Author: Tammy Falkner
Category: Fantasy
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/47688_12
“I’d do just about anything for you,” he said quietly.
“I don’t want anything from you.” Her eyes stung with unshed tears, but she refused to let them fall. She wouldn’t let her parents make her weak, not under any circumstances. He must have sensed her distress because he grunted and got to his feet.
“When you’re ready to talk, we’ll be here,” he said, and then he called out to Lady Ramsdale for her to wait.
“That’s most unfortunate,” she called to his retreating back.
He turned back to look at Claire for a moment. “I’m not certain if you get your bullheadedness from me or your mother,” he remarked. He looked much too pleased at the thought.
How the devil could he think she’d gotten anything from either one of them? Neither of them had raised her. They hadn’t been involved in the rearing of their fae children. None of them—Claire, Sophia, or Marcus—had the benefit of parents at any point during their young lives. Yet Sophia and Marcus had opened their arms to their parents. Claire couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she called to his retreating back. He raised a hand and waved at her without even looking back. Blast him. He had the ear of the Trusted Few, the governing body of their land. Why her people had welcomed him with open arms, Claire didn’t understand.
She needed to escape the land of the fae, if for no other reason than to get away from her parents. To avoid their wounded looks. To avoid the need in their eyes. But to do so, she’d have to bribe the fish who guarded the portal to the land of the fae. And the only thing the fish, or fallen fae who were sentenced to guard the portal, coveted more than their freedom was men’s clothing. She had none to spare. Claire got to her feet and started toward home. With the absence of magic, she had very little left to occupy her. So, she went to the library to find a book to read.
She turned the pages of Claudine but didn’t feel herself falling headfirst into the pages. Not at all. She placed the book back on the shelf. What was a faerie to do when there was nothing to occupy oneself? No magic to perform? No dust to settle. Nothing to do. She yawned into her cupped hand.
Margaret, the family’s house faerie, barreled around the corner, almost knocking her over. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Claire asked.
“Your grandmother has gotten it into her head that she needs to find your mother’s baby blanket for Sophia.”
Of course she wanted that. Sophia was expecting her first child. No one was certain if the baby would be born fae or not. They wouldn’t know until they saw the pointy ears of a newborn faerie.
“Have you seen it?” Margaret asked.
“Seen what?” Claire shook her head, trying to shake the lethargy from herself like a dog shakes water from its back. She’d been so tired lately.
Margaret snapped her fingers. “The blanket.”
“Maybe in the attic?” Claire tried.
Margaret got a gleam in her eye. “Will you go and check for me?”
Claire heaved a sigh. “Certainly.” If she must, she would go.
“Come and get me when you find it?”
On a normal day, she would just use magic to notify Margaret. But she had no magic. “Shall I shout for you?”
Margaret raised a condescending brow. “If you must.”
She must. There was no other way to get things done. Not with her magic locked in the family safe. And Marcus had the only key.
Claire ducked beneath the cobwebs that crisscrossed the doorway into the attic. The spiders would be perturbed if she messed up their handiwork and wou
ld probably refuse to knit for her. Finicky little beings. She saw a trunk in the corner and lowered herself to her knees before it. She slowly opened the lid, sneezing quickly as dust tickled her nose. Claire looked inside and there lay the small quilted blanket that all the Thorne children had used in the nursery. It was threadbare and well loved, but she was certain Sophia wanted it more for sentimental reasons than anything else.
Claire pulled the blanket from the chest and shook it lightly. It would have to be laundered, she was certain, but small sparks fell from the blanket, burning like fire until they petered out before hitting the floor. Magic dust? She shook the blanket again. More sparks fell from the blanket, and a stick clattered to the floor. Claire snorted to herself. Of course, there would be faerie dust in the blanket, but not enough to do her any good.
She kicked the stick with the toe of her slipper. But then she froze. She bent over it and stared. Claire hadn’t seen the paintbrush in years. She’d gotten into so much trouble with it that her grandparents had taken it away from her, never to be returned.
As she watched the last of the small sparks die, a soft mist began to cloud the floor and swirl around her feet. Claire rustled the folds of her dress to shoo it on its way. But the movement stirred the air just enough to reveal a small painting set in the corner of the room. It was a painting of a door.
The door was no more than four inches in height. The painting looked ancient, like it had been tucked in the corner of the attic for a number of years. Yet, Claire was almost certain it hadn’t been there just a moment ago.
She lowered herself to her knees and wiped away the cobwebs that covered the small painting, hoping the spiders would not be too terribly miffed with her. The door had a tiny brass knocker and a small window, but Claire couldn’t get down low enough to look through it. Not in her human size. She shrank herself to her faerie height—one good for sliding under doors and through keyholes, and for completing missions—and stood before the small opening. She didn’t need magic dust to grow and shrink, as that was inherent to her being fae. She’d eschewed magic, but her curiosity over the paintbrush and the painting were winning over her temper-fit.
Her short skirts fluttered around her knees, and the mist tickled her naked legs. She stood on tiptoe and looked through the tiny window. With the paintbrush in her hand, she could see the door in the painting as if it were real. But all she could see through the door’s tiny window was a shadowed room with a crackling fire in the hearth. It looked fairly harmless. What danger could possibly be lurking in such an average room? She would take a quick peek into the room and then come straight back if anything nefarious lurked in the shadows.