Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Scritch.

Scritch… scritch…

Feigning sleep, I strained my ears to locate the origin of my incessant nocturnal tormentor. Every night for the last few nights—or perhaps forever—something had been chewing in the bedroom walls and ceiling. Mice, probably, though this castle was so old and rickety and full of hidey-holes that maybe it was a family of squirrels making a nest for the winter. Whatever it was, it was disturbing my sleep no matter how many cotton balls I stuffed into my ears.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

I'd tried banging on the walls with a broom handle, even verbally evicting the little pests like I had done with spiders and the like, but this creature was tenacious. And tenaciously sprinkled ceiling plaster all over my face every night as a byproduct of its nibbling—never getting even a crumb on my pillow, by the way. I'd had enough. How was I going to dismantle the curse Grandmother had placed over my magic, let alone summon and open a portal to Elfame, if I didn't get my beauty sleep?

So, it had come to force.

Scriiii—

"Ha!" I shouted, blasting upwards with a bolt of green magic. It was all I could manage these days—that curse was worse than the parasite ring or bracelet had ever been—but it was effective.

Plaster erupted as a hole the size of a clementine appeared in the cathedral ceiling directly overhead. My fingertips glowed as I summoned the energy for another bolt. Not to kill whatever fell on my lap in the bed, but to stun it and give it the tirade of the century. Then I would evict it. It was a beast after all, and all beasts—except cats—were sacred to Ossian.

But nothing fell from the hole. There was the scabbering sound of retreating claws, and then my bedroom was silent save for the quiet rain of plaster dust.

"Next time I won't miss," I hollered at the hole. Then I gave my duvet a hearty flick to launch all the debris out of the bed and onto the rug instead. Flopping back on the down-feather pillow, I gave the predawn gloom of my room a hearty sigh.

Stone, hardwood, plaster, heavy drapes, a four-poster bed, diamond-pane windows of leaded glass that were thicker on the bottom than they were at the top—the castle was something out of the Tudor era. I still couldn't remember why for the life of me I'd happily moved in here with Ossian after fleeing Hawthorne Manor. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the architecture?

Why couldn't it be a cozy little cottage with a wood-burning stove in the woods by a creek?

A spot on my forehead right between my eyes throbbed whenever I tried to remember too hard—Grandmother's curse had lingering and painful effects. But what did it matter if that last few months were a little hazy? Four things were perfectly clear.

One: I had freed my family of the magic-stealing curse on the grimoire. Ha-cha!

Two: I had fallen in love with Ossian. Handsome, alluring Ossian with his jewel-green eyes and luscious mouth and sculpted everything . He was something wild, something forbidden, and the bond between us was something I'd never felt before. It was an ache so powerful I felt like I would die without him.

Three: Grandmother, incensed and incapable of accepting my relationship with a non-witch, even though Ossian was a fae king, had disowned me and placed a barrier around my magic so I could never reach my full potential. Cursed me. As if that wasn't bad enough, the curse had also locked away a portion of my more recent memories behind a dark cloud that swirled like a maelstrom in my mind.

Four: I had sixteen days until I had to summon and open the portal to Elfame.

Grandmother had declared it was my obsession with the high fae king that had led me into making that bargain with Ossian, but she was wrong. I needed to go to Elfame, though I couldn't remember why thanks to the curse. That need was what drove me every morning, afternoon, and night. Despite my tenacity, there was still a distinct possibility I'd fail. And from my limited knowledge about these types of Fair Folk contracts, the consequences of my failure would be dire. For me.

Well top of the morning to you too, Miss Doom and Gloom.

Groaning, I rubbed the crust out of my eyes and flopped onto my side to glare at the glowing Hawthorne hearth ember where its censer rested on the adjacent pillow. Runes prevented the censer from growing hot and setting the silk and down stuffing on fire, and the little chain that connected it to my foraging bag that I stuffed under the bedsheets with me at night kept it from wandering off. Not that it was sentient or anything, but if there were mice or squirrels nesting in my walls, you could bet it was only a matter of time before such a creature started snooping where they didn't belong.

Not for the first time, I thought about hurling that censer out the window and letting it shatter against the courtyard. Or at least dent and spill the ember onto the flagstones to gutter out in the dew left behind after a cold night had thawed itself with a new day.

