Chapter 26

Shari hadn’t beenable to tell me what had happened to her, but she’d been able to show it.

“Good gracious,” Daphne whispered, covering her mouth with trembling lips.

Flora had gone white as moonflower petals as she walked the path of each square, guiding us through the story.

Shari’s abduction.

A cult of smiling skulls.

Being brainwashed.

Becoming an acolyte.

Rituals of blood and fire.

Chosen.

Preparations—baths, potions, eating…

My stomach churned at the sight of what the red yarn represented. At what the demons were doing to each other to get it. If I understood what this mosaic was telling me, they were sacrificing others of their kind to give Shari the nourishment she’d need to survive not just the wedding, but what came after it.

No wonder the thread of her life essence had been red. Whatever they’d done to her was still present in her veins. In her soul.

Then came one of the only two squares with any white yarn—a starburst. Power? Magic? Whatever it was, it freed Shari. Other figures fought with swords that did the demons no harm, but that starburst… It got her away, shielded her, clothed her in a robe of white.

“Th-that’s how we found her,” Daphne whispered. “In a robe of white.”

“Sticks and leaves in her hair,” Flora murmured. “Blood under her fingernails, scratches on her arms and legs. Out of her mind.”

But the story of the quilt was done; there were no more squares to offer any further explanation.

And though she still sat on the porch, lost in her own world with Ame purring on her lap, I heard Shari’s voice in my mind as clearly as if she were standing right next to me and shouting, And that’swhat you’re up against.

I snatched up the nearest edge and folded the quilt in thirds then rolled it up like a sleeping bag. And hurled it into the corner. I’d ask Shari’s permission to burn it later.

“Meadow.” It was only when Daphne put her hand on my shoulder that I realized I was trembling. “I think you need to reconsider.”

“Reconsider what?” I demanded, shaking her off. “I don’t have another choice! It’s this”—I stabbed a finger that the infernal bundle of yarn—“or my family remains enslaved forever. Or until such a time that whoever cursed them is done stealing their magic! And in the meantime, I’m being hunted! By those blasted magic hunters, my own family, and the other coven I pissed off removing the grimoire from its food source! I have—”

Outside there was a scream and a shattering of glass, and when the emerald green vines that burst from my hands ripped open the door, I found Lewellyn in the yard halfway through shifting into his wolf form.

“He’s back,” was all I heard through the snarl before the transformation was complete and a golden-white wolf was shooting off into the darkness like a comet.

I didn’t know who he was, but given that the werewolf was sprinting to the east, it wasn’t hard to guess.

“The fiáin,” I cried out to the others, bolting out of the farmhouse and leaping down the front porch steps.

Our ruse had failed, and the feral fairy was back. And from all the crashing noises rising out of the forest, it’d brought an army of magic hunters with it.

With the Hawthorne coven undoubtedly on my trail, I would be forced to leave Redbud soon, to find another haven until I could finish my work. But I would not leave this town to the mercy of those who had come for me.

The emerald green of my magic darkened into the same shade of my eyes, and the lure of battle magic sang in my blood. They had picked the wrong hearth witch to mess with.