Page 46 of Thistle Thorns

“Karnonos.”

The name sounded very familiar, and incomplete, like it belonged to a phrase, though I couldn’t place it. Thistle thorns, my head was still spinning from the fight with and the venom of the mallaithe. Maybe it was dehydration. I sucked down some more soup, hoping the hot broth would clear away the mental cobwebs.

My attention quickly returned to the striped tomcat as his white whiskers drooped in addition to his ears. “That was just the Gaulish spelling. There was a Gaelic translation, but I’d just found the entry when I felt you get attacked. I-I came to you instead of reading the article.”

There was a gentle clink as I set down the spoon so I could rub his ears back into their upright position. “It’s okay. You can go back—”

He shook his head. “That’s the thing. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Ame and I are under investigation.” He hunched into a ball then, his misery compounding. “Fanga Longclaw—the president of the university—found out that Ame lied about your identity. A-and that I was eventually complicit. The Hawthornes are kind of… not blacklisted per se, but Fanga’s not in the business of bonding any familiars to them. Not after what happened between Fern and Ame. Plus they’re questioning my recent activities here in Redbud. You know that spell I cast in the woods?”

Spell didn’t even begin to cover it. It’d been a detonation.

“Apparently it’s against every University law imaginable for an unbound familiar to use such magic.” His striped face wrinkled sourly. “It puts me at risk, so they say, as well as every other familiar student at the university. It could make us a target for magic hunters. So… I escaped the library before they could catch me. If I go back, they’re going to hold me until Fanga can decide a verdict. The same goes for Ame.”

“I’m so sorry, Sawyer.”

When he sniffled, I moved my tray aside and pulled the crying cat into my lap. I knew it’d never been his life’s pursuit to become a familiar, but I also knew he’d thoroughly enjoyed his classes and learning what he was truly capable of as a magical talking cat. There had been a community there for him too, though he hadn’t taken much advantage of it. But I knew he had friends, or at least friendly acquaintances, including Brandi’s old toad, Cletus.

As I stroked his fur, all of which had grown back since his fight with the fiáin and its singeing when he removed my parasite bracelet, I asked quietly, “Do we have to be worried about someone coming here to collect you or Ame?”

“Grimalkin University’s not like that. It’s more like excommunication. Plus they all know what kind of wards are around this farmhouse.” He chuckled humorously at that last. “Ame’s going to lie low at Shari’s for a day or two. To ‘assess the situation’ she told me.”

Then Sawyer left my lap to nestle against my side, tucking his front paws under his chest in the classic “cat loaf” position. “You should eat.”

“Here’s the tea,” Aunt Peony said presently, coming in with a steaming cup of oolong. She settled it on my tray and then picked up the hand of my injured arm and began a series of tests, tapping the ends of my fingers, experimenting with my degree of bearable rotation in the shoulder joint, all the while I was trying to eat without spilling my soup. “You’re healing marvelously well. Now that you’re awake and getting some food in you, your own magic can finish the process. Nasty business that venom was.”

At her words, I examined my magical core and found the oak tree’s leaves rustling happily in an unseen breeze. Its canopy, trunk, and far-extending roots were no longer blinding to look at, but they still shone with a dazzling luminescence. I wondered, not for the first time, if my magic would ever return to the seed it had once been. Did it need to?

“Oh, and don’t forget to recharge your amazonite pendant,” Aunt Peony added. “When you’re all better, of course.”

The amazonite pendant! I kicked myself for not thinking about using it during the heat of battle. I’d relied on it so heavily when I’d worn the parasite ring and bracelet, but now that my magic was no longer curbed, I’d barely given it another thought. I hadn’t needed to. Well, it sure would’ve proven useful against that mallaithe. It could’ve fortified my shield so I’d never been injured.

A Hawthorne uses every weapon at their disposal, no matter how small, Dad’s voice reminded me. I’d taken his instruction to heart during that training session, blinding Otter with a fistful of grass before swiping his legs out. He’d be disappointed in me for not remembering the lesson.

“Aunt Peony?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Where’s my foraging bag? Can I have it, please?” I was going to refamiliarize myself with all my resources, not just my weapons.

She disappeared into the dining room for a moment before returning with the brown canvas bag. Then she took my empty bowl, and as I lifted the bag to dump its contents onto the tray, a sharpness in my shoulder made me hiss.

First things first, I supposed.

Now that I had some energy back, as well as conscious thought, the oak tree of my magic shimmered to a brilliant glow. Like all magic, healing had to be directed. For little scrapes and bruises, a command wasn’t needed, but for something like this, the magic had to be instructed. It was kind of like the body in that way, sacrificing fingers and toes to frostbite if it meant keeping the bulk of it alive.

As it eagerly poured itself into my shoulder, the sharpness vanished, then the ache. The hearth seemed to know what I was about because the glittering loops of its own healing magic winked out. Sawyer helped me remove the bandage with his claws and teeth and gave my scarless flesh an experimental lick with his rough tongue.

“That tickles!”

“You’ll want to shower or something. You taste like yarrow and fermented funk.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

He’d just settled back down on the quilts by my bent knee, his front feet propped up on the edges of the tray, when the floorboards trembled with a warning pulse. Aunt Peony craned her head into the hearth room to examine the flames, but they were their healthy green, flaring orange once to toll the loss of another hour. The hearth pulsed again, and she murmured, “They must be back. Thank the Green Mother.”

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