Page 22 of MidKnight
“Yes, Bloss?” she asked.
“You forgot your bird. He’s in my chambers. If you’d collect him, I’d appreciate it.”
“What bird?”
“Your bluebird.”
Cerena’s eyebrows drew up. “I don’t have a bird.”
My chest contracted. “What?”
“I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t own a bird.”
I walked back toward Cerena. A strange sensation filled my limbs. It felt like the weightlessness that happened when I took a bottle of Flight and jumped into the air. “You have to have a bird. He followed you into the room downstairs.”
“Why do I have to have a bird?”
“Because … because he followed you and stayed with me. He attacked Abbas when the shite bit me.”
I shared a look with Connor. I was at a loss.
Cerena sighed. “You’d better show me this bird. And by the way, I think your old castle mage must have been shite. Or on someone else’s payroll. I can’t believe the things that got through here. A sarding full-on magical creature got in here unknown? A dragon pranced across the county? I mean … that’s just not okay.
“If that asswipe were still alive, I’d make him drink a bottle of Revelation to see what the hell he was thinking. Of course, he was a man. So, they’re naturally less devious. More of an idiotic heads-on, storm-the-castle approach.
“Do you know how many vats of oil I’ve got in storage? Going rancid? What a waste. I’m hiring a fairy as an assistant. We need top-grade magical defense for this shite. And maybe an elf for weapons making. Silver weapons for sure. They tend to work against everything. Shapeshifters, djinn. We have a lot of rusty iron ones for fae. I’ll just have to get them cleaned up. But a disappointing lack of silver,” Cerena finished her rant. She gestured at a shelf behind her that wasn’t destroyed by the blast that had killed her predecessor (or her own mess-making mayhem). A few silver trinkets sat on it: a tankard, a knife, a shield.
“Anything you need,” I ran a hand over my face. Courtyard repairs from a dragon attack. Mage’s tower in shambles. My reign was full of expensive, unpleasant surprises thus far. “This damn bird better be a bird.”
Cerena’s first words inside my chambers were, “That’snota bird.”
I punched the wall. That was a very stupid thing to do, considering I didn’t have Ryan at my side. “Sard!” I cursed at the bird, my hand, my life.
“What the hell is it then?” Connor had followed behind us after letting Willard walk off with an invisible spy tailing him.
The bird twittered aggressively.
Connor grabbed a silver tray and chucked it at the bluebird, trying to get the thing to come down so we could catch it. The bird was off and across the room before the tray reached him.
Cerena looked at me and sighed. “You’ve dragged me into one hell of a mess, Bloss. I might need a raise.Thatis a person. A spelled person.”
“How can you tell?” I watched the bluebird land on the canopy above my bed.
“I can sense the human. Or part human in him with this,” Cerena held up a glowing stone in her hands. “Once I thought about what had happened with that shite trickster prince, I figured I’d need a little spell to check things out, until I get some back up.”
“How does it work?” Connor asked.
“Light, human. No light, not human,” she shrugged and handed Connor the stone. “I can’t tell the partials. But it was a quick fix.”
I narrowed my eyes at the bird. “Are you a spy? Huh?”
The bird very deliberately made eye contact with me and shook his blue head.
“Why are you here?”
The bird tilted his head and blinked at me.
“I think that might be bird sarcasm,” Cerena stated.