"For your protection, Meadow," Grandmother had told me. "It burns hot and fast, so use it only when all else has failed you."

I snorted. The ember hadn't protected me from her curse, though ironically it had been the key to start freeing my magic. One day last week, after my second failed training session with Ossian and he'd stormed out of the castle muttering curses at my grandmother, I'd dumped the raw ember into my cupped palms and pleaded with the Green Mother for deliverance. I'd so wanted to please him, to liberate myself, to not die from failing to uphold my end of the fae bargain.

On contact, the ember's yellow flame had flared a brilliant green, magic pouring into me and down my arms and into my chest. It broke like a green wave against the chain mail net over my magic, the whole curse shuddering. Then, around the roots of the oak tree, the leaf-like links of the chain mail flashed white and dissolved . They became as a cloud of glittering white motes that then vanished in an unseen wind. The freed roots flexed and flared like fingers released from a fist, and for the first time since Grandmother had cursed me, green magic came to my fingertips when summoned.

Since then, the ember had resigned itself to death and me to the uphill battle of uncursing myself one link at a time. It was doable, but fatiguing and inefficient, not to mention slower than molasses in January. I'd never free myself before the winter solstice at that rate.

I'd tried reviving the ember in the hearth of the great hall and the one in the kitchen, but the blue flames of both seemed intent to reject both it and me. When I'd turned to the little fireplace in my own bedroom, which seemed cursed to never light, the dry wood had (unsurprisingly) refused to catch. With its magic nearly spent, its flame so tiny that an errant breath might snuff it out if it wasn't protected by the censer, why did I still keep the ember around?

Because it's the only link to your family , a tiny voice answered.

"You mean the family who abandoned me?" I snarled aloud.

And they had. Mom, Dad, Marten, Otter, Aunt Peony… the Circle of Nine had all turned their backs on me and followed Grandmother home to the manor. Not even Boar or Rose or Lilac had reached out in the days that had followed. It was like I no longer existed.

That would have broken me had it not been for my friends in Redbud. Gracious Daphne, quiet Shari, charismatic Flora. Even that cantankerous curmudgeon Cody and kind old Emmett. However, despite their affection, something hollow remained in my heart. An ache that never lessened, a hole that never closed.

But it was always more manageable when my friends were around or when Mrs. Bilberry let me spend some time in the kitchen baking something flaky and fattening.

My mood brightened. If I excelled in my training today, maybe Ossian would let me see them or let me sling some flour and butter around again. The male was awfully strict when it came to how I spent my days. "We're on a deadline," he'd often remind me.

Thrusting off the bedsheets, I snatched up my foraging bag and padded across the rug and then the freezing stone floor to the adjoining bathroom.

The castle was very old, but someone had updated it along the decades and installed running water. It never seemed to heat properly, though, my only choices being freezing or scalding hot. I slung my bag on the hook meant for a hand towel and hunched over the copper sink—there was no iron in this castle—the piping groaning as I twisted the hot-water handle. The faucet sputtered, refusing to eject the hot water I asked for. There was no point in waiting, so I splashed it all over my face and yelped with the cold. Ossian allowed only two fires in the castle, and fae fire at that, and those were in the kitchen and the great hall, the place I avoided the most. That meant everywhere else was varying degrees of lukewarm, cold, and frigid.

I was the sole occupant of the east wing, except for the vermin nesting in my walls, and had nothing but quilts and coats and my own body heat to banish the chill. Ossian offered to keep me warm every night, but my old-fashioned morals kept him from my bed. Even despite his theory that consummating our fated mate bond would release the curse on my magic.

I knew my refusal disappointed him, but it frustrated me more since I couldn't shake this unfounded gut feeling that it was wrong . But why? I had plenty of memories of us being intimate—in the doorway of my bedroom, under a maple tree, even kissing through an open window—and each had had the intent to consummate our passion. While I'd burned with lust then, something was holding me back now.

One last shred of obligation to my family, maybe? Maybe if I didn't have sex with Ossian, I could return to their good graces? But did I even want to if that meant denying a part of myself and acquiescing to their prejudices? And Grandmother had cursed me, after all, her own flesh and blood.

Ugh, Meadow. You're a hot mess and no mistake.

