Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mom didn't say any more, immediately heading to the stairs and blocking it so I could slink down the ladder, replace it, then sneak to the guest room to find Sawyer hopping around like he was pouncing skinks in his best imitation of a witch's footfalls. As my mother's steps retreated down the stairs, joined by Aunt Hyacinth's, I got to distributing the bed linens among the four hammocks, since it was still a chore that needed doing, reserving the rest for the two hammocks strung in the den.

"More secrets?" Sawyer asked.

"More questions, you mean," I replied, then filled him in with what my mother had said.

"Well that's all of unhelpful," he concluded. "‘Hide in plain sight?' Weren't you doing that already?" He gestured to the downstairs with a paw. "And how did that work out?"

"Mom couldn't say everything she wanted to. Her warnings are only fragments."

"That we now need to piece together." His ears and whiskers flattened. "I wish your grandmother would just come out with it already."

I threw a pillow onto each hammock and left, heading to sort out all the things that had been dumped in my master bedroom. Which would now be my grandmother's, as matriarch of the family. "Don't I know it," I muttered.

She would reveal all when it suited her and not a second sooner. While I could understand the logic of focusing on one problem—getting Marten back—versus dividing our attentions between that and whoever they'd vowed to protect and hide me from, I burned with something more than curiosity. This was no time for a bottle of Riesling and an afternoon schedule cleared for unraveling secrets. This was my life that hung in the balance of… what? A destiny I knew nothing about? A nexus of events foretold… and by whom exactly? Some crotchety, crusty old druid from a thousand years ago, or Violet herself?

With a huff, I abandoned the toiletries, except for one toothbrush, and shut the bathroom door, sequestering Sawyer and me inside. "What do we know ?" I whispered, starting to pace and tapping the toothbrush against my palm like a schoolteacher would a ruler. "I'm not going into whatever is coming blind. Or wholly blind, at least. And I'm certainly not putting that parasite bracelet on again."

But I hadn't thrown it out, either. It was stuffed away in my pocket. I quickly removed it to my foraging bag. Thistle thorns, the strap was starting to dig into my shoulder from all the weight.

Sawyer hopped onto the rim of the claw-foot tub so I wouldn't trample his tail, tucking himself beside the pine-scented soap on the bathtub tray. "Your mom said the prophecy was about Violet's heir, some unknown guy trying to find her, and a choice."

"Violet's heir"—I pointed to myself—"in theory. Check."

"Okay, now who's Mystery Man?"

"This master Grandmother keeps talking about. Or deliberately not talking about." Whirling, I faced the tabby tomcat and leveled the toothbrush at him. "She seems against shifters and familiars alike, and there's one thing in common about you two."

"I highly doubt that," Sawyer said proudly. "I'm a cat, through and through, and a talking one at that. Can those shifters talk in their beast form? I don't think so."

"You're both animals," I said. " Beasts . Who is the master of beasts?"

"I have no master," Sawyer said, tail lashing.

"Then who does she think your master is?" I waved the toothbrush like it was a wand and could conjure the answer out of thin air as I began to pace again, stocking feet rasping against the tile floor. "Apparently she fears him enough to force Ame and Great-Aunt Fern to dissolve their bond. Clearly she thought his hold over animals—shifters or familiars or plain old housecats if they weren't wearing moonstone collars—was enough that she couldn't risk having Ame around. In case she became his spy or minion or whatever."

"Ame would never! Unless…" Sawyer shuddered. "She was coerced. With faelight."

The magic of the fae as revealed by the luminous blue glow of a creature's eyes. The fiáin had used it on the coyotes to make them attack Lewellyn, and that was just a feral fairy's power. Nothing, I guessed—since I was resolved never to assume anything again—in comparison to the magic wielded by this mysterious master.

I sat down on the tiles to be closer to Sawyer's level. "Wearing a moonstone collar might be in your best interests, especially if it can prevent you succumbing to fae magic. But I don't want to force it on you, Sawyer, because, from what I've gathered from your reaction in the car, it hurts you?"

"A moonstone collar on a normal cat does nothing, except proves it's a basic cat and not a glamoured fairy," he replied. "But put one on an unbound familiar? It'll make us dumb, Meadow, like what you did to the fiáin. And not just dumb, but mindlessly obedient. My free will would be gone. And the worst part? I'd be aware of it the whole time, yet be powerless to do anything about it. And the longer it stays on, the greater the chance I'd never recover once it was removed."

"Would that change at all if we were truly bound?" I held up my hands before he could get angry. "I'm not advocating for that, because you've said time and again you don't want to be a witch's familiar, but I'm just asking to understand."

His whiskers twitched as he thought. "A familiar gives up part of himself to become bonded; it's why Ame hurts so much after being ripped away from Fern. I'm told it's the worst kind of heartbreak imaginable. But a bonded familiar wouldn't need a collar. His witch would be imprinted on his heart, and vice versa. Their connection would create an immunity to faelight and fae magic, or at least a resistance, depending on their power."

Sawyer bristled suddenly, realizing at the same time I did that Ame could have never been coerced. "It's what makes what your grandmother did so cruel to Ame. Through her bond with Fern, she posed no threat to your family, but it was your grandmother's blind fear to all beasts that forced them apart as a ridiculous ‘precaution.'"

As the tabby tomcat growled his frustration, I felt my own heart wince. Would binding to me be so bad? We were already loyal to one another. By the Green Mother, we loved each other. A cat didn't burn his mouth removing a parasite bracelet from his witch's wrist just because she asked him to.

I didn't fully believe what Sawyer had said, either, about giving up a piece of him when a familiar bound himself. I'd felt that temporary binding Ame had woven between us after the Carnival Cauchemar—I hadn't lost any piece of myself, but I had certainly shared myself with him, and vice versa.

Maybe it was Sawyer's perception of freedom he was fearful of losing, which was valid since he'd almost been permanently bound to the hedge witch Brandi, who had abused their partnership. Theirs would have been a taking relationship, where Brandi used his power for herself, but ours would be different. Was different.

"Well," I said quietly. "If you're not around, she can't collar you."

"But Ame said—"

"Forget what she said. If you stay here, Grandmother will certainly collar you. You were there when she bought the moonstones, Sawyer. She's probably downstairs right now with a pair of pliers and gold wire and a big fat moonstone with your name on it. She might've even made an entire harness. But, if you leave—"

"I don't want to leave you!" He sprang from the bathtub tray into my lap, digging his claws into my fleece leggings.

"—you can find Ame and go to Grimalkin University." I smoothed my hand over his head, scratching at his neck. "Surely they know something about this master of beasts? Even if it's just legend? And—"

The legends we told you at Hawthorne Manor are true, Mom's words came thundering back to me.

"That legend could be steeped in truth," I said quickly. Hopefully. "Any information you can get can make us more prepared."

I peeled the cat off my lap, the leggings twanging with each release of his claws, and lifted him to eye-level. "Please?"

He batted me on the nose with a velveted paw. "Fine. Don't you dare leave for the manor before I get back. Or do anything stupid." After a brief paused, he added, " Or brave."

After stroking his head one last time, I lifted us up from the floor and headed to the window. Easing up the sash sent a blast of cold air into the bathroom that immediately made the tiles freeze under my feet. "You know I can't promise that."

He made a face. "I know, but you can at least try." Crawling out onto the roof, the little tabby tomcat turned around to shove his head up under my fingers for a farewell scratch in his customary aggressive display of affection. My fingers barely kneaded into his skin before he spun and darted away into the night.

"Be safe, little cat."