CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Skye
I wake the next morning to the familiar feel of Princess Buttercup kneading my tummy, her purr reverberating to fill my bedroom. Playing our game, I keep my eyes closed and pretend I’m still asleep, but as usual, I don’t fool her for long.
“You’re awake!” Her little paws speed up. “I know you are!”
I crack one eye. Even though heavy velvet curtains cover the arched windows, a magical fire burns cheerily in the fireplace, keeping the room toasty warm and throwing off enough light to see by.
Luke set it up for me the day I moved in, and it’s burned ever since.
In fact, now that I think about it, the entire castle has been a lot warmer than it felt that first day I visited.
A flush of pleasure warms my chest. He might be grumpy and growly, but he goes out of his way to do so many sweet things for me and never even mentions them, let alone brags about doing them.
I dated a couple of guys like that in college—ones who made a big deal even out of little things like picking me up for a date—as if I should fall at their feet if they offered me the tiniest bit of effort.
No, thank you! I’ll take the big grump who renovates his castle for me any day!
A paw pats the end of my nose, the long hairs that stick out between her toe pads tickling. “You stopped paying attention to me.”
“Sorry.” I scratch her cheeks and chin and make a production of fussing over her until she’s purring loudly again, her eyes slitted with pleasure. “Is that better?”
“It’ll do.” She pulls away and leaps from the bed to saunter toward the door, her bushy tail held high. “As long as I get breakfast now.”
“As you wish.” I throw back the covers and sit up, feet sinking into the soft rug Luke placed beside my bed.
I freshen up in the palatial bathroom, Princess Buttercup complaining that I’m not moving fast enough as I take a few minutes to apply a coat of mascara and lip gloss for a no-makeup look.
“You don’t need any of that,” she says. “You’re already beautiful.”
“Thank you.” I wrap a huge fluffy robe around myself and tie the belt. I wish I shared her confidence, but I don’t. Even though I fully embrace that people can be big and beautiful, it’s easier for me to preach than to practice.
“Don’t say it like that—like you don’t believe me.” She headbutts my calf. “Luke thinks you’re beautiful, too.”
“No, he doesn’t!”
“Ha! Shows what you know.” She trots over to the door, pawing at it imperiously.
Once I open it, she prances down the hallway, her bushy tail curving in a little question mark. She gallops down the stairs faster than I’m willing to go, the back staircase depositing us into the kitchen.
I feed her first—as if she’d let me get away with anything else—before setting up the coffeemaker and rummaging in the refrigerator, wondering if Luke would like French toast.
I scramble eggs, adding milk and cinnamon, and start dunking slices of bread. Soon the kitchen fills with the custardy smell of frying French toast. I hum as I pull out plates and maple syrup.
Luke steps off the bottom of the stairs, his hair looking sexy and sleep mussed. He grunts his good-morning grunt, his chin lifting in a nod hello when our eyes meet.
“Poor thing. Did a little dancing wear him out?” Princess Buttercup asks, licking a paw and brushing it over her cheek in a kitty face wash.
I giggle-snort, knuckles pressed to my quivering lips.
“For your information, yesterday evening’s dancing did nothing of the sort.” He huffs an irritated breath.
“I was worried.” She looks up at him, all big innocent eyes. “You’re so old.”
“I’m a dragon in my prime, able to fly hundreds of miles a day.” His wings lift and his tail swishes.
My cat gives a happy growl and pounces, rolling onto her side with the end of his tail tucked against her tummy, her back feet kicking at it.
“Wait.” Shock spins me around, spatula pointing at him. “You understand her?”
“I stayed up most of the night researching the right spell, but I finally found it.” He pulls a crystal from his pants pocket. “I now have a translation spell that works with her.”
I step closer, fascinated. I stumbled across a book about translation magic in his library.
It wasn’t a subject that will help with my magic, but I can never resist a quick read when I find something interesting.
It said that translation spells are some of the hardest magicks to perform, and that translating very different kinds of speech—such as human to animal—are the hardest of all.
Awe fills me. Luke’s truly an amazingly powerful magic user. I touch a tentative finger to the crystal. “How does it work? Can you talk to all animals?”
“No, I could attune it to only one, so I set it to Princess Buttercup using some of her hair to establish the connection.”
I wince and offer a sheepish smile, remembering all the cat hair stuck to the couch. “Sorry. Longhaired cats shed a lot, and calico hair is kind of the worst—the white hair shows on dark fabrics, the black shows on lights, and the orange shows on pretty much everything.”
