Page 28 of How To Tame A Trickster Fae

Then the coven kicked me out, because without my parents, what was I?

A nobody.

I blow out a breath, trying to blow out all that negativity with it.

Maybe it’s time to try harder. Maybe it’s time to be so good that the damned guild can’t ignore me.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to do something about the covenless crew of witches who decided to make me their friend.

Maybe it’s time to be more than just Wren who owns Witchwork’s Jewelry.

It’s time to be worthy of that responsibility.

I brew a cup of herbal tea, slowly, methodically, a ritual that’s earned its place in every nighttime wind-down, and I pull out a piece of parchment from a long-forgotten desk drawer.

My ink pot’s nearly dried up, and I frown as I jab my freshly sharpened quill into it, finally giving in and dropping in some hot water.

Finally, I scratch out a few words on the paper, hoping it will settle the turbulence within me.

I read the words back out loud, hearing an echo of my mother’s cadence, imagining the brush of her hand against my cheek when I was a young girl determined to prove myself with the rest of the fledgling witches.

Be so good they can’t ignore you.

I miss her. I miss them both.

It’s time to take her advice to heart and be the witch she raised me to be.

I tuck the parchment under my pillow before I get dressed for bed, and when I finally lie down on it, I can almost imagine I hear her words in my ears.

CHAPTER TEN

WREN

An unfamiliar rustling wakes me just after dawn. The first rosy fingers of light drift across the pale butterscotch-yellow quilt, and I jerk upright, tucking it around me.

Fenn’s curled up in a red fluffy donut beside my feet, one eye sleepily peeking out from behind his bristle brush tail.

My heart leaps into my throat, and my hands fist the soft linen.

The rustling noise stops, and Fenn sits up, his amber eyes finding mine.

“Go,” I hiss at him.

He jumps off the bed on velvet paws, not one chittering yap or yowl to be heard.

His silence doesn’t make me feel better.

A split second later, a crash sounds from the main part of my apartment and I bolt out of bed, unwilling to let Fenn take the brunt of whatever assault is happening.

“That’s my fox,” I yelp, brandishing the first thing I land on, which happens to be my silver and glass lantern.

There’s no one there.

The main rooms are empty, the little postage stamp of a kitchen neat and sparkling, the teacup I left out the night before put away.

My jaw drops.

There’s not a speck of dust to be found, anywhere, at all.

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