Page 45 of Thistle Thorns

When I didn’t immediately respond, a furred head butted into my chin. “Ugh,” I grunted, forcing my eyes open.

Sawyer’s shining amber gaze met mine, ears pricking in relief and delight. Then he launched off my chest and burrowed into the crook of my neck on my uninjured side, his tail curling around my throat.

I was in the bed Grandmother had grown, bundled up to my neck in quilts, and someone had changed me into a simple camisole. A compression bandage wrapped around my shoulder so thickly it was like they had strapped a cantaloupe to the joint. The hearth room was dark, save for what light the fires provided. It was green, meaning it was doing spell work, and tiny threads of its power traveled around me in glittering loops that began and ended with the flames.

I’d never seen it do that before.

“Hey, little cat,” I murmured, wiggling a hand free to stroke him.

“You stupid witch,” he growled, simultaneously snuggling closer and arching into my kneading fingers. “Tangling with a silver mallaithe.”

“The last thing Meadow needs right now is beratement,” Aunt Peony scolded him, coming in from the kitchen.

Sawyer just flattened his ears against his skull and hissed at her. But he didn’t swat at her, and that was something.

“Oh hush up. Forsythia! Your daughter’s awake,” Aunt Peony called over her shoulder as she sat down near my head. She had deep hollows under her eyes that I’d never seen there before. “Drink this, dear. Before your mother comes in here and crushes you with a hug.”

Footfalls crashing through the house sounded like a stampeding rhinoceros, and Mom appeared in the hearth room doorway a moment later. From the way her springy curls stuck up in a staticky halo around her head and from the pattern of the den throw pillow imprinted her face, I’d said she’d just gotten up from a nap. She certainly looked exhausted. Drained.

“Mom?” I croaked.

Forsythia Hawthorne didn’t crush me. Instead she fell on her knees beside the bed and held the hand of my injured arm in both of hers and cried into the quilts. A moment later, Aunt Hyacinth appeared, clapping her hands once with joyous relief.

“I’m alright, Mom.” I think. Other than the ache in my shoulder and the slightly sour aftertaste of Aunt Peony’s potion fouling my mouth, I was okay.

She didn’t say anything, just cried, and it was Aunt Hyacinth who explained, “You lost a lot of blood, Meadow. A-and not just that. That silver mallaithe… It was mutated somehow. It had venom in its roots. You were in a bad way when they brought you back. Your mother drained herself dry using every spell she could think of to get it out of your system. Your aunt Peony did nearly the same with her potions. You grandmother had to use your amazonite pendant to help them burn it out of you.”

From what Aunt Hyacinth had just described, “you were in a bad way” didn’t even begin to cover the extent of my injuries. I shuddered. Those spells and potions they’d used had to be even more powerful and potent than the ones I’d learned if they could bring someone back from the brink of death. I shuddered again.

Aunt Hyacinth’s mouth quirked up. “As you can see, though, it worked.”

“They had help, you know,” Sawyer said sourly.

He didn’t have the chance to hiss or swipe his claws before Aunt Hyacinth leaned forward and gave him a brisk pat on the head.

“You?” I asked him.

“Well, yeah,” Sawyer grumbled. “We’re family, right? I can lend a bit of magic here and there without being bonded. You’re welcome.”

“Come away,” Aunt Hyacinth told my exhausted mother, taking hold of her shoulders and pulling her upright. “Meadow’ll be right as rain. Go take a shower and put yourself to bed. Busy day tomorrow.”

Mom gave my hand another squeeze before she let her cousin guide her back through the kitchen and hallway and up the stairs. It was when I heard the clear creaking of the steps that I realized how quiet the farmhouse was.

“Aunt Peony?” I called to her in the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”

“Hunting,” she replied wearily, her stocking feet thumping on the old floorboards as she returned to the hearth room, a tray in her hands. “Made your favorite. Wonton soup.”

She set it on my workstation shelf before shooing Sawyer off me so she could help me sit up. The little tomcat assisted by worming himself behind me, bracing his rear paws against the headboard, and shoving my back with his front paws. He mercifully remembered to keep them velveted. Aunt Peony swirled the throw blanket from the den over my shoulders, bunching it up against the nape of my neck so it wouldn’t slip off.

“Ugh,” I groaned again, a little alarmed at the fatigue that overtook me from the simple act of sitting up. I had a good view out of the western windows now, and my spine straightened dramatically when I saw how dark it was. “What time is it?”

“Never you mind that,” Aunt Peony said, flattening the quilts across my lap so the tray wouldn’t tip and spill. “Eat your soup. Heal. I’ll be back with some tea.”

As I lifted the spoon and took a sip of the aromatic broth, Sawyer padded back around and tested the threads of hearth magic that still looped around me with a swat of his paw. The light of the glittering thread didn’t break, continuing to move in a lazy circle around me and winking like fireflies. Then he sat, tucking his tail up tight, and said quietly,

“I didn’t find much in the Grimalkin University library.” His ears drooped. “Plenty of entries about individual magical beasts and other creatures, sure. We don’t have much about the fae, either, just a little about their courts and such. Five High Courts and countless Lesser Courts that have fiefdoms within the larger territories. Each is governed by a high fae lord or lady, and while they might have certain beasts that symbolize their courts, they are not true masters of them. Except…”

My spoon paused halfway to my mouth, the fat wonton jiggling as my hand shook with anticipation. “Except?”

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