“You take that back.” She stops kicking at his tail and glares up at me. “Nothing about me is the worst.”
“What about the way you lie on my clean clothes every time I try to get dressed? You get hair all over everything!” I swear, it’s like she’s got a sixth sense about these things.
I can lay a blouse on the bed, turn away to pull a skirt from the closet, and turn back only to find her sprawled across the shirt.
And even though she’s never on them for more than a handful of seconds, they’re always absolutely coated in hair.
It’s like she’s got a “shed all the hair now” setting she can flip on at will. Cat magic.
“I do that to mark you as mine. All the other animals will see my hair on you and know you’re taken.” Princess Buttercup rolls to her feet and comes over to rub her cheek on my shin. “See, now you also smell like me. You’re my witch.”
“Sweetie, you know I’ll be your witch no matter what.”
“You used to leave all the time.” Her voice goes plaintive.
I crouch down and scratch her forehead. “I had to go to work.”
“I understand that now.” Her paw lashes out, grabbing my hand as I try to pull it away, claws digging in just enough to make it clear they could do real damage if they wanted. She lets go as soon as I start scratching again. “I didn’t really understand it before—all I knew was you went away.”
This time when I stop scratching, it’s to scoop her up into my arms and press a kiss to her forehead. She snuggles closer, bumping up against my chin, her purr rumbling with contentment.
“Fascinating,” Luke says. “I’ve read accounts that theorize the familiar bond increases an animal’s intelligence, yet to hear it firsthand…” He pulls out a piece of parchment and starts writing.
“I’ll have you know I’ve always been intelligent.” My cat’s tail flicks back and forth. “I simply understand more now about how humans think. Why they do the weird things they do.” She jabs a paw toward the coffeemaker. “What all these gadgets are for.”
Luke nods and takes more notes. “And your ability to understand human speech? What are the parameters of that? You clearly understood me, even before I made the translation crystal.”
“I only understand people if Skye’s in the room,” she says.
He looks at her, eyes narrowed, that big brain of his working at lightning speed. “So Skye understands what people are saying and passes the information along to you via the familiar bond. I’d like to test that theo—”
The ringtone I have set for Hannah cuts through the air. I shuffle Princess Buttercup into the crook of one arm and pull my phone from my robe pocket. “Hi!”
“Skye, are you with Luke?”
“Yep.” My eyes flick to him.
“We need him. There’s an emergency.”
Ten minutes later, we’re flying through the air, winging over the waterfall that gives the town its name.
It’s so beautiful from up here. Sunlight catches on the frozen falls, making them gleam a light blue.
They hang frozen in a collection of layered icicles that look like a fairytale confection made of ice and snow.
Next, the fae palace comes into view, a vision of magical white towers rising out of the heart of the forest, the eternally green garden behind it a rich splash of color against the winter white.
Wind whips around us, and I burrow closer to Luke instinctively… until I realize I’m not nearly as cold as I should be.
“I’ve been meaning to ask. Are you heating the air around us?”
“I am.” His deep voice rumbles directly into my body, through every place we touch. “It’s an extension of my fire magic.”
“Thank you.” Yet another thing he’s done for my comfort.
He grunts his pleased grunt, the left corner of his mouth curling upward.
Then we’re spiraling down, aiming for the old highway cutting a line of blacktop through the trees, the safety-yellow of a school bus a bright beacon.
We land beside Severin and Hannah, who wait on the pavement several yards in front of the bus.
Normally, no one would stand in the middle of the road like this or leave a stopped vehicle blocking a lane.
But it’s not an issue. Ever since the state put in a much larger interstate about fifty miles away, traffic on this old route diminished to a trickle.
It’s what first put Ferndale Falls in trouble, the town slowly dying away until the recent influx of fae.
“Thank you, guys!” Hannah beams at us. “The kids have been looking forward to this trip for weeks.”
They’re going to the natural history museum to visit the dinosaur exhibit. They’ve been chattering about it all school year, asking me to read dinosaur books for every one of my Saturday story hours.
“Of course. Anything to help,” I say, then spin toward Luke, my hands fluttering. “Oh, I didn’t mean to volunteer you for anything! I meant me.”
“It’s younglings,” he growls, his brow furrowed in a canyon of a frown. “Of course I’ll help.”