“She… She said the child would be deformed, and that to avoid it I had to give her something. Something dear to me. She didn’t say what it was, and I know I should have refused, but Clarissa, I was so desperate! She had enchanted the clearing, too, I think… To make your emotions stronger, you know? So the despair was too hard to bear for me, and I accepted. Then I realized there is nothing dearer to my heart than this village and its inhabitants…”

That fay had to pay for this, using a poor woman’s fears against her was a disgusting thing to do. And I’m a cat, this is the sort of things we are known to do! I hugged the children close, breathing in their smells, and activated the magic item that Clarissa had put around my neck. It would transfer their disease to me. The panda-me could handle it without any problem, as long as it was only for these tiny humans. I didn’t like it one bit, though.

“I will see what I can do. But I will need 2 things: first, you have to promise me never to seek magical aid from anyone but a witch ever again. Second, where is that fay?” Clarissa’s eyes were burning, her fingers emitting tiny lightning bolts. The promise she was asking could never be broken, and Cyclamen couldn’t lie about the location of that despicable fay. With tears in her eyes and gratitude on all of her being, she gave my witch what she asked. Clarissa nodded, gave her a broth to take twice a day, and motioned for me to follow her outside. We were going to kick some ass, and that creature didn’t know what was coming. Good.

“Milk, we are going to need some stealth on this one. I have heard of this one before, she has been around for quite a while, and she’s a tough one.”

The only way we had found to turn me back into my gracious cat form was to, very ungraciously, tickle my nose with a feather filled with fairy dust. Clarissa kept that particular feather in a separate place so as to not contaminate the other ones. Fairy dust is a horror to clean up, it sticks everywhere, and even a witch’s broom can’t quite take it off.

Once the transformation was done, my witch took a deep breath and performed that weird incantation dance that activated her chameleon skills. We were both as stealthy and discreet as we were going to get, and after a quick nod we set out to the forest and the Fay’s clearing.

The air was getting chilly as we got closer to our destination, the birds more silent, the trees oddly twisted, as if they wanted to get away from whatever was there. This was uncommon, even for a Fay: they were not usually bad enough to scare a whole forest. I looked at my friend, quietly signalling that something was really not right here. She had felt it too.

I climbed on the nearest tree, trying to find a small animal to ask for explanation, but there was none. We were almost at the edge of the clearing, and silence was deafening. I jumped from branch to branch, getting as close as I dared, and allowed Clarissa to look through my eyes. Yes, she could do that. Every witch can look through her familiar’s eyes, that is basic knowledge!

What we saw took our breath away, and not in the good sense. The clearing was engulfed in a dark aura, almost as dense as smoke. The nearby trees were distorted, the grass burnt, and there was a black and pink tent in the middle of this all, from which an acrid smell emanated. Pink magic. This was worse than we thought.

We retreated as fast and as silently as we could, running like the wind as soon as we were far enough from the accursed clearing, our breathing hard and our minds set on panic mode. We were going to need some help for this. And there weren’t that many options…

“Milk…” Clarissa was completely out of breath, her camouflage magic gone, her feathers ruffled, her hair sticking out everywhere. “I hate to say this, but… Call on the Convent. I need my sisters and their experience. Yes, their familiars too. Go fetch them as soon as you have recovered your breath, I’ll go and warn the villagers.”