Chapter Twelve
I was in a decent mood the next morning as I carried my mug of tea andThe Drachmsmith’s Gardenoutside to sit at the back of the cottage. Caom had brought the tea over in a basket of food the day we’d gone exploring, but I hadn’t touched it yet.
It smelled fragrant, and a couple of petals still floated in the amber liquid even though I’d strained it as best I could. As I sat down on the grass, I couldn’t help but glance up at the treeline, scanning for a note pinned to a trunk.
Nothing. I felt a flash of disappointment, even though I was dreading receiving another message telling me to stay away from the wolf. He’d stayed for a long time again last night, lounging beside me until my eyelids had started to droop. With a final lick to my cheek, he’d slunk off, though I hadn’t seen if he’d disappeared into the forest. I assumed he lived in there, though.
I had a sip of tea before putting down the mug and settling the heavy book in my lap. A trill lifted my head, and I stared at the blackbird that hopped tentatively closer.
I was pretty sure it was the Carlin’s spy at this point. I scowled, looking back down at the book.
“Not doing anything nefarious,” I muttered. “Just sitting here. Reading.”
I heard its wings flap as it took off, and I relaxed a little more as I lifted the book’s hard front cover.An essential guide to the herbs and other plants that a drachmsmith must grow in their garden,the first page read.
I was already planning on cross-referencing this with the list of “essential ingredients” in the first chapter of theNovice Drachmsmithbook I’d already read. I hoped this book was illustrated, because I wanted to scope out the little garden and see what had survived growing wild for the last hundred years.
Despite the poultice not working, for some reason I was eager to try making other potions, even though I still felt silly and childish considering it. It reminded me too much of playing in the garden when I was little, collecting random crap to put in a wooden bowl and pretend I was doing magic. But it would pass the time at least, and no one was here to see me do it.
I hadn’t been reading long when a softmrowmade me freeze. Slowly lifting my head, I stared at the black cat that slunk its way along the wall of the cottage, rubbing its body against the stone. When it reached me, it meowed softly again and blinked solid black eyes up at me.
I let out a disbelieving breath.
“Are you the one that tried to warn me?” I hesitantly reached out and trailed my fingertips over its soft head. It started purring immediately, rubbing its face against my hand.
Purring so loud it sounded like a distant lawnmower, the cat dug its claws into my thigh and started kneading. I winced and laughed, quickly shifting the book off my lap. It immediately hopped up, rubbing itself against my shirt.
“You were this friendly before, weren’t you?” I smoothed a hand down its silky back, smiling when it butted its head under my chin, its purr vibrating against my throat.
Even as I stroked it, I glanced around warily. First the wolf, now a cat. Were they… the same creature, somehow? They had the same eyes. Unnatural, solid-black eyes. And I hadn’t seen the wolf during the day. Did he become a cat when the sun was up, or something?
I almost wanted to laugh at how believable it seemed. How readily I accepted it as a possibility. But then, I was living in an old cottage on Folk land, having been kidnapped by a trooping procession of creatures in the middle of the night. With a cut on my neck from a bronze-toothed woman that somehow made the forest reject me violently if I so much as stepped foot in it.
A shapeshifting animal wasn’t really all that outlandish, all things considered.
“Are you the wolf?” I asked, feeling a little silly, but whatever. “If you are, I like both your forms. But as a cat, at least you can come inside if you want a nap. Would you like that?”
The cat purred madly, right in my ear, rubbing its face against my jaw. I laughed.
“I’ll assume that’s a yes.”
I gathered up my mug and book and stood up, the cat hopping from my lap and winding between my legs as I walked to the door. Maybe I was losing my mind, talking to animals like they could understand me. But I couldn’t really bring myself to care. All people with pets did that, didn’t they? Talked to them like they could answer back?
Besides, this catseemedlike it understood me, because the moment I opened the door it ran inside the cottage and into the bedroom, jumping up onto the bed and kneading the blanket as it purred. After putting my empty mug in the kitchen, I joined it, sitting back against the headboard with the book resting on my outstretched legs. The cat turned in a circle before settling with its back pressed tight against my thigh, still purring as it closed its eyes.
I stroked a hand through its soft black fur, feeling its back ripple with pleasure from the touch. Birdsong drifted through the window that I’d opened that morning, mingling with the faint strains of music from the village. I turned to the book and carried on reading, feeling more peaceful than I had in weeks.
Sometime in the late afternoon, the cat’s back suddenly stiffened beneath my fingertips. I was drowsy, leaning my head against the headboard to rest my eyes from the strain of reading the tiny, blocky print of the handwritten book.
I lifted my head as the cat stood up. Without even looking at me, it shot across the bed and up onto the deep window ledge, squeezing its body out of the window and vanishing.
I frowned, rubbing my eyes and shifting the book off my lap. I climbed off the bed and went to peer out the little window, my blood running cold when I realised why the cat had disappeared.
The assassin prince was coming.
His gait was graceful but predatory as he approached the cottage. I could see his black eyes tracking over it with bored disdain, like he didn’t want to be here. That just scared me even more. Whywashe here? Had the blackbird gone and told the Carlin what it had seen me doing, and she’d ordered her son to come and kill me?
But why? Was I not supposed to be reading the books? I thought they all wanted me tofind my true self. Shed my mortal skin. Wasn’t I doing what they wanted me to?