“You don’t understand. He’s a friend. I’d never destroy his essence. I just want him to be at rest. So far, I’ve had no luck.”
“You’ve befriended a ghost? Quinn Broomsparkle, you are turning out to be even more interesting than I imagined.” She leaned forward, tapped a finger against the tabletop. “Tell me what you’ve tried, and we’ll see what we can find.”
11
An hour later, we both had a pile of discarded books and scrolls in front of us and were throwing ideas back and forth.
“I can’t believe none of these spells worked.” Beckett chewed on her bottom lip and flipped more pages in a dusty tome. “It’s like he’s anchored here, but why?”
“That occurred to me, too. But who would do such a thing, much less why? And what do I do about it?”
“Tell you what. Let me think on this a bit. I’ll scan my memory for references involving ghosts and see what pops up. Sometimes it takes a while, but if I’ve run across it, I’ll remember eventually.”
I sighed. I’d hoped we’d make more progress on Pie’s problem, though I had to give Beckett props for her amazing memory. A born archivist, she had already helped me eliminate several other spells and explanations.
“So, you want to tell me your other issue?” She set aside a scroll and gave me her attention.
I absently stroked Trash Panda as I considered how to best broach the subject. The raccoon still hadn’t moved since we’d started and, as if reading my thoughts, Beckett handed me her hand mirror. The mirror fogged slightly. Still alive.
“I’m not sure you’ll want to help me with this one.”
She brushed a loc back from her face and tilted her head. “Don’t be too sure.”
“You’ve heard the rumors that Twig is not only my familiar but my mate?”
She smiled, her dimples making another appearance. “Made the front page of The Morning Witness. Don’t think it made a difference to your fan club. Greed for power will do that.”
“I hate newspapers.” I groaned. “Gossip rags are the worst.”
“Hey now, there are always at least one or two facts buried in the articles. Well, mostly. Sometimes.” She smirked.
“Twig is my mate.” I waited to see if she’d show distaste. I couldn’t count on her help if she couldn’t accept that.
“Cool. I figured. He’d as much as said so earlier.” Beckett made a get-on-with-it gesture.
“We’re mates but not officially mated. I found a tome that referenced a witch with a familiar like mine. Not a dragon. A werewolf, I think. They mated, and from what I gleaned, she lost her magic afterward. I need to know—”
“Wait.” She held up a hand, closed her eyes. They moved rapidly under her lids. This kept up for some minutes. I opened my mouth then closed it, not wanting to interrupt. She’d done this twice before when we were working on Pie’s case.
Her eyes snapped open. “Arwin Keeling. You’re right. She bonded to a werewolf. Lynede. It’s mentioned in the Tomes of Yaldir.”
“Yes! Your memory is amazing! That’s the one.”
“There’s more to it. I have to find Unodarin’s Compendium. I remember something about it in there, but I only glanced at it because I was researching something else for another patron.” She pushed back from the table. “I’m pretty sure we’ll have the answer to your question in a moment.”
She left, and my belly instantly fluttered with uncertainty. What had destroyed Keeling’s magic? And why? So many unanswered questions. Maybe it didn’t have to do with the mate bond at all. Or maybe it had to do with the way they did it. Or maybe we could circumvent it somehow.
Before I worked myself into a full-blown panic, Beckett returned with a tome in hand. She placed it between us and scrunched her face for a second before flipping to a particular page. “Ah ha! I knew it. This is a more detailed telling.”
We both pulled our chairs closer and began reading. By the time we came to the end of the passage, my jaw clenched so tightly I could crack teeth. I wanted to throw the damn book across the room.
In a nutshell, the Council of the day tried to figure out why and how mating destroyed Keeling’s magic. They even attempted to bring it back. Nothing worked. In the end, Keeling drowned herself and Lynede didn’t last long after that. The Council concluded: Witches and familiars couldn’t be mates. Not without destroying the witch’s magic. Period.
What in cockatrice’s curses was I to do?
