Chapter 28

Blood drippedfrom the fiáin’s needle-like teeth, crusting on its chin. Its glamour was gone, the fullness of its true presence like a nightmare made flesh. The green firelight gave an eerie gleam to its milky eyes, a sickly shine to its lank white hair. It looked more emaciated than ever, just leathery skin draped over bones, but what ropey muscles it still possessed were strong.

Bits of striped fur were gripped in its three-fingered fists, and Sawyer was hunched as if protecting a wound, ears flattened against his skull and every tooth on display as he slashed at the air between them.

“What’s that on its chest?” Shari asked.

I hadn’t noticed it before, for the glamour and Arthur’s broad back had hidden the bulk of the feral fairy’s details, but there was something orange glowing on that navy blue skin.

“It looks like a cattle brand,” Daphne exclaimed.

“A compulsion rune,” I realized.

“Tally-ho!” Flora leapt over the flames, swatting at her fanny with a yelp as they singed her overalls. Then she waved a hand for the others to follow. “Let’s get us some answers!”

Daphne, Shari, and Ame stayed right where they were, not a one risking a barbequed backside, but I followed without needing the encouragement. That was my cat fighting for his life, for ours, and he would not be doing it alone.

The blind fiáin had paused its attack when my flames had surrounded it, lifting its elongated face to flare those enormous nostrils. It scented the air again as I stepped to Sawyer, green magic glowing from my hands.

No battle magic, I had to remind myself. It would surely break through the lacquer Lewellyn had painted onto my cuffs, and I wasn’t ready to face my family yet.

The feral fairy thin lips peeled back with a delighted shriek. The dragonfly wings on its back fluttered, a distraction display, as it blurred across the ring to pounce on its prey.

On me.

But the fiáin didn’t have a garden gnome fighting on its side.

My magic struck the same time Flora’s did. While I had raised a wall of earth and roots, Flora had released a viny tripwire. It tangled in the fairy’s legs, tripping it head-first into the loamy wall. Snarling, its wings buzzed again, snapping straight out for a downward flap that would propel it into the air.

I dropped the wall and added my own vines to Flora’s, and though the fiáin shot towards the sky, it didn’t get far. The vines held, and when we yanked back as a team, the arc of the fairy’s flight trajectory altered.

Right into Daphne’s swinging shillelagh.

For a moment, the lean older woman was like Babe Ruth batting his called shot in the 1932 World Series, and the fiáin cartwheeled through the air. Daphne’s hit sent it beyond the flames, the vines tightening and forcing it into the hard earth. A spray of crunchy leaves lifted like confetti from the impact.

Shari yelped as the downed creature fought to kick free of the vines that tangled its ankles. Stumbling back, her heels tripped on a fallen branch, and she tumbled to the ground. The fiáin snarled, nails scrambling to find purchase against the ground hidden under the thick layer of leaf mold, or to seize her to use as a bargaining chip. Puffed out and spitting, Ame sprang forward in defense of her human.

Inside the ring of fire, Flora, Sawyer, the pixies, and I strained to haul the fairy back within the flaming barrier, but the fiáin was incredibly strong. On my wrist, the parasite bracelet flared white, weakening me as it siphoned off my extra magic.

Not now. Not now!

With another cry, Shari dug her hands into her bag and hurled everything she touched at the snapping fairy. Skeins of yarn pelted into its bony face, granola bars whacked against its pointed ears. When a fistful of spare crochet hooks poked it in its blind eyes, the fairy screamed, ceasing its struggles to cover its eyes with its hands.

Flora and I gave the vines a mighty heave and reeled the squealing fairy back through the flames. Smoke rose from its scorched wings, and this time, Daphne, Shari, and Ame all scuttled through the gap in the fire, feet trampling smoldering ground, before the flames created a seamless barrier once more.

The fiáin was momentarily senseless with pain from the crochet hooks, the vines digging into its ankles, and the fire having eaten holes in its gossamer wings like voracious moths. It barely struggled as my friends and I pinned its arms and legs down so we could get a good look at that compulsion rune. Even the pixies helped hold it down by its long pointy ears.

