Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

"Meadow, love," Ossian said, though there was hardly an affectionate note in his voice. "I thought you were taking your friends to the atrium as usual."

I blinked, trying to reconcile the fae I'd just seen in the archway to the one who stood there now, the one I was familiar with. "I-I just thought I'd take them to my room to get that mouse—"

"That is what the owl is for. And you know the east wing is off-limits to anyone other than you." His close-lipped smile was brittle.

"We were just caught up in the excitement, is all, Cernunnos," Daphne assured, though there was a slight tremor in her voice. On her withers, Shari strived to hide herself with the mare's long white mane. "Flora? We know the way to the atrium. Quick trot now."

"You know I'm better than any owl, right?" Flora boldly told the fae king. "No dainty wings to break on this honey badger if it's something scrappier than a mouse."

Ossian didn't move, his jewel-like eyes glittering. The gemstones around his neck flared. "Your presence here is a gift to my mate. It would be a shame for your brash tongue to return you to the status of a lowly gardener."

"Flora," I said warningly.

It was true—once Ossian had seen my need for companionship other than what he provided, he had elevated three of the castle's staff: the gardener, the seamstress, and the game warden. We'd become fast friends immediately, all agreeing that it seemed like we'd known each other forever instead of a few short days. And what Ossian gave, he had yet to take back, but there was always a first time.

"Cernunnos," Flora spat at him, turning on her claws and lifting her tail as high as it would go before trotting off.

The simpering look I gave him did not assuage his displeasure. With his frightening speed, he vanished from the east wing entrance and had my shoulders in a talon-like grip a blink later. "I do not expect them to understand some of the rules I set down, but they must be obeyed all the same. That wing is for you , Meadow. I will not have anyone contaminating that sanctuary."

"Ossian, my friends wouldn't—"

"They are beasts, Meadow. My subjects. They must remember that. And you are alone in that wing for a very specific purpose, remember? You must have a haven away from this all, a quiet place to reflect and meditate, otherwise you will never lift your grandmother's curse in time. No. Exceptions."

It was hard to hear and accept his words when his fingers were digging into my shoulders so hard I felt he was going to strip the flesh from my bones. "Are you done, or do you want to keep squeezing me like I'm a banana you want to eject out of its peel?"

He blinked first in surprise and then realization, quickly dropping his hands away.

"It doesn't cost you anything to be nice, Ossian. Instead of threatening them, maybe treat them with respect? You'd get more flies with honey than tomcat piss," I flung at him, storming off to find my friends.

They were milling around in the atrium when I arrived, the honey badger pacing back and forth on the sunlit stones and the porcupine frantically crocheting the rest of the tranquil mare's mane.

Flora snarled at my approach. " Lowly gardener? I love gardening. If he thinks he can insult me by demeaning my passion, he's dead wrong. How did you ever fall in love with that ass?"

I shrugged, used to her tantrums. "He stole my heart."

"Well he should give it back!"

"Flora!" Daphne whinnied. "Keep your voice down."

"I wouldn't have to if he just let you out of this stony prison every once in a while," she told me. "You're paler than Daphne's backside, and she's pure white!"

Sucking in a breath, I fought for calm. "How about we not fuss about things we can't change and have a nice visit where you three aren't expelled from the castle and I have no more friends?"

"She's right, Flora." Daphne stamped a hoof. "So, how are you, dear?"

Winking, I strode over the cloch na wight. "Watch this." At my touch, the trapped wight turned poppy red.

The porcupine squeaked in surprise. "That's a red at seventy-six percent saturation!"

The mare and the honey badger gave each other a confused look.

Shari rolled her eyes. "That means she's making progress unlocking that curse on her magic. It's an exponential leap from when we saw you last week. What did you do?"

I beckoned them closer as if I was about to share a secret. "I borrowed the green life energy from the rambler roses in the little courtyard."

"He actually let you outside?" Daphne squealed. "Oh, Meadow! I can only imagine how—"

"Hardly." Flora swatted the mare in her foreleg. "The courtyards are barely outside. They're no better than big windows to the outside world."

"Don't remind me," I groaned, sinking onto the settee. Flora heaved her muscled bulk up beside me, and Shari slid down the mare's shoulder on my other side, mindful to keep her quills to herself. "It felt incredible, but I was still trapped. Am trapped."

Shari gave me a curious sniff, her bulbous snout quivering. "Cernunnos knows you're a green witch, right? That you need the literal outdoors to thrive?"

"It's Wystan."

The three of them bristled, Flora snarling, Daphne neighing, and Shari fluffing out her quills.

"That nefarious wretch." Flora's claws burst through the damask upholstery of the settee, stuffing erupting from the holes like freshly popped popcorn.

Shari tsked. "Flora, your claws! Now I'll have to repair that. Move."