“Hey, Quinn, don’t.” Beckett reached out, not quite touching me. “Just because it happened seven hundred years ago doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to protect your magic now. We’ve made so many advances and—”
“Not enough, clearly.” Gutted. Absolutely gutted. I’d hesitated to mate because it gave Twig too much control over my life. But knowing we’d never have that bond? I desired it. Yearned. I wanted to belong to Twig Starfig in every way he’d let me, and now I never could . . . at least not without losing my magic.
I’d have to choose between magic and Twig.
That’s what it would come down to. His dragon side would eventually overpower him and mate me whether I wanted it or not. Unless I gave up my magic voluntarily. The thought made my chest tighten. My sight darkened.
“Quinn, breathe! It’ll be okay.” Beckett gripped my shoulder, her voice soothing. “I’ll help you. We’ll figure this out. I promise. If there’s a way around it, my memory will eventually find it, and if not, we’ll invent a way. Come on, breathe with me. One breath. That’s it. Now another.”
I matched her breathing, at first gulping in air, then after a time slowing it down to almost normal. Shooting to my feet, I knocked over the chair. “I-I need to go. I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”
Angry tears threatened to spill, and I didn’t want anyone to see them. This realm had taken enough. They didn’t deserve my tears, too.
“I promise I’ll keep looking.” Beckett held up her pinky again. “And this stays between us. No one needs to know.”
“Thanks. I need to go.”
“You should wait for Twig—”
“No time.” I sprinted from the cubicle and out of the archive. I rushed past witches who called after me. I fled to our suite, needing to get my emotions under control before they spilled out and scalded everyone.
As I reached the end of our corridor, Twig roared, “Quinn!”
Startled, I tripped, banging into the wall as I turned toward his voice. He rushed to me, his claws fully extended as his fangs punched through his gum line. Before I did more than steady myself, he righted me, running his hands up and down my arms.
“What’s wrong? I felt your anguish. Tell me? Did someone hurt you?”
“I-I—” before I could say anything, our suite door opened, and my brother Mortimer poked his head out.
“Oh, look, Mother. The great wizard has arrived,” my older brother called over his shoulder.
As Twig was wont to say: Fuck. My. Life.
12
“Who in hellafuck are you? And what in the lower realms are you doing in our room?” Twig swung around so he stood between me and Mortimer, his back exposed. Not smart around my treacherous brother. Then again, Mortimer would be sorry if he tried anything with Twig.
“Twig Starfig, meet Mortimer Broomsparkle.” I kept my face pressed into Twig’s neck, breathing in his calming scent. Naturally, my family would make their appearance now. Karma. Such an ungrateful wretch.
“Again I ask, what are you doing in our rooms? I didn’t invite you in,” Twig said.
The door slammed. Mortimer must have ducked back inside.
We stood there for a moment, Twig’s arms tight around me. But now wasn’t the time for comforting.
“Remind me to ward our rooms next time. At least we’ll be warned of unexpected—and unwanted—visitors.” I sucked in a lungful of air. Time to exchange one problem for another. “They’ve probably gone through our things. Fair warning, we’ll be lighter a few dyparis.”
“Wha
t do you want to do? If you want them out, they’re gone. You come first.”
His words almost broke me. How could I tell him he’d wasted his love on me? That I couldn’t give him what he wanted . . . at least not without destroying a key part of me.
“Quinn, talk to me.” Twig brushed my wet cheek.
I blinked the tears away, frustration bubbling over. At myself. My family. The universe that decided Twig and I couldn’t be mated.
Deep breath. No time for this. Time to deal with my family. Once and for all. I leaned up and placed a gentle kiss on Twig’s lips, straightened my spine, then stepped around him and strode into our suite.
My mother and father lounged on our divan like they had moved in. Mortimer reclined on the chair I’d sat in while confronting Rei Le Torneau, his muddy boots propped on a low bench. Was that confrontation only this morning? Never let it be said I didn’t pack a lot into my days.
“You know, I built this section of the citadel,” my father said to no one in particular. “Damn hard work. Good pay, though really strange. The gedodrite overlays a stone structure. Just grew over it. Never figured out how the magic worked.”
