My right leg twisted beneath me as I hit the ground. I cried out. As I tried to straighten my leg, my knee screamed in pain. Black spots danced across my vision. I gritted my teeth.
"What happened?" Kyton shouted, rushing to my side. He looked from the fallen ladder to my twisted leg. He gingerly touched my leg, and pain shot down my calf.
Hissing, I shoved him back. The pain in my leg dulled to a steady throbbing. What was I going to do about it? If my parents figured out I got hurt, they would want to take me to a hospital, but Grandma would want to heal me with magic. Cue World War Three. Maybe Kyton could heal it right here, and no one would have to know I got hurt.
"Can you heal it?" I asked.
Kyton shook his head. "I'm a sprite, not a pixie--but I can carry you inside." He slipped his arms under my legs and back. As he stood, he painfully jostled my leg.
That wasn't even the worst of it. He was much too close to me, and his cool magic fogged my thoughts. My mouth watered. If I just twisted a little bit, I could sink my fangs into his-
"Put me down," I shouted.
Obviously surprised, he dropped me. I landed on my tailbone, and I could've sworn something snapped. Great, now my rear hurt as much as my leg.
"Sorry." Kyton started crouching next to me, but I waved him away.
Gritting my teeth, I said, "Go get help."
"I'll be back in a-"
The little phoenix dove off the rafter with an ear-piercing screech. She landed on my bad knee with enough force to make me yelp. Chirping furiously, she raised her wings over her head and glared at Kyton. He pushed up his glasses and chirped back at her.
Why wasn't he talking in English like he had with Starling? Duh, Starling was a bonded familiar. She'd learned English from Grandpa. A wild phoenix like this wouldn't know our language.
The phoenix jumped up and down on my knee, shaking her wings. Electric blue flames leapt from every single one of her feathers. Her claws dug into my knee, and even her minimal weight made the pain worse. Not to mention, catching on fire was the last thing I needed right now.
Kyton reached out his hand, chirping in a confrontational sort of way. The phoenix shrieked and bit his finger so hard it bled. He yanked his hand back.
I tried to shoo her away without getting within biting range. "I was just going to move you to another nest. I swear, I wasn't going to hurt you or anything."
She paused, head cocked. With an unnatural shudder, she dissolved into a pile of ash.
"Prip," Kyton cursed. He sifted through the ashes on my leg to reveal a ruby-red egg half the size of a chicken egg. Muttering under his breath, he tucked it in his pocket. "I'll fix this, I swear." Without another word, he jumped to his feet and ran out of the stable.
What the heck was he planning on fixing, the egg of the crazy phoenix who'd tried to catch me on fire? What about my leg? I brushed off the ashes. The knee of my pants was charcoal black, but my actual knee felt fine. Better than fine--it felt like I'd never fallen on it.
Keeping most of my weight on my left leg, I stood and carefully tested my right leg. It didn't even twinge. How- The phoenix, of course. She'd healed me for some reason. Maybe she wasn't as crazy or angry as I'd thought. As strange as it seemed, she might have felt bad for distracting me and making me fall.
Either way, something told me Kyton knew the answer.
***
I found Kyton in the kitchen, standing by the stove. He had one of the gas burners going, but the metal grill over the burner was missing. Something sat in the middle of the exposed blue flames, cooing happily. Barely larger than a cherry tomato, it looked like a tiny version of an uncooked chicken.
"Is that the phoenix? What'd you do to her?"
Kyton jumped and shielded the little bird from view with his hand. "Keep your voice down. M-a-g-i-c is off limits for you, remember?"
"Did you seriously just spell-" I shook my head. "Never mind. How do you even know about my restrictions? Wait, let me guess--Grandpa told you?"
He nodded.
"Well, Eva already healed my leg and turned into a pile of ash in front of me, so I think telling me why she looks like a naked chicken couldn't make things much worse."
"Eva?" He raised his eyebrows.
I gestured at the phoenix. "Yeah, E-" The reason for his question became obviously clear. How did I know the phoenix's name? It had just popped into my head when I thought about her. She must've told me somehow. But it wasn't as if she could talk out loud like Jack, and I hadn't taken any type of potion or cast a spell to let me understand magical animals. The only way I could have talked to her was if-
I palmed my forehead. "Prip."
