Chapter 14

Grumpy camebarreling down the gravel drive the moment I turned off the road, barking and jumping alongside the car as he kept pace with me to the garden gate. He continued his ruckus as I exited the car and finally shouted,

“I hear you, but I don’t speak dog! I’m home now, so don’t worry about not getting your antidote. Unless all this hullabaloo is because you missed me.”

That shut the werewolf up nice and quick. It also told me the farm wasn’t under attack, that the hobs and Sawyer were safe, and that he’d really just been pissed I’d left without telling him. Last time I checked, I didn’t need to clear my schedule with a werewolf.

“Now, since you’re here and we have a patch of sunlight for once in this dreary November, c’mere and let me take a look at your wound.”

Grumpy’s ears lowered.

“You can sulk or you can get an infection. Up to you.”

Grumbling, he followed me dutifully to western side of the garden where the hose was. While his daily antidote was taking care of the carnivorous clematis seed, it wasn’t doing anything for the injection site. The star-shaped hole wasn’t infected with anything like pus, but it sure was inflamed, so after I rinsed free the debris he’d collected from all his farm running with a squirt of the hose, I packed it full of poultice to keep it clean.

The werewolf hadn’t liked any bit of that treatment, not from the water to the packing, but I didn’t let his growls and sneers and yaps intimidate me. Instead I grabbed his tail and gave it a tug as I would have Sawyer’s and told him to put a sock in it.

“Now listen up, farm wolf, I ran into a fiáin today. A blind one who’s apparently really good at sniffing out magic users.”

Grumpy snarled, though, I was pleased to note, not at me.

“It was glamoured to look like a tabby cat, so if you see Sawyer around, make sure you know if it’s truly him or not before you go biting him. And don’t kill it. Just drive it away.”

The werewolf whined.

“You kill it and those magic hunters will come looking for it, finding both me and you. And I’d prefer to stay anonymous, thank you very much. So drive it away and don’t give it a reason to come back here.”

Nodding, Grumpy turned tail and bolted for the wildflower field in search of any other feral fairy bold—or stupid—enough to hunt on werewolf-protected farmland.

Over the next few days,the werewolf, Sawyer, and I fell into a routine. Now that Grumpy knew a fiáin was possibly skulking about, he joined Sawyer and me on our morning runs. He stood guard during Roland’s morning debrief—wassail production was just fine and all the chickens were accounted for—and made a point of checking in with me at the top of every hour.

He forewent his militant guarding and patrolling only once to watch the hobs’ chicken races, his stoic and aloof fa?ade cracking briefly for amusement to leak through, before tamping down on it.

While he ran perimeter sweeps on repeat, ridding the farm of weasels and rabbits, Sawyer and I locked ourselves in the hearth room and worked on weaving three spells, one rune, and masking sand into one cohesive Hunting Spell. That’s what I’d come to call it, for the end result was universal no matter why the spell itself was employed: payment. In blood or revenge or justice. The object of the spell was no different than prey.

Though we weren’t bonded, the tabby cat could still lend me a portion of his magic, like a second pair of hands to hold the threads of the spells in place while I tried to braid them together. Force them to get along. It required countless support potions, so the hearth was working overtime, not to mention a healthy dose of my own magic, which the parasite bracelet greedily siphoned away.

And yet no matter how hard we focused, the individual threads of the spell would snap, unravel, practically leap away from each other like identical poles of a magnet.

“This is getting ridiculous,” I growled on Sunday afternoon after throwing myself outside to let the cold November air sting my cheeks. It was akin to a slap in the face; something I’d hoped would jog loose an idea.

“Ridiculous? Try outrageous,” Sawyer complained, hopping onto the railing. “This time it singed half my whiskers off! I’m… I’m lopsided!”

“I’m calling Flora.”

At the sound of the garden gnome’s name, Grumpy, who’d been on the porch getting a drink, tucked his tail between his legs with a whine.