I’d never seen one burned into anything before, but this one certainly had. And it wasn’t just one rune, but several all clustered tightly together. All commanding its obedience, forcing it to do the magic hunters’ bidding.

It was a slave.

Tears at the hunters’ savagery threatened to spring to my eyes. This creature had been caught, branded, and forced to sniff out high levels of magic. But the power released during the weaving of the Hunting Spell should have lured it away, right?

I let magic seep into my voice. “What are you doing here?”

The fiáin mewled and writhed on its back, from the pain, from the runes on its chest, from the force of my own command. My friends struggled to keep it contained, and when it didn’t answer right away, Sawyer swatted it on the forehead.

“Sssmell you, now,” the creature rasped in a slithering voice. It made my skin crawl. “Fresssh magic.”

The Crafting Circle ladies and I all shared a confused look.

“The white light was weeks ago,” Ame realized, putting the puzzle pieces together first. “There was no scent left behind. But in Tussock, it was fresh.”

“Who are you working for?” I demanded. The magic hunters, of course, but I wanted a name. To find out why they were searching for me, or for people like me.

The fiáin squealed, fingers flexing. It was indicating the runes on its chest, one of them flaring and preventing its answer.

“This is despicable,” Flora said tightly. She shook, face pale, at the barbarism her fellow Fair Folk had endured. For the others’ benefit, she explained, “The runes are forcing it to obey the one who marked it. It has no free will.”

Shari and Daphne both tensed.

“Why do you want me?” I asked the fairy. Surely it could answer me that.

“Ssstrong,” was its answer. “Ssstrong witch.”

Witch, not cache.

“I warned you about those who seek powerful people,”Arthur had said.

“Seems the magic hunters wanted a big prize,” Flora spat.

But why? It became painfully clear this fiáin couldn’t give me the answers I sought and never would. Not with runes burned into its flesh.

“Scorch marks,” my mother instructed me the day I turned sixteen and was deemed old enough to learn about forbidden magic, though not practice it, “are like any other rune, yet they are burned into an object. This burning is not superficial; you can’t simply just remove a scorched section and thus nullify the rune. It permeates into the heart, into the essence, of the object, so only its full destruction can release it. It is dark magic, the foulest kind.”

“What can we do?” Daphne whispered. Her own eyes were glassy. She hated to see an animal trapped and in pain, even if by its very nature it was vicious.

“Put it out of its misery,” said Shari in a dead voice.

“You mean kill it?” Daphne demanded.

“Like you’ve never authorized a humane euthanasia,” Flora said.

“Of course I have, but that was in dire circumstances! When there was no hope left. Surely—”

“Those are scorch marks,” I cut in. “They can’t be removed.”

Yet the fundamentals of magic niggled at my mind. Runes were precise, just like a spell; they didn’t have nuance. While they couldn’t be removed, maybe they could be subverted?

“These specific runes require the bearer to be of sound mind and senses in order to obey. In order to hunt, capture, and retrieve, or at least lead its master back to its quarry,” I explained, as much for my benefit as for my friends’, for sometimes working a problem aloud helped jog loose an answer internal mulling never could.

“So it’s like a hound dog,” Daphne said. “A working dog.”

“Exactly. And what happens to dogs that fail their training?”

“The find homes as companion dogs.”

“So we turn this one into a companion fairy.”

“I am not adopting it,” Flora said stoutly.

“Hold it still,” I instructed, growing vines into a handcuff around the wrist I’d been kneeling on. I grew more shackles around its other wrist and ankles, but the fiáin was so strong it needed the weight of the ladies to keep it from breaking free.

Digging into my pockets, I found and extracted the vial of Caer powder. This fairy wasn’t stupid, so a single application wouldn’t work, but what about several?

