“As I said, you really shouldn’t have come in here.”
Before Odessa could respond, he lunged forward, grabbing her shoulder with his free hand and shoving the ball of magic into her chest. Pain ripped through her bones as she fell to her knees with a cry. Her vision blurred, and for the next few moments all she could do was try to breathe through the fiery agony that felt as if it were tearing her body apart from the inside out.
When the pain finally receded, she looked up, blinking out of eyes that felt strange and unfocused. Her father frowned at her.
No. Boris. He’s not my father anymore.
“That’s unfortunate,” he muttered to himself. “But not unmanageable.”
She opened her mouth to answer but surprised herself when only a loud honk came out of her mouth.
“Don’t try to speak,” Boris tutted, crouching down to put himself closer to eye level. “Swans simply don’t have the vocal structure for it. And just to clear up any misunderstandings you might have—you won’t be able to speak of this to anyone, so don’t even try.”
Odessa took deep, shuddering breaths, trying to ease the panic that was quickly taking over her system.
I can fix this. All curses can be broken.
Boris’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course they can.”
How are you hearing my thoughts?
“The blood bond between us must be amplified by the magic. You’ll have to stop thinking quite so loudly if you don’t want me to hear you. But to confirm, yes, all curses can be broken. I’ll even give you the solution to this one: in order to break this curse, a male who has never loved before must pledge his undying devotion to you.”
“And you’re so certain that just because you’ve obviously never loved me, no one else will?”
Dark emotions flashed in his eyes for a moment, too fast for her to identify them. The muscle along his jaw twitched again. “You’re highly loveable, darling. What you aren’t anymore is noticeable. Swans are decorative—a part of a lovely background but not a creature sought after for the sake of interaction. At most, eyes will simply pass over you. If they do stop, it will be to admire the graceful way you glide across the water and nothing more.”
He stood, brushing his hands together as if ridding them of phantom dirt. “No one will take an interest in a swan.”
Chapter One
JAX
“I’m vine. This is vine. Everything is vine.”
Jax’s laughter at his own joke was pinched and only slightly hysterical as he clutched the thick vines with a white-knuckled grip. The toe of one foot slipped off a narrow foothold, leaving him hanging precariously for a moment over the sharp rocks twenty feet below.
In the uphill battle between Jax and the Beanstalk, the Beanstalk was winning.
“‘Trust the wizard,’ they said,” he muttered through clenched teeth as his feet scrambled for stable purchase. Once he was confident that the rocks under his boots would hold him, he relaxed enough to continue his vertical ascent up the narrow space in the cliffside. The thick, hardy vines that acted as ropes were the only reason the passage was climbable at all, and Jax still wasn’t certain that it would lead to anywhere remotely inhabitable. “‘The wizard won’t steer you wrong.’ Right. He’ll just steal my egg and steer me right up a cliff.”
His arms and shoulders burned with effort despite his best attempts to use his legs to support his weight. “I don’t understand. Do wizards train for climbing mountains? The man has to be at least a thousand years old. Does he have wings? Maybe he’s actually part bird. Which is great for me,” he grunted as the distance between viable footholds meant he had to pull himself up hand over hand to the next one. “Being a Bird Catcher and all. It means I’ll find him, and I’ll finally get my egg back.”
At last, after what felt like an eternity, he reached the top and dragged himself over the edge. He flopped onto his back, blinking up at the clear blue of the afternoon sky as he stretched out his trembling limbs and breathed deeply to fill his burning lungs. “That’s the last time I climb a cliff,” he announced for any living thing that might be listening. “Except for the way down, of course, but then we’ll have gravity working in our favor.”
After a few long moments, he pushed himself up to standing and adjusted the wide strap of his leather satchel on his shoulder. He turned away from the cliffside, taking in the lay of the land. The gently sloped ground at his feet was covered in short, hardy grass dotted with wildflowers and it led up and away to a line of some kind of fruit trees—peach, he guessed, though it was hard to tell from such a distance. Beyond the trees he could see the rooftop of a large manor house with gray stone walls and a turreted tower, more castle-like than any place he had ever called home. The trees were thicker to his left, hiding a second, lower building in the dense foliage.
Jax closed his eyes and breathed deeply, quieting his mind and listening for the faint strains of magic that he had followed all the way from his home Court in Faerie. The birdsong was weaker here, as if he were listening underwater or through a heavy wooden door, and he had to strain his ears to identify the particular magic he was searching for.
The bright, fiery music was layered and complex, with syncopated rhythms over a low, simmering bass that hinted at dynamic power that had yet to be realized. The melodic range was subdued, with a chord progression that looped in an endless circle. It was still the same as the first time he had heard it, which was a small comfort, at least, as it meant the egg had yet to hatch.
The last thing he needed was to try to climb down the cliff with a baby dragon in tow.
He opened his eyes slowly, keeping them slightly out of focus to allow his magical senses to identify the dim, fading stream of sparkling orange light that trailed away into the trees. If he were home in Faerie, the magic would be vibrant and unmistakable, but there was something about the air here in the human realm that diluted magic.
“I don’t know what that wizard was thinking, but the sooner I can get that egg and go home, the better,” he muttered. “I feel like I’m walking around with feather pillows strapped over my ears.”
He followed the dragon song through the trees, eventually giving up on following the light and relying on his ears after tripping over the blurry ground for the third time. It led him through the straight, even rows of an orchard, across an open yard, and to the second building he had seen, which, by the smell and sound of it, seemed to be some combination of a barn and a chicken coop.
