6. Don’t Go Cheap on Alchemy Supplies #2
I rummage through the tins. “Ceylon…Ceylon…I don’t see it.”
“Look for something labeled orange pekoe.”
“Here it is.” I pull out the tin. “If it’s called orange pekoe, why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”
“It’s not called orange pekoe—that’s its grade. Ceylon is often an orange pekoe tea.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a quality score.”
I open the tin and sniff the tea. “It doesn’t smell like oranges.”
“No kidding.”
“So, there are no oranges involved either?”
“None.”
“How bizarre. Is it good?”
“It’s a basic, medium-bodied tea with honey notes.”
“That sounds nice. I’m going to try it.” I spoon the tea into the infusers and then place them into the mugs.
“You’re obviously a gifted mage if you were able to turn yourself into an owl, but didn’t you realize you’d be stuck in this form if it worked?
Or did the no-hands thing only occur to you once you had feathers? ”
“I was trying to replicate shifter magic. Once in animal form, my magic should have responded like theirs.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Obviously.”
“This is probably why they say you shouldn’t practice magic on yourself. Why did you want to be an owl shifter anyway?”
“I didn’t want to be a shifter.” He sounds uncomfortable. “I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
“All right. But why an owl?”
Rowan doesn’t answer, so I turn back to look at him.
“I wasn’t supposed to turn into an owl,” he finally admits.
“What were you going to be?”
He flattens his little feather tufts, agitated. “A gryphon.”
Surprised, I laugh. “What happened?”
It’s apparent he doesn’t want to answer. He ruffles his feathers again, annoyed.
“Oh, come on. If we’re going to change you back, you have to be honest with me.”
“I bought a discount feather online.”
“Are you serious?” I laugh, unable to stop myself. “You’re an owl because you were too cheap to buy from a reputable alchemy supply, and you got swindled?”
“I paid in the end. I needed to turn into a fae creature for the magic to work correctly.”
“That’s why you’re stuck?”
“That’s why I’m stuck.”
I almost feel bad for him. “Look at the bright side—you make a very cute owl.”
He stares at me with his golden eyes, refusing to respond to that.
“Why didn’t you ask anyone in town for help?”
“I tried, but I couldn’t talk. For a couple of years, I was trapped in this body with no way to communicate.”
“Rowan,” I say, suddenly not so amused.
“It’s fine.”
But it’s not fine. I can’t imagine how terrifying that would have been. “Didn’t anyone notice you were missing?”
“They thought I left town—got cold feet a week before my wedding.”
I stare at him, my heart twisting.
“Careful,” he says, gently this time. “You’re going to make it rain again.”
“What happened to your fiancée?”
“Everyone told her it was for the best,” he says, the words weary. “That’s an interesting side effect of changing your form. You try to get people to pay attention to you—to realize you’re not what you appear. But in the end, you just overhear things you wish you hadn’t.”
A whistle makes me jump, and I whirl back to the stove to remove the kettle from the heat.
“Three minutes,” Rowan says as I pour water into the mugs.
I set the timer on my phone and then turn back. “How did you end up with Laverna?”
“I hung around my family for a while, but with me out of the way, my cousin ended up getting close to my fiancée. I couldn’t stomach it, so I started pestering your aunt.”
“How close did he get to her?” I ask, though I’m worried I don’t want the answer.
“Exactly as close as you think.”
“That’s awful.”
“There was always a good amount of rivalry between us, and he liked her, too. Always had. It was unfortunate we fell in love with the same woman.”
Desperately, I want to ask who it was. Does she still live here? Did she marry his cousin and have a family? But he hasn’t offered that information, and I shouldn’t pry further into a painful subject.
“It took a year of pestering Laverna for her to figure out I wasn’t just a friendly, precocious owl,” he continues. “Then it took her another year to find the amulet so I could communicate. Now here we are.”
“What kind of enchantment does the amulet hold?”
“It was crafted for a mute woman in the 1800s. When she passed away, her family sold the amulet to a small alchemy and charms store in Boston. It stayed in their inventory for decades.”
“The 1800s?” I ask, shocked that an enchantment could hold that long.
“The magicsmith who created it was an elf.”
“Ah,” I say, understanding now. Elves are the most powerful of the fae, but their numbers are few.
Laverna probably paid a small fortune for Rowan’s amulet, but it will likely outlast him by several centuries.
“Did you go to your fiancée?”
“No. It had already been two years at that point. She’d moved away several months before.”
“What about your family?”
“Why would I go to them? I was still an owl.”
“If I lost a loved one, I wouldn’t care what shape he was in when he returned to me. I’d just want him to come home.”
“Yes, but you are…you.”
My alarm goes off, and I pull the infusers out of the cups. “I don’t think that’s unique to me.”
“I don’t know how to face them,” he admits. “Not like this.”
“Are they still”—I almost say alive, but I cut myself off—“in town?”
“Yes.”
I set his mug on the counter, studying him, suddenly determined. “Don’t worry, Rowan. I’m going to find a way to turn you back. I promise.”