“Calm down. Her freaky little plant isn’t going to get you again.” I reached over and tugged on one of his pointy ears, but he soon wiggled way with a half-hearted snap of his jaws. It was so easy to forget he was a werewolf and not a Pyrenees/golden retriever mix sometimes. “Sorry. I bet you’re a touch-me-not in real life too, Mr. Grumpy Pants.”

The werewolf showed me his teeth in reply.

“So pretty. Have you been flossing?” Chuckling, I dug my cell phone from my pocket and felt my stomach gutter out at the barrage of missed calls and text messages, all from Daphne and Flora. Without bothering to read them, I jammed my finger down to call Flora. “Flora? Flora, what in the world—”

“You’re coming, right?” she immediately interrupted. “To the girls’ house, for Shari’s birthday party, with the cake Daphne asked you to make as Shari’s present, in forty-five minutes, right?”

Thistle thorns! I’d had my phone on silent as I’d concentrated on the Hunting Spell, oblivious to the outside world. “Of course,” I replied confidently. “I was just confirming, uh, that you have everything you need on your end. That you don’t need me to swing by the store for any last-minute things?”

“Of course you were, cider witch. And no, we’ve got everything. Oh, and bring Sawyer. See you in forty-three minutes.”

I raced into the house. Scrolling through my text messages, I found Daphne’s request and thanked the Green Mother I had all the ingredients on hand. After throwing an extra log onto the fire—I was baking with magic today, that’s for sure—I bolted into the kitchen and opened nearly every cabinet.

Cocoa powder, flour, sugar, oil, leavening, eggs, coffee… I got a chocolate cake batter whipped up and into a rectangular cake pan and onto the coals in less than ten minutes. The hearth fires flared green, cooking the cake double-time, and I got to making fudge sauce with sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips on one burner of the stove while I whisked sugar, water, butter, and cream into caramel sauce on another.

They were done when the cake was, and after I stabbed a bunch of holes through the steaming cake with the handle end of my wooden spoon, I sluiced the sauces over the top and let them soak in. Then it was straight into the freezer while I prepped Grumpy’s dinner.

Raw ground beef, cooked oatmeal, half a package of frozen vegetables I’d thawed in bone broth—it all got slopped into a mixing bowl. I mashed it up with a fork as I bolted back onto the porch, hollering for the werewolf. He bounded up the steps and turned as meek as a newborn kitten as I pulled his antidote from my apron pocket. It was a walnut-sized pill that resembled a pearl of compressed tea leaves, and very bitter, every tastebud in that werewolf’s mouth rejecting its consumption. I had to force it down his throat every time, but he never bit me, knowing it was a necessary moment of unpleasantness. Smacking his lips in distaste, he turned his nose to his dinner, and I threw myself back into the house.

After whipping cream to stiff peaks, I slathered it all over the gooey sheet cake and covered the snow-white top with thin lines of leftover fudge and caramel sauces. Then Sawyer and I were hustling to the sedan, the cake balanced on my lap.

“I think you can breathe now,” the cat said, claws digging into the seat upholstery as we bounced down the country lane. “And slow down!”

“I’m not going to be late,” I said, somewhat crossly. “Ever since I moved here, I’ve been the worst sort of friend. I mean, I wasn’t exactly here to make friends, but it happened all the same. And I’m usually late and I barely participate in anything unless there’s something in it for me.”

“Well, you have a lot on your plate right now. Witches are searching for you, you’re trying to break a curse that you can’t tell anyone about for their own safety, you’re developing a new spell and guarding a moonflower grove, and you’ve got some sort of armistice going on with a wolf shifter. That’s the very definition of ‘I can’t come out and play right now.’”

“Still,” I groused. “The Crafting Circle ladies were there for me when I needed them the most, no questions asked. I am making it to this birthday party on time!”

Sawyer gulped and dug his nails in deeper as I stepped on the gas.