I hesitated for only a moment then dumped the entire contents of the vial all over the creature’s blind eyes and nose on its next inhale. Dropping the vial, I clamped both hands over the eyes and nose to prevent any of the white powder shaking away from the fiáin’s renewed struggles.

It put up a big fight, almost as big as when it was trying to attack us, but with it lashed to the ground and weighted down, it had no choice but to let the Caer powder absorb into its system. Slowly, its struggles lessened to writhing, to twitches, to spasms, and then it was still.

“Was that cocaine?” Daphne demanded it. “Did you just overdose it?”

“Look!” Shari risked releasing one of her hands to point to the runes on the creature’s chest.

They resembled old scars now, not one of them glowing or looking like a fresh burn.

Drool trickled out of the side of the fiáin’s mouth, and as I lifted my hands from its face, its milky eyes, which had never been able to see before anyway, though they had a spark of life to them, were dull.

“Is it… alive?” Flora whispered.

“I can see a pulse in its neck,” I answered, but even I was unconvinced. Most humans and fae needed only a sprinkle of Caer powder to alter their memories, to befuddle them, and I’d given this fiáin the entire bottle.

We all cried out in surprise as the fiáin suddenly sat upright, even the cats. Gurgling incoherently, it swung its head left and right, sniffing lazily, drool spattering on its emaciated chest and dampening the quiet runes.

I released the magic restraining it with a thought, as well as the flames, and we all backed away as the feral fairy rocked onto its front knuckles like an ape. It snuffled here and there, sometimes wiping the damp runes with a sweep of its fingers. I held very still as it came right up to me, sniffing my hand like a curious dog, rising up on its legs to sniff my chest where my magic core was, but it didn’t seem to recognize me. It completely ignored Shari and Daphne, avoided the cats, and gave Flora a brief examination before it lumbered away into the woods. We didn’t stop it; it was no longer a danger to any of us.

“You made it dumb,” Flora whispered in awe.

“You saved it,” Shari corrected.

“I can’t believe it worked, actually,” I admitted.

“How long will it last?” Daphne asked.

“I’ve no idea.” When I looked at Ame for her input, the caliby cat only shrugged.

Our awe at the Caer powder’s success shattered as a faraway roar punctured the night. It was answered by a bark, and then we all released a frustrated sigh and began the trek back to the farmhouse, the pixies flitting above our heads.

“Men,” Daphne muttered.

“I can’t believe they’re still tearing into each other, all the while we were dealing with the fiáin!” Flora blustered.

“We didn’t need their help,” Shari observed.

“Lewellyn didn’t even sense it, but Arthur had, and you,” I said, picking up my tomcat and checking him over for injuries. There was a scratch where nails or teeth had gotten him, but a salve would cure that up quick, and a few patches of missing fur around his shoulders that would eventually grow in. Maybe I could convince Shari to crochet him a sweater until it did.

Sawyer shook his head. “I didn’t smell it, but the lamb’s blood on its breath. One of those runes must’ve obscured its specific scent.”

“That was very smart of you,” Ame told her ward.

He beamed under her praise.

On the farmhouse porch, the Crafting Circle ladies milled about, unsure, as the eastern forest was consistently, if sporadically, punctuated by the sounds of the fighting shifters.

“They’ll probably be at it for a while,” Flora said. “Until the adrenaline and the stupidity wears off. Do you… want us to stick around?”

I shook my head. “I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you all are too. Why don’t y’all go home? We can text each other updates as they come up? You can take my car. I’ll just walk through the woods tomorrow morning to pick it up.”

“If you’re sure, dear,” Daphne said.

I nodded with a tired smile.

The older woman took the car keys and planted me a light kiss on the forehead in farewell. Flora gave me a hug around the knee—just a brief show of affection and solidarity, for she had a tough-girl image to uphold—before jumping down the steps. When Shari picked up Ame and made to follow, I stopped her with a gentle touch on the arm.

“Thank you, Shari,” I told her from the bottom of my heart.

She knew exactly why I was thanking her, and her eyes darkened. “Burn it,” she told me, hurrying after the others.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.