Without pausing in her tirade, the honey badger dropped to the floor as Shari pulled out a quill needle and began the process of matching thread to the colors of the fabric. "Preying on his own kind," Flora spat, "why, he should be strung up on the parapet by his thumbs! Or his c—"

"Well no wonder Cernunnos has been such a slave to your security, dear," Daphne soothed. "He cares about you."

"I know that, but sometimes…" I sighed. "Sometimes I feel more imprisoned here than I ever did at Hawthorne Manor." Another sigh escaped me. "So what news of the outside world?"

All of my friends were friends with someone who knew Ms. Charlotte Harris, the snowy egret, and that old bird kept her pulse on all the goings-on in Redbud. She ran the town's gossip mill, which had evolved into a kind of early warning system now that the townsfolk had more things to worry about than who snubbed who and who wore what and who was jacking up the prices on feed and seed because of the upcoming winter months. Sluagh, mallaithe, hobgoblins—they were roaming freely now that the days were shortening and the nights lengthening. While Ossian was powerful, and the Brotherhood armed with magic, they couldn't be everywhere at once.

The honey badger shook her head. "Never mind any of that. You already know what you want to do, cider witch, I'm just saying it out loud." Flora gave me a sly wink and pointed one massive claw at the glass ceiling. "You're sneaking out of the castle. For real, this time."

"Flora," both Daphne and Shari exclaimed at the outrageous—and downright dangerous—proposition. I would have joined them had it not been for the ache in my heart. I yearned for freedom. To thrive. To grow.

"Shhh!" Flora hissed. "Do you want Cernunnos to find out? He's got eyes and ears everywhere no doubt."

Really? I straightened, taking a look around and finding the atrium eerily empty except for the four of us and the wight trapped in the cloch. It had never occurred to me that the fae king would employ spies in his own court. Why would he?

"Only for an hour or two," she continued, voice low. "And not far from the castle, though you don't want to linger too close by and get caught. You'll dismantle more of that curse faster than ever before, and can he really argue with the results? You'll be summoning that portal by the end of the week, satisfying that fae bargain, and letting you get on with your life. What do you have planned for after, anyway?"

"I—" I had no idea. I mean, I was going to Elfame, for a reason I hoped I remembered once I summoned the portal, but afterwards? We were fated mates. Would I be expected to stay there with him? He hadn't asked me, so was he just assuming I would leave my realm behind?

"One hurdle at a time, dear," Daphne soothed, lipping at the furrowed lines in my forehead. "Free yourself of the curse, and the world is yours again. Let's focus on that first."

"And you free yourself by sneaking out," Flora reminded me. "Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission."

"That's a little easier said than done." My shoulders slumped. "The courtyard walls are too steep to climb, and the rambler roses could never support my weight. Even if I was able to strengthen them over time, that is a lot of magic I would be expending on something other than freeing myself from the curse."

"Then aren't you glad you have a best friend with the foresight to bring a potted weeping willow with her today," the honey badger said smugly. "It's strong and one of the fastest growing trees and has this wonderful canopy so thick with leaves you can barely see through it. It'll need a fraction of the magic you'd need to give to the rambler roses. Grow that willow, and it will enable and even hide your escape."

"It's not really an escape," I whispered guiltily, looking about for those eyes and ears in wall that Flora had mentioned. "It's just a field trip."

"But if she gets caught…" Daphne worried.

"We covered that already. And she won't." Flora gave me an encouraging headbutt to my knee, nearly cracking my joint. "She's the cider witch."

"You act like her predilection for cider enables her to be sneaky," Shari said. "Why do you call her that anyway, Flora?"

"I—" The honey badger's black eyes widened. "I don't know, actually. It's just… something I've always called her." She turned to me suspiciously. "You weren't a cider seller or owned a cider farm in a past life, right?"

I shook my head. "Not that I know of. When I came to Redbud, I just holed myself up in one of Mrs. Bilberry's rooms at the Candlelight Inn to work on the grimoire day and night. It was only pure happenstance that I met Ossian when I went out for a walk in the woods to clear my head."

"Well, whatever." Flora swiped her savage claws through the air in a wave of dismissal. "You're the cider witch. It rolls off the tongue. And "—she cast the porcupine a warning look before she could protest—"that's good enough for me."

"Well it's not for me," Shari muttered. "There's a reason for most things in this world."

But further examination of Flora's term of endearment would have to wait. The clock in the castle tower tolled the hour, and Ossian always kept our visits short. I walked them—slowly—back to the foyer where the fae king was waiting, hands linked behind his back. We said our goodbyes, and Daphne made sure to thank Ossian for the visiting opportunity, since she knew Flora never would after that "lowly gardener" comment and Shari always turned into a babbling mess around him.

I watched, heart straining after them, as my friends took Flora's empty flower cart across the bridge and disappeared into the forested path leading to town. Away from me.

The fae king's hand melded over my shoulder, but its warmth provided no comfort. "Time to train, love."