Page 48 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
“I thought all the furies were extinct,” Sadie said.
“That has been the general consensus,” I agreed. “I believe I’m the last one. I have to ask that you don’t repeat that if we make it out of here alive.”
“When,” Meera corrected. I hoped she was right. Sadie made a zipping motion over her mouth to convey that she understood.
“Your secret is safe with me, but don’t spirit elementals always have a familiar? Or are you different because of the whole fury thing?”
I sighed. “Unfortunately for me, Corvo is my familiar.”
Meera snorted. “Don’t let him hear you talking about him like that. He’ll leave us here to become dinner.”
“How does one end up with a god bound in a cat’s body as a familiar?” Sadie mused, wiping her blade on a makeshift leaf napkin.
“I suspect it has something to do with him being bound in animal form,” I replied. “I don’t know for certain, but he was already stuck as a feline when my father summoned him. His line of thinking was that he was going to have a demon under his thumb. Easy to control and manipulate. Instead, he ended up with Corvo, and since I was there, the familiar bond snapped into place instantly. Whatever power my father thought he’d have disappeared the moment that connection was made.”
Sadie opened and closed her mouth. “Damn. Your dad really was crazy if he thought he could control a demon in any form.”
“Indeed.”
“Your turn, sis,” Sadie said with a thrust of her pointed chin toward Meera. Where my mate was soft, her sister was hard angles and sharp edges. She reminded me of Maeve, in a way. Louder, though. While Maeve had had a big personality, she often kept it for those closest to her and opted to be standoffish around outsiders. Sadie did not seem to care about what anyone thought.
“I think everyone here knows what I can do, but just to make sure our bases are covered, I can track people and objects. I don’t exactly know my lineage, but we think I’m part high fae because I have pretty strong compulsion powers.”
“You don’t say,” Damon muttered dryly.
Meera cringed. “I really am sorry about the whole kidnapping business. If it makes you feel better, Vareck kidnapped me later that night and took me back to Faerie for questioning.”
Damon snorted. “Right, because I’m sure everyone has been so concerned about finding the ‘party boy prince.’” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what my uncle told you, but if he kidnapped you, I can assure you it had very little, if anything, to do with me.”
“Hey,” Meera said sharply. “Vareck has been looking for you. So has Kaia and half of Faerie. I couldn’t tell anyone a damn thing because of the contract so they were tracking any leads they could find. And I was planning on leaving the castle and tracking you myself as soon as I had my powers back. I don’t know what kind of relationship you two have, but he wasn’t going to stop until they found you.”
I placed a hand on her knee beneath the table. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” she argued back quietly. “I went missing and Sadie wouldn’t rest until she found me. The same was true for me when she disappeared. If that’s how he really feels, it’s sad and I feel bad for him. He needs to know the truth.”
“It’s fine,” Damon repeated after me. His cobalt eyes, several shades darker than my own, were fixed on Meera like he was seeing her in a new light. “Point is, we know about the persuasion. It’s also pretty obvious you can lie, given the entire charade you put on while luring me away from everyone at the castle.”
A fault blush stained Meera’s cheeks and she looked down. “Yes, I can lie. Again, sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” I said, shooting my nephew a narrowed glance as I continued to speak. “You’ve said your piece. He will forgive or he won’t.”
Damon ignored me entirely. “Has the realm affected your powers?”
She shook her head, then paused. “Well, I don’t know. I can still track. That’s how I found Sadie. I don’t know if my compulsion works. We were attacked once, but my compulsion didn’t work on them, so I don’t know if it will be useful at all.”
He leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. “Could you find a portal out of here?”
“I already tried but came up with nothing. I didn’t think it would work, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.”
“Why do you say that?” Damon asked.
“Because looking for a portal can be too vague,” she said with a frown. “They’re not a person or a specific object, and if I haven’t been to that portal before, it’s like searching to find the concept of a door. Also, there may not be a portal here at all. When I tried, threads appeared, but they intertwined and looped around, some coming back to me, some reaching for the sky. I don’t know. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before, and none of them could really be followed.”
“You followed the thread that mattered,” Sadie said, pointing to her own chest. “You grabbed your emergency bag. What all do you have in your magic backpack?”
Meera smiled faintly. “Random tricks. Illusions, short-term shields, maybe a charm or two. I have the water potion, which has come in handy. But as far as tracking, we might be out of luck there. My magic’s always been weird. Unreliable until it’s not. Like it’s waiting for the right moment.”
I thought back to the night we’d shared when her fingers blackened. Whatever magic that was, it didn’t come from Faerie. I would know.