"Prip is right." Kyton swallowed audibly. "I tried to undo the connection by taking her away, but it doesn't look like it worked. Sorry, I don't know a lot about familiars."
"She's not my familiar." I glanced at the door, worried Mom might appear at the mention of me getting a familiar. "I can't have a you-know-what right now. My parents would murder me. My grandparents would probably help, since I couldn't go ten minutes without breaking my word."
He placed a hand on my arm. "It's not your fault. They'll understand."
Maybe they would. It wasn't like I'd been looking for a familiar. Eva had chosen me all on her own, and I hadn't known enough about what was going on to stop her. Grandma told me once that bonding with a familiar involved a transfer of magic, but I'd thought it had to be something big, something both parties took part in. I hadn't done anything. I hadn't even told Eva I wanted a familiar.
"What's wrong with that phoenix?" I threw my arms up. "I didn't ask for a you-know-what, and if my parents find out-" There wasn't any point in talking about it. Kyton couldn't fix my problem, and from the sound of what Grandma had said, he had plenty of problems of his own to worry about. "Forget about it." I would just have to take care of Eva on my own.
Eva stopped cooing. Her overly large head wobbled as she raised it to look at me. Well, "look" wasn't exactly the right word. Her eyes were closed and looked dark purple, but she almost seemed to see me anyway. Images and emotions flowed from her to me, conveying a question. After a second, the question formed itself into words I could understand.
What mean? Memories of sounds--no, thoughts--echoed through my mind. They were my thoughts, in my voice. I would just have to take care of Eva on my own.
Great, now she could read my thoughts like a real familiar. And I was hearing hers as well. I had to stop this before it was too late. Breaking a new familiar bond was easy enough if both the witch and the familiar wanted to break it.
I can't have a familiar, I thought. Undo our bond.
No. She bobbed her head, and a thin layer of reddish feathers spread from the base of her beak to the tip of her tail. She looked a little bigger, too. Not any more cooperative, though.
I crossed my arms. What do you mean, no? Why in the world would she want to bond to a witch she'd never seen before? It wasn't like I'd been taking care of her or helping her or anything.
Like Lizzy. Wanna keep Lizzy.
This was bad. Breaking a familiar bond when the familiar didn't want to could cause serious brain damage. Lizzy? I scowled. You mean Lilly?
She opened her eyes. Mean Lizzy, Lizzy lizard, lizard Lizzy.
She must've lost a few IQ points when she turned into an egg. Lilies had nothing to do with lizards, and my name wasn't even technically "Lilly." It was Lillith. Either she'd read my thoughts wrong, or she was just insulting me for the fun of it.
You can't just keep me because you want to. I don't want to keep you, so break the bond.
No wanna. She grew a little larger, almost as big as she'd been before she got egg-ified. Her feathers became thicker and brighter. Wanna fun Lizzy.
What does that even mean? Familiars were supposed to be easy to understand. What was wrong with her?
She cocked her head. Lizzy fun, me fun. Fly, eat yum-yum, chase buzzy. She bumped her head against Kyton's hand. Buzzy bug. Big buzzy bug.
I glanced at Kyton. He obviously understood what Eva was saying, because he shrugged one shoulder awkwardly.
"I've been called worse."
Turning my attention back to Eva, I asked, You can see through his glamour?
Yah.
If that was true, why had she called me a lizard? It wasn't like I was wearing any glamour. Of course I wasn't; glamour was totally different from the illusions witches casted. Witch illusions made something almost tangible, something that everyone around could see or hear. Even cameras could record them.
Glamour was invisible to cameras because it actually affected the minds of everyone around the caster, making them think they saw or felt or heard something. There was no way I could be casting a glamour right now.
I shook my head. Eva was just a misguided little phoenix chick who didn't know what was good for her. If she did, she wouldn't be so insistent on bonding with a witch who didn't want her. I thought about a wall around my mind, trying to block Eva from looking through it.
She chirped curiously. Why hide?
I opened a small hole in the wall to let out my thought messages. No reason. Hey, how about we go find you a new nest, one even better than your old one? A nest far, far away from me and my parents.
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