The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [154]
They met halfway between the nest and where I stood, and I couldn’t help but feel a stab close to my heart when Cal threw his arms around his mother.
I wouldn’t get the chance to do the same with Nerissa. I wouldn’t ever see Conrad again.
The pups bounded forward from the doors and windows of the jitney, chattering to Cal and Toby and, thankfully, ignoring Dean and me.
Toby laid his hands on the heads of the two smallest and growled gently, shaking them by their scruffs. The rest mobbed Cal, climbing up his legs and into his arms, demanding to know where he’d been and if he’d brought them presents from aboveground.
Cal and Toby’s mother turned her eyes on Dean and me while Cal roughhoused with the pups.
“Does some kind soul wish to tell me why there is live meat at my door?”
Dean stepped forward and extended his hand. “Dean Harrison, ma’am.”
Cal’s mother snarled at his fingers, and Dean snapped his hand out of range. I felt my eyes widen at the sight and size of her teeth.
“Erlkin,” she snarled. “We’ll have none of your trickery here.”
“No, ma’am,” Dean assured her, eyes the size of quarters. The crone humphed, and picked up her stick once more, jabbing it at me.
“A female, young … you’re the bag of bones my boy was taken and tortured over.”
My knees knocked at her cut-glass gaze. Her eyes were the same color as Cal’s but sharper, tempered with anger and more sights of the hard world. “Yes,” I said quietly. “I suppose I am. My name’s Aoife Grayson.”
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn what your name is, meat,” she croaked, reaching up to pinch my arm. Her claws dug into my skin. “You’re barely fit for a cook pot, never mind my boy’s life.”
“Mother …” Cal shifted in place.
“I’m sorry that Draven took Cal away from you,” I said. “But we’ve helped each other get free of him, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.” I stiffened my spine against the next words, which I could hardly believe flew out in the face of something that could tear me limb from limb. “If you don’t like it, I suggest you ask your son about me.”
“Carver, what foolishness is she spouting?” Cal’s mother demanded, jabbing one clawed finger at me. There was something dark and crusted at the end of her talon.
“The Proctors want to burn me,” I elucidated. “The Kindly Folk have threatened to kill me, and I may or may not be going mad inside of a week. So if it pleases you …” I paused and waited for her name.
“Reason.” She spat it at me, with a hiss on the end.
“If it pleases you, Reason, I’m here to fulfill my duty to my father and my friends and then accept whatever fate is mine, and being called names and threatened is, frankly, nothing new.”
Cal’s mother looked me up and down, a pale white tongue flicking over her spotted lips. I didn’t know if she was about to slap me or eat me, but I stood fast.
“You’re still meat,” she said at last, and then tapped Cal on the leg with her cane. “But for the life of my son, you gain yours.” She put her teeth away, her grimace becoming something marginally less terrifying. “Bring them inside, Carver. Who taught you manners?”
“You did,” Cal shot back. Reason gave him a quick box on the ear, and when Cal hissed in pain her smile vanished.
“You’re hurt,” she exclaimed.
“It’s my fault,” I piped up. “The Proctors said they wanted information. But I really think Draven just paid him back for not stopping me soon enough.”
Reason glared at me over the top of Cal’s head. “You think that you’re special, little girl? You have something extra the other meatbags don’t?”
“I have a task,” I said quietly. “And I’m sorry that Cal got caught up in it, but he was protecting me. You can be proud of him for that.”
Reason put her arm around Cal and drew him away from me. “I don’t need to hear from human meat that my boy is a good boy. I know it.”
They disappeared into the nest, and Toby followed them. “You can wait with me,” he grumbled. “Cal’s the baby of our litter. Mother fusses, but he’ll be fine soon enough.”
I ducked my head to fit into the door of the nest, the scent of burnt meat and wood smoke filling