than eighteen.”
I shrugged, averting my gaze. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” He turned his back on me, gathering large stones and making a rudimentary fire pit. Where he would get the wood, I had no idea, unless Radnor had gone off to snatch a tree limb.
I helped him collect stones while keeping one eye on Demon who’d stopped to drink from the water bowl. “And how old are you?” I asked the Fae, not that I cared to know his age. Details about his life were irrelevant to me, since I had no interest in a male like him, even if he was handsome.
“Twenty-seven.”
I jerked up at that, holding a retort on my tongue. He certainly didn’t act twenty-seven. He was as immature as many of the human village boys I’d encountered on my travels. Then again, Fae were known to live for hundreds of years. Twenty-seven was probably just a child in Fae years. No wonder he was such a twat.
Without asking if I intended on sharing, he began fileting my fish on a stone slab. He nodded toward a leather pack that had black burn marks on one side, much like the pack that had held his clothes. “There’s a pan and oil in there.”
I took that as my cue to fetch the cooking supplies. The items inside the pack had survived the fire, though they smelled a bit like burned leather. I grabbed a tin bottle I assumed was the oil and a deep cast iron pan, lugging it toward him with a grunt. “Will Radnor be making us a fire?”
He nodded, then cast a glance at Demon who was back to happily munching. “So I suppose no hunting for hare while you’re with us.”
I frowned up at the sky when a massive winged shadow blotted out the light from the waning sun. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
Demon hopped back into my bag, making an angrythumpjust before Radnor landed with a much more impressivethud.
She doesn’t eat any meat except fish,the dragon said after he deposited a large tree limb on top of the makeshift fire pit.
Helian gave me an amused look. “Why is that?”
I stiffened at his smug tone. “I’d rather not say.”
He shared a knowing look with his dragon before bridging the distance between us. “Well, now I insist.”
