Hushed Willows black in the magic, beauty in the tragic

Three puppies! Three puppies — and Catori was safe!

Coelacanth had predicted a litter of two — a tidy pair of souls tied together with an indelible ampersand, like so: Catori&Chelan, Amoxtli&Coelacanth, blended together and spilled in the same breath — but the number three had an equally special place in her heart. Three was Szymon and Doe’s number: Julep, Isengrim, and Qilaq…and when Qilaq grew, Julep, Isengrim, and Moorhen.

“Why have you left the isle? To visit Catori?”

There it was again, that ugly, skin-prickling feeling of revulsion.

Seelie focused on the less embarrassing reason for her ill-planned exodus from Wheeling Gull Isle, puzzling out how to explain it with an inquisitive tilt of her own head. “Um,” she said, deliberately using Moorhen’s thinking-word. It didn’t fall naturally from her lips, but it probably would in time. For now, she used it as a stalling device. “Feel…” she breathed, searching for the words that might encompass the prickling of the summer sun when it was at its highest and hottest, dancing needles over her spine — or the feeling of restless wanderlust that was her heritage, turned up to a pitch she couldn’t seem to ignore. Her brow knitted as her lips shaped indecipherable whispers — she was looking for words, but they didn’t come. The thing was, this wasn’t a bad feeling, necessarily. Just…a tickly, feverish, jittery one. A longing for something nameless.

I want…I need…

“Feel…range,” she whispered at last, working on the second word. “Srrrange. Odd.”

Oh! “No sick!” she interjected before he could speak, hoping that she was telling the truth and that she wouldn’t jeopardize her chance of seeing the newest generation of Cortens. Her tufted ears drooped in the next millisecond, though. Maybe she was sick. She’d certainly never experienced anything like this before. Whining plaintively, she turned luminous cerulean eyes up at the bourbon-and-whiskey male — my, he was handsome! — and piped up feebly. “Worry, Catori.”

Handsome…and sturdy. Coelacanth made to touch her nose to the corner of his jaw.