Page 51 of Faerie Fate
“What did you do with the man, Lezar?” I rocked back on my heels.
I wanted the comfort of my friends and my wolf. I wanted to not feel so isolated and alone as Poppy led me into a separate space off the kitchen.
She watched me without expression. “It’s none of your business.”
Once inside, the door swung shut silently behind me and latched with a soft click. At once, the familiar scents of dried herbs and brewing potions settled a bit of the scattered sensation in my chest.
A large iron cauldron hung at the center of the room above a circle painted on the floor. Runes decorated the edge of the circle and the familiar five points of a star spread through the middle. The shelves were full of supplies.
Poppy snapped her fingers and a third fire burst to life beneath the swelled belly of the cauldron. It was a massive piece. I’d only seen one other cauldron of that size before. This one was the same general shape but about the size of a bathtub, forged from black iron with four minuscule legs hanging uselessly from its underside.
“Sit.” Poppy pointed and a velvet-cushioned stool swung up beneath me, nudging the back of my legs.
I dropped down with an immediate swimmy-headed sensation spiraling up to the top of my skull. “I’d have been fine on my own,” I insisted automatically.
She barely spared me a second glance as she drew a few jars of salve from the nearest shelf and began to mix them. “You’re used to saying it, aren’t you? You say it often.”
My attention flickered from the fire back to her, tracing her movements. Poppy deftly poured some herbs together in a mortar and threw in a few yellow blossoms and pine needles to the mix.
I swallowed hard when she ground the pestle down to crush the needles. “I say it because it’s true,” I muttered. “I’m always fine.”
Even if it takes me a long time.
“It may be true but you are still injured and I am still the one who’s going to heal you.”
“You sound angry about it.”
Her jaw was rigid. “I’m not happy about it, that’s true.”
Once she finished the salve, a flick of her finger drew the stool, and me perched on top like a jockey, toward her. Poppy knelt in front of me with three fingers covered in salve and I automatically held out my wrist for her.
Her magic untied the red handkerchief and she swiped a clean cloth over the tear in my skin to clean the wound first.
“What are you and your friends really doing here? It wasn’t an easy journey, I’m sure. You want more than what you’ve let on.”
She spoke in an undertone as she worked, and focusing on her voice helped me blot out the pain.
I clenched my jaw, squeezing my eyes shut again. “We told you. We’re looking for Oxana the Sightless.”
“Why her?” Poppy pressed. “Why not any other witch or seer?”
Did she want to know why we weren’t askingherfor help? “Because she’s the one who made the Faerie Prophecy.”
Poppy paused for a long moment and then scoffed. “FaerieProphecy. It was the Shifter Prophecy before the royals got their hands on it.”
There was so much I wanted to know, and her tone of voice indicated that Poppy might have the answers.
“Seems to me you know a little bit about shifters yourself. Got yourself a nasty scar there.” She remarked on the raw, red line across my throat from Kendrick’s mating ritual.
I told her the partial truth. “I happened to be on the wrong end of a silver knife and a psycho.”
I’d rather Poppy not know about my mate. Not when I wasn’t entirely sure I could trust her, after all.
“So, why? Why are you looking for a famous witch? And if you give me any cock and bull story, I’ll see right through it. This is about more than a prophecy.”
She smoothed the salve over the long tear in my skin and heat blossomed from the area, followed by a wave of cool. The area tingled as the magic seeped deeper to knit me back together.
“We need a witch. Some people…”Now or never, right?“Some people think I’m the one prophesied about. But my powers are blocked. I need someone to help unblock them. Someone who could help us accomplish two things at once.”