“Yes, so you’ve said a hundred times at least.” Mortimer groaned. “I was a wee babe and he hadn’t even been born yet. Then you got fired. Unfairly, as usual.”
My parents looked a little worn around the edges, though otherwise they hadn’t changed much. My mother still had a trim figure, unlined face, and a mane of golden hair that both Zak and I inherited. My father remained tall and strapping, his jaw square, though his hair had turned a striking white.
My little brother, Zak, paced between the pillars separating the sitting and dining rooms. Leggy, blond, and awkward as fuck. Wow, he could have been my doppelganger at that age.
I ran a hand through my hair, tried not to fidget when they all turned to me. “Hey, Zak, you’ll wear a hole in the rugs if you keep stomping around like that.”
He glared, not saying a word.
“Tough crowd,” Twig muttered before gifting Zak with a soft smile that he generally reserved for me. “Hi. I understand you’re Quinn’s brother, Zak.”
He sighed dramatically, stopping to lean against a pillar. “Why in hellafuck should I answer you?”
“Zak! Watch your mouth.” My mother’s voice bled frustration. Most likely not about Zak’s cursing. “Well, aren’t you going to even say hello, Quinnie? We came all this way.”
Aaand here we go. Warm, fuzzy moment—ha!—over.
Twig mouthed, Quinnie?
Not now, dragon. I squared my shoulders like a soldier going into battle. For all practical purposes, I was.
“If it caused that big of an inconvenience, Mother, perhaps you should have stayed home. Or waited for an invitation.” And there went my last scrap of civility. Didn’t work well with my family anyway.
“I told you, he’s a waste of time. He thinks he’s too good for us now that he’s some big, bad wizard.” Mortimer wrinkled his nose.
Only two years older than me, though with the gulf between us, we might as well have been strangers. More than one love-struck lad or lass had described him as insanely gorgeous. Objectively, Mortimer remained attractive. Straight flaxen hair, ice-blue eyes, and muscles honed from working on the docks. Except deep lines of dissatisfaction etched his cheeks and mouth. Not like the sweetness in Zak’s cheeks. Though being called sweet-looking would probably horrify Zak. Goddess, had I ever been that young?
In some ways, I felt gratitude for Mortimer’s presence. He stoked my anger like few could. I needed it. “Good to see you’re still the same pompous jerk you’ve always been.”
“Quinn, don’t speak to your brother like that.” My father’s voice boomed. Not that he had bothered to stand to greet me.
“He’ll speak however he likes.” Twig’s voice went soft but so cold I could make snowballs with it. “I don’t think you understand the situation here.”
“Why do you have a guard?” My mother stood and approached. “Have you become so important then that you need your own security now? Even from your family?”
I crossed my arms. “You lost the right to call me your son when you let the Council sell me into servitude.”
“Oh, Quinnie, you know it wasn’t so simple.” My mother’s eyes filled with tears. As if I’d believe anything she had to say now. Actresses had nothing on her ability to whip up tears.
“Do I?”
“How were we to know you had magic? Look at it from our perspective. We went from the envy of the neighborhood to the laughingstock. You don’t understand how hard—” She reached for me.
I held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t you dare make this about you. You have no idea what I endured.”
My mother glanced at Twig. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for your guard to hear family business, Quinnie. Send him away so we can talk in private.”
“Twig is my family now. And my familiar. My dragon familiar. Where I go, he goes.”
My mother’s mouth gaped for a long moment. “So it’s true. A dragon.” She eyed him like I’d handed her a sack of precious stones. Then she smiled. “My son has a dragon familiar.”
I shook my head. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? You’re still my son.”
“No, I’m really not.”
“Those Goddessless creatures turned you against us!”
“You did that all on your own.”
“And what about me?” Zak snarled, startling us all. He stormed toward me, fists raised. Twig moved in front of me with a speed you’d never expect of such a large guy. Zak shoved Twig. My brother flew backward onto his ass, while Twig remained immobile.
I winced in sympathy. I’d done something similar when I’d first met Twig.
