Page 18 of The Fae King's Labyrinth

I groaned. “I forgot pookas see magic. What do you see now?”

“So, you bound her to you on purpose. Does she know it is unbreakable?” He glared at me.

My gaze snapped to his. “What do you mean unbreakable?”

“You are magically compatible,” he pointed out.

“I figured that out. But that doesn’t make a temporary magical connection permanent.”

The pooka snorted. “Her repressed magic mixed with your chaotic magic and a burgeoning mating bond. Surely the king of the Seelies must’ve had some magic theory training at some point.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I did, but that was a century or so ago, and I’ve had other things on my mind.” Like managing this annoying curse, my father’s diminishing mental faculties, my brother’s political maneuvering, and the Unseelie king’s power grabbing. Not to mention the continuing investigation into who had betrayed me by giving the Unseelie king my true name.

“So, she doesn’t know?”

I shook my head. “How intertwined is the connection?”

The pooka tilted his head to the side in a very equine movement. “The connection is new and tentative, but it has already affected both of your magics, which I suspect will entangle it beyond recovery. Do you know of any fae and shifter mating in the past?”

“No.” I turned to study Calypso’s features. “She isn’t a typical shifter.”

“I am not surprised. Her magic was scrambled. I suspect she has never shifted.”

“Is it still scrambled?”

“Not anymore. Your magic opened hers up completely. She could probably shift easily if she attempted it. What kind of shifter is she?”

“I am not sure. If the creature is small, it might be worth attempting when she wakes. Her ankle will be very painful for a while, and I suspect the labyrinth is going to force us onward as soon as the moon rises again.”

The pooka eyed me. “What about your magic? It appears to have straightened out significantly. Could you portal us out of here?”

I shook my head. “It is improving, but I don’t trust it yet.” A transportation attempt could go horribly wrong so easily. There was a possibility my magic would become unstable, opening a portal into a wall, a furnace, a snowstorm, or worse, a volcano. All of them would hurt me and the pooka, possibly even kill us eventually, but they guaranteed instantaneous death for Calypso.

I rubbed my face. Exhaustion was beginning to cloud my mind. “I fear there are only two ways out of this mess. We can wait out this round of the curse, or I can attempt strengthening the magic entanglement to the point I have all my faculties back under my full control.”

“Deepening the magic entwining might bind the two of you together forever,” the pooka warned. “She needs to understand what’s at stake before you do that.”

I nodded. “And if we don’t deepen the connection, she might die. She needs to know how such a bond will possibly affect her.”

“How long do we have?”

I eyed the pooka. “Two more nights unless the Unseelie king has altered the curse in other ways than just changing the location and tests.” Resting my folded arms on my knees, I leaned my forehead against them briefly before resting his chin on them. “We should sleep while we have a chance.”

The pooka scanned the barren space. The bit of tunnel possessed the same walls and floors and hidden ceiling that Calypso and I had been seeing since first being trapped. His gaze fell back on me. “You’re still wet. You should probably do something about it.”

I reached for the familiar drying spell that I didn’t need a trigger item to initialize. Within a minute, I was dry and so was Calypso. I lifted my head to ask the pooka if he wished me to dry him as well, but stopped when I spotted him standing in horse form a few feet away. He was asleep.

Rising silently to my feet, I leaned down and picked up Calypso. I moved her closer to the center of the passage just in case the corridor started shrinking like it had previously. Then I set a basic protection alert spell to trigger the moment it sensed a major shift in magic. Stationing myself on the opposite side of her from the pooka, I settled with my back to her and closed my eyes.

Not long afterward, I woke to Calypso’s surprised gasp of pain and a sudden flash of magic.

“Merow!” A feline yowl of surprise erupted from behind me.

I rolled over in time to see a beautiful silvery gray cat take a step and then fall, very ungracefully, onto her side.

“Callie?” I asked, delighted at the sight of her. She was small enough to carry easily.

Calypso twisted around on the ground before awkwardly arching her back so she could study me without moving her injured back paw. Cat-Calypso had the loveliest silver-gray eyes I had ever seen on a cat. Not that I had ever spent a great deal of time noticing cats before—well, except the sithcat that terrorized my household. Wide with terror and a significant measure of pain, her remarkable eyes glowed slightly in the reflected light of the flame above her head.

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