Thrusting a washcloth under the faucet, I glared at the color of my eyes—Hawthorne green—in the mirror as I braced myself for the vigorous scrubbing it always took to remove the white crust from my face. More precisely, from my eyes. It was like the Sandman blew half a desert into my face every night, though he didn't have the courtesy to leave me with any dreams I could remember. No, most of the time I woke up with a racing heart and a sweat-drenched forehead and no memory of the struggle I had just endured.

With a malcontent grunt, I wrung out the washcloth and draped it over the faucet to dry. The cold leaded glass of the bathroom window sweated against the heat of my hand as I muscled it open to get my first breath of fresh air. It was the only one I was likely to get.

While darkness still reigned inside the stone castle, the late-autumn landscape beyond the walls was blooming with the color of dawn. Everything glittered under a fine layer of frost as if the world had been sprinkled with icing sugar overnight. Wan yellow light on the forested horizon illuminated a sky that promised to be a pristine blue with no clouds the entire day. It would be a beautiful day to train outside… if Ossian would ever let me leave this castle. He was fae—didn't he understand a green witch's magic was stronger when she wasn't trapped inside stone walls?

I understood it wasn't safe outside, not with a hobgoblin bandit raiding the village and hamlets, mallaithe plaguing the forests, and sluagh blackbirds lurking, but couldn't I just stand on the bridge for a minute?

My grousing was interrupted by the toll of the deep-toned bell in the castle tower. Hurrying now, for the fae king's day also began early, I shut the window and quickly brushed and braided my hair, letting the brown rope drape down my shoulder. Then it was shimmy out of the nightclothes and into long woolen socks and a long woolen dress of sage green before the cold air wicked the heat away from my skin. Then came the supple leather bodice and belt, and my feet practically dove into the matching leather boots next, further insulating themselves from the stone floor. While I preferred my vintage sundresses or gypsy blouses and linen pants, I didn't protest this throwback to the Medieval Age. What Shari made for me, I gladly wore. She was the royal seamstress, after all.

Around my head and shoulders went a cowled hood (also made by Shari), but it didn't dip so low as to obscure the necklaces I wore. The amazonite pendant didn't exactly "go" with the Celtic shield and it all clashed with the gold-and-rubies ring I wore on my finger, not to mention the silver-and-ruby earrings Ossian had given me the day I'd moved into the castle with him. I'd never been one to care too much about fashion, not like Lilac. After transferring the censer to my belt and slipping the strap of my foraging bag over my shoulder, I was almost ready to walk out the bedroom door.

Hanging on twin pegs in the wall right of the heavy oak door were two wrist guards, a forest scene of deer running through the trees tooled into the leather and coated in gold leaf. Except they weren't to guard my wrists. They created a barrier between my iron cuffs and Ossian's skin. A golden toggle wiggled into a loop secured the guard over each cuff, and now I no longer posed a danger to the fae king and could begin my day.

My footfalls were a whisper like faraway waves through the empty east wing. When once I'd thrived on community, I was thankful for the solitude now. While I thoroughly enjoyed Ossian's subjects, my gut clenched at the presence of his inner circle, particularly Alec.

The man and the others like him had bluish-green fae markings climbing their skin like ivy and a tattoo of their allegiance to Ossian on their necks. I didn't mind tattoos, but theirs were eerie. Arcane. The Brotherhood, they called themselves, though they didn't seem very fraternal to me. Most of the time, I rarely saw them; they were always out patrolling or doing whatever bidding of Ossian's that required the use of opposable thumbs.

But Alec… he seemed to make it a point to lurk around the castle. Part of one of his arms was missing, just below the elbow, and instinct told me that it had been an injury caused by violence. However, it wasn't his ink or the mystery of his missing forearm that unnerved me most. It was his eyes—pale blue and as piercing as icicles. They roamed over me, simultaneously jealous and covetous, and it made my skin crawl and my magic flare.

Nearing the junction with the castle proper, my skin and magic did those exact things as that very man stepped into the center of the archway. An oath to the fae king prevented him from ever stepping foot in my little sanctuary, but that didn't stop his shadow from stretching and thinning from the foyer across the stone floor to my feet.

"Milady," Alec drawled, a dagger sliding loose from his sleeve and into his hand. "Going somewhere?"