“Zak—”
“Am I your family, or are you throwing me away, too?” he shouted.
Where did all this anger come from? “Why would I have anything against you, Zak? You didn’t let them take me.”
“Did you even bother to let us know you were coming home? Did you write? Or tell us you were okay? I wrote you so many letters. You never answered. You don’t give a flying fairy fuck about any of us!”
“Knock it off, kid.” Twig growled. “He never got any letters. Did you, Quinn?”
“You wrote me letters?” I whispered. That hurt more than anything the rest of my family had said. I reached out to offer him a hand up. Zak smacked it away and pushed to his feet.
“Like you care! I knew I shouldn’t have come!” He stormed past Twig and into the hall.
“Zacchaeus, you come back this instant!” my mother called, but she didn’t go after him. That would take effort.
“You never think about anyone except yourself,” Mortimer said, twisting the blade deeper. Because what he said wasn’t a lie. To survive, I’d had to let go of my past. Each day, I just . . . existed. No past, no future. Only the present moment to get through. And when I’d been free, I hadn’t wanted to dwell on what I’d lost.
“Enough. All of you.” Twig waved toward the door. “If Quinn wants to see you, he’ll be in touch.”
“I hardly think that’s a pet’s choice to make—” my mother began.
“Don’t you dare call him a pet. He’s more than you’ll ever . . . ” I expelled a shaky breath. “What do you want, Mother? Why are you here?”
“We’re just so happy you’re home.” She took a step toward me again, but Twig’s arm slashed down, stopping her in her tracks.
“Uh huh.” I clenched and unclenched my fists. “Try again. Last chance.” Goddess, she sounded so convincing. How many times had I fallen for the act before I’d become immune?
“Quinnie . . .” A cajoling grin lit her face. “We want you to come home. The neighbors want to see you, and we’d like us all to be a family again.”
“You want to show me off.” Not a question.
“Well, what’s wrong with that? Many have mistreated us, and this will be a way to show them
we’re quality. Have always been quality. My son the wizard. And with a dragon familiar. We’ll all be the talk of the Lower Isle. It’s the least you can do—”
“Leave, Mother. Now.” I bit my tongue to keep from saying more.
“I didn’t raise you to speak to your mother this way, Quinn,” my father piped up.
“You didn’t raise me at all. That honor went to Befsarry Academy. And they’re as guilty as you. You’re lucky I haven’t had you thrown out.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” My mother placed her hands on her hips.
“I would.” Twig grinned, showing off his fangs, a puff of smoke spilling from his mouth. “Gladly.”
That got them moving. My parents swept out of the suite like they’d chosen to leave. Mortimer stopped at the threshold, a cruel smile on his face.
“I hope that unicorn used you harshly. It’s all you’ll ever be good for, wizard or not. You can’t ever erase your past.”
I flinched. Twig snarled. He grabbed my muscular elder brother and hefted him overhead as though he weighed nothing. I should have been a bigger person and not enjoyed all the color draining from Mortimer’s face as he struggled uselessly in Twig’s grip. Turns out, I could be petty.
“Allow me.” My hands glowed a fierce red, and I gestured toward the entryway. My magic lifted Mortimer and he tumbled ass over heels into the hallway. He landed in a graceless heap. Not so pretty now. Anyway, his insides had always been ugly.
“Believe me, Mortimer,” I called, “if I could erase my past, I would have done it long ago.” I curled my lip, making sure my voice carried. “Starting with you and your spitefulness.”
Then I slammed the door. Perhaps the most satisfying thing that had happened today.
I’d ask how much worse things could get, but that was Twig’s line. Besides, I already knew.
Worse. Much worse.
13
Twig and I didn’t speak. Instead, he tugged me along behind him into our bedroom. While missing the big, soft pelts we had on our bed at home, the mattress at least was soft, and a pair of chill sticks kept the room, if not cool, than at least bearable. He took his time undoing my tunic. He sat me on the bed and knelt to take off my boots and leggings, stripping me. He then undressed and slid us both to the middle of the bed.
His Fairy Share Page 9
