Chapter Fourteen
A Muffin Carol
Someone was going to die that morning. Killed by either the giant bird perched in the corner of the clinic or any number of other dangerous things scattered throughout.
“You come here every day?” Callum asked Briar in horror, eyeing Salem, then shifting his gaze around the rest of the room. “I’ve seen torture chambers less frightening.”
“Then leave,” Phantasia said, stirring the contents of a small black cauldron. Green smoke wafted upward as the potion bubbled. “Your presence here isn’t needed, knight. Nor is it wanted. You’re a big, bumbling buffoon.”
Rowan choked on his spit. He stood against a table that held glass jars of questionable contents. Contents Lake was busy inspecting with an adorable scrunch of his brow. Teeth of unknown creatures, claws, and something that I hoped like hell wasn’t maggots.
I cringed as I spotted some wiggling action inside the jar.
“Big, bumbling what?” Callum’s look of confusion made me laugh, and I forgot all about the creepy crawlies. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The words had barely enough time to leave his lips before he bumped into the nearest shelf, knocking a potted plant to the floor.
“Nice going, rabbit,” Rowan said.
Callum shot him a look before stooping down to clean his mess. A small shriek left him as a different plant near the table lunged at him. “It tried to bite me!”
The strange plant swayed from side to side, reminding me of the carnivorous flowers we’d seen in the courtyard. It had vibrant blue hooked bulbs on the ends of its green leaves.
“I would keep my distance from that one,” Briar told him, standing beside Phantasia.
As Callum inched away from the aggressive blue plant, he bumped into another table, rattling the glass jars on top. Thankfully not breaking them though.
Phantasia closed her eyes and took a breath. When she spoke, she used the kind of clipped tone that signaled she was about to lose her shit. “Why are you all in my clinic? There is no reason for you to be. Only Briar and the boy should be here.”
“Because Evan needs us,” Maddox answered, the vibrations of his deep voice rumbling against the back of my neck. He sat on a stool and held me on his lap, his arms around me like a protective cage.
“What he needs is to focus.” Phantasia’s eyes narrowed. “Not to be distracted by all of you.”
“They aren’t distracting me.” I tried for a smile. The shake of my lips probably made it more of a grimace though. God, I was nervous. “I’m glad they’re here.”
One of my men was absent though. Not that I should’ve been surprised. Onyx had made progress in the romance department, but it was unrealistic to think all of his issues toward love would be fixed so easily. Baby steps were needed.
“We wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Maddox murmured, holding me more firmly against his chest. “Whatever happens, you won’t face it alone.”
“He will actually,” Phantasia interjected, setting aside the stirring spoon. “The elixir will send him down a path of enlightenment only he can travel.”
“Lovely,” I said, voice hitching. “Will it hurt?”
“Probably.” The female demon offered me a tight smile.
“Though it won’t be a physical pain. As I said before, you will be forced to confront your deepest and darkest fears.
Things you’ve buried so deep you may not realize they’re there.
These traumas created a block keeping you from fully awakening your magic. ”
“And this potion will lift that block?” Rowan asked, toying with the golden cuff holding his hair together. My redhead had the best poker face around, hardly ever revealing any fears or worries for himself. But the worry over me had him fidgeting.
“Yes.” Phantasia stepped over to a cabinet and took out a glass vial, then returned to the crafting table. “When he wakes, he won’t be the same.”
My nerves started to bubble with more intensity, mimicking the potion in the cauldron. Lake straightened up from where he’d been bending over to examine medical tools on a nearby shelf and walked over to me and Maddox, resting a hand on the top of my head.
“I’m okay,” I rasped, knowing he could feel my anxiety. “It can’t be that bad, right?”
“Right,” Lake said, apprehension reflecting in his purple eyes.
“It’s nearly time.” Phantasia removed the cauldron from the heat and moved her hand through the green smoke rising from the top. “Please move over to the cot. You need to lie down and make yourself as relaxed as possible.”
“The cot?” I shifted my gaze to the area she’d indicated. One right beside a certain buzzard-sized bird. “No thanks. I’m pretty relaxed right where I am. You know. Far away from murderous beaks of doom.”
A rough sound left Lake’s throat. His unique laugh never failed to make me smile. Even when I was facing certain death in the form of a feathered monstrosity.
“Salem.” Phantasia faced the bird. “No biting the humans.”
The bird’s wings ruffled as he shifted on his perch.
