Page 91 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
Just that morning another question broke through the dull clamor in her head, and she asked Madame Chastain, “How did youreallyfind me? In the whole mortal world of small towns, I doubt you were sitting on a street corner in Bowskeep looking for recruits.”
Madame Chastain shook her head. “No, we weren’t. It was Freda who noticed you. She learned about our search. She also knew your mother was fae, and one day she saw a car headed for you and your lightning-quick move on your bike between two parked cars to avoid it.”
Bristol remembered that near collision vividly, the car turning a corner too fast. Hearing the screeching tires before she saw it coming at her. Even she had wondered how she sensed that narrow space between two parked cars was there for her to escape into. She was looking in the other direction at the time but managed to swerve into the tiny gap without so much as scratching either car.Desperation and luck, she had called it at the time.
But even Freda, whom Bristol barely knew, suspected it was more. Leave it to a librarian, especially a fae one.
Bristol also asked the High Witch about the art her father claimed to have found at a swap meet. “Did he steal it from Jasmine?”
“We don’t know. She wouldn’t say. He mattered to her more than a piece of art.”
More loose ends that didn’t add up.
Bristol rubbed her temple. At least her headaches were subsiding. The aspirin she’d brought from home didn’t touch them, and Madame Chastain gave her a smoky green liquid to drink instead. The witch said that because of the changes within her body, the aspirin was probably no longer effective for her. Changes. It made her nauseous.
Bristol noticed another tray of food that had been left on her table while she slept, but meal after meal, she fed most of it to the fox. She spoke to him often now. He was her new confidante.
Watch this, she would tell him, and say,Treima, the command to die.
From a distance she would snuff each candle on the candelabra that lit her meal with a simple motion of her pinched fingers and one quiet word. And then with a chant,ante feru lask—blaze bright—and the swift gathering of her hands, ignite them all at once in a burst of fire. It came easily. The chant she had memorized that she thought was useless—because she was useless—now worked because of the small amount of magic-rich blood that had leaked back into her from the injured tick. Her own magic it had stolen.
Now, as soon as she levitated a piece of food, the fox came running, ready to grab it before it ever hit the floor.You’ll get fat, she warned him. But of course, he wouldn’t because he wasn’t real.
Was she?
She was a sudden stranger to herself, blurred and unfamiliar.
It was frightening to be one thing for your entire life, and then find out you were really something else. It felt like part of her had been erased. Madame Chastain asked if her sisters had similar birthmarks. They didn’t. They both had skin that was as flawless as a fresh canvas. No freckles, no birthmarks. But she knew she needed to tell Cat and Harper about herself—except the thought overwhelmed her, made her tired, made her crawl into a ball in her bed and go to sleep. She didn’t want anything to be different between them. She wanted it to be how it had always been. The Keats sisters sticking together and making their life work.
Her mother lied to her.
Her mother was fae.
It came back to that again.
And if Leanna Keats could lie, it meant all fae could lie—including Tyghan.
Did that make her happy or angry?
The mixed feelings sat heavy in her chest. She wasn’t sure what to think anymore.She is nothing to me.He’d lied. Hadn’t he? She remembered the touch of his hand on her neck when he healed it, the gentleness of his fingers on her skin, the real fear in his eyes. There was purity in those brief, anxious minutes, something truer than all the words that had passed between them. And yet he hadn’t come to see her, to check on her . . . in how many days? Maybe the truth lay there.
Nothing. It was how she felt. Floating in some in-between world.
A creature owned part of who she was. Revulsion swept over her again, the flash of that moment when she saw the hideous beast on her back. It was still there, refusing to let go. She reached behind, her fingers tentatively skimming her spine, afraid the tick might bite off a finger. But every time she checked, it was always the same. Her skin was smooth, the creature deep inside her. Hiding. Determined.
She shuffled from the window seat back to her bed and curled into the mattress, letting it swallow her up, sliding her hands beneath the pillow where she wouldn’t be able to see the sharp blue moons of her nails, nails that belonged to someone she didn’t know.
CHAPTER 64
The tiny gray mouse scurried along the hallway, hugging the wall, its whiskers twitching nervously. When it reached the outer walkway, it circled in place, its fur becoming pink curly hair, its tiny legs transforming back into long, lithe limbs.
“The attendant just left,” Hollis said, brushing a curl from her brow. “It’s clear.”
The five recruits rushed down the hall to Bristol’s door, and Avery tapped lightly. They’d been turned away multiple times by Kasta and the High Witch. Now was their chance.
There was no answer to the tap, so Avery knocked a bit louder.
“Bri!” Sashka whispered against the door.