After being reassured several more times that I wouldn’t be meeting my demise by nearing the large bird, I moved over to the cot against the wall and laid down.
Maddox didn’t release my hand the whole way and pulled up a stool to sit beside me, refusing to let go even once I was settled. Like Rowan, he skillfully hid his emotions. A mask that faltered when it came to me.
“Don’t worry, big guy,” I said, trying to reassure him, as well as myself. “You might want to step away, though, once I drink the potion. If it awakens my powers, I don’t want to sneeze and shoot a fireball out of my nose or something.”
“I’m not leaving your side, sweetheart.” Maddox brought our joined hands up to kiss my middle knuckle. “Never.”
My heart lifted into my throat. “Okay.”
Black cardamom wafted around me before Rowan appeared on my other side, kneeling down on the floor and resting his elbows on the cot.
Lake settled beside him, while Briar and Callum came to stand beside Maddox.
Warm spice. Magnolia blossoms. Peaches and vanilla bean. The scents calmed me even further.
Though faint, I could’ve sworn I caught another scent too. Something woodsy with traces of smoke. I smiled, and tears sprang to my eyes.
Guess the demon lord hadn’t stayed away after all. He was keeping to the shadows, out of sight but unable to mask his presence completely.
“Here you are,” Phantasia said, stepping between Rowan and Lake to hand me a vial filled with green liquid. “And before you ask, yes, it will taste of flowers. But also of fruit. It should be quite pleasant.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I mumbled, accepting the vial. “Down the hatch, I guess.”
After taking a steadying breath, I drank the elixir and rested my head back on the pillow. Rowan reached over and smoothed his thumb over my bottom lip. I smiled at him, though it felt strange on my lips. Like my muscles didn’t want to work.
“Close your eyes, love.” Briar placed his hand on my leg. “It should take effect soon.”
I did as he instructed and took more deep breaths, trying to keep my heart rate calm and steady. Freaking out wouldn’t do me any good. A relaxed state was best for whatever I was about to face.
But as seconds passed by, nothing happened. The heaviness in my muscles eased too.
“I’m not feeling anything,” I said before opening my eyes. Everyone watched me with scrunched brows, various levels of concern on their faces. None of them spoke. I waited another beat or two before adding, “How long is it supposed to take?”
Still, no one answered me. They just stared. I stared right back at them, confused. A bit unsettled too. It didn’t look like they were blinking. Or even breathing.
“Hello?” I sat up on the cot, the unsettled feeling stirring more in my gut when they didn’t react to my sudden movement.
That’s when I noticed someone behind me.
A shriek tore through my throat before I tumbled out of the cot and into the floor, my heart thundering against my ribs like a war drum. My men didn’t make a move. For some reason, they were in a frozen state.
Shocked and with my anxiety going haywire, I looked at the person who’d been behind me in the cot. A boy with blond hair and faint freckles dusting his cheeks. One whose hand was clasped in my captain’s.
“What in the Twilight Zone hell is this?” I pushed to my feet, legs trembling as I studied the seemingly asleep person.
It was me.
But how? I glanced down at my body and patted myself, panic growing. Had I died and become a ghost?
Cheep.
My gaze darted to the doorway of the clinic. “Pumpkin?”
The orange critter wiggled his butt in a greeting. Then he ran from the room, leaving me behind.
“Wait!” I took off after him. But the moment I reached the corridor and passed through it, the scene around me changed.
I wasn’t in the castle anymore.
Instead, I stood outside a quaint little cottage.
Ivy climbed up one side of the home, and purple and white blossoms sprouted from flower beds lined with smooth stones.
The sun hung low in the sky, casting a dark golden hue on the cottage and backdrop of rolling hills.
A rustle of leaves joined the chorus of frogs croaking from a nearby pond, and the smell of wet soil and pine filled the air.
What the hell was happening? Was I having an out-of-body experience? Astro projecting? Phantasia said the elixir would send me on a path of enlightenment but said nothing about running around like a freaking ghost and zapping from one location to another.
The cottage seemed somewhat familiar, like I’d seen it before, but I couldn’t place it.
Insects hummed in the undergrowth as I stepped toward the cottage, and fireflies blinked in and out, floating through the early summer evening. No mistaking the season. The warm, humid air that stuck to my skin was all too telling.
“Eli?” a woman’s voice came from inside. Something about it struck the center of my chest and stopped me cold. “Where have you gone?”
A deep chuckle sounded from the side of the cottage.