Chương 9: Episode Two Hundred and Fifty-Three: Charms & Moods

A charm, like you would attach to a bracelet, finished appearing in my palm, shaped like a battery. Except, this one looked like a physical manifestation of the battery icon on my laptop, just with a clip on one end. I turned it to the side and stopped laughing when I saw the level. Maybe about ten percent of the entire thing was lit up.

"That's not good." Yet, as I watched, it increased a little.

"That's the connection between me and the shop right now," said the Cat, studying the charm.

"It will help refill over time, slowly, but once I leave, it stops."

"What about the doorway to your domain?" I asked, unsure of what I felt from the cat-door when it was closed.

"I can feel the magic coming in from that." The Cat blinked, then turned to the windows.

"I'm unsure how magic could be flowing from there to here, but I believe you. Your connection to the shop is unique." The connection to my magic twinged a little, but not in a bad way. More like Betty was expressing concern.

"Unique doesn't mean bad," I said carefully.

"Just something new." The twinge went away. The Cat nodded sharply, after staring at me for a second.

"Let's first focus on how to put a shield between you and your connection to Betty." I didn't like the sound of that. Neither did Betty, based on the first cool sensation that I'd ever felt rising from the couch.

"Can't I just ask Betty to stop?" I held up the charm, which I awkwardly attached to my bracelet using my non-dominant hand. It snapped into place, and the bond between the two of us suddenly thickened.

"With this, I can see where the energy levels are at. If I need to use my magic to find us a place where we can pick up items from the list, then Betty can hold off on pulling energy from me." The Cat looked like I'd stolen his coffee.

"That is a method, I guess…" Obviously, not the method that he would have chosen. Then again, everything I'd read seemed to agree that Fey Lords liked control. It was part of why they didn't like Dragons much.

"I'd rather this be a joint conversation with Betty, than me being the one making all of the choices," I said very carefully.

"Betty has been deciding on places that things need to be done for a while now. I trust that the shop knows what needs to be done." The Cat shook his head, but then stopped, and let out a sigh.

"The book started failing me long before I was comfortable admitting it."

"The shop picked up that slack," I said.

"I'm not sure…" My sentence trailed off as impressions rippled through the increased bond between Betty and I. An image of a golden wave of magic coming off me, then reaching beyond the shop. It continued outward into nothingness, as the walls of the shop vanished. Thin threads formed and reached farther out. I blinked as the image vanished.

"Not sure about what?" asked the Cat, his whiskers twitching. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. He didn't see it. The image. Betty had sent me an image through our connection. Or maybe it was a memory. Was that how the shop 'saw' things? Swallowing, I pushed those questions away and focused on my magic.

"Wait, are you saying when I used my thread seeking you took notes?" I asked the shop quietly. The Cat blinked a few times at me. Confirmation rose from underneath me. The Cat's head snapped to the couch.

"See? It was a team effort." I smiled at the Cat.

"We can do this together, we just need to charge Betty up a little." The Cat glanced between the couch and me several times. At least I hoped it was true. I didn't know how much magic it actually took Betty to travel when we needed to. Or to shift the shop into the correct form. All of those were open questions that I'd need to take my own notes on the next time we arrived somewhere. With the charm, that information should be easier to come by.

The Cat opened his mouth again, then snapped it shut as he jumped from the couch to the coffee table.

"Do you know where to go, then?" The magic within the shop rippled. The yank on my magic took my breath away as something changed outside of my view. Every bit of fur on the Cat fluffed out in all directions, and a bit of a cry escaped him.

"Cat?" I asked quietly, reaching out to him.

"That was unpleasant…" His eyes suddenly widened, and he raced out of the room after jumping over the side of the couch. I quickly shot up and followed him out of the room. I almost tripped over him just outside the archway to the living room, since he stood staring at the cat door, which still led to his domain.

"It's still here…" His voice barely came out. I picked him up before I really thought about it.

"Of course it is. You aren't stuck here anymore." His entire body trembled. The light coming in from the skylight dimmed ever so slightly.

"Betty, he will be fine, the sudden change just scared him a little." Chirping rose from below as Indigo shot over the railing and hovered in the air once she saw us.

"What happened?" I peeked over the railing and found the shop the same as it was before. Yet, the view outside the windows was different. Everything was different from gray. Now, there was a street, and movement.

"Betty moved us to a new location," I said with a smile. The Cat breathed heavily near my ear, as I held him.

"That was rough," she said, looking at us, then at the front door.

"You need to practice your magic more…" I had nothing to say to that as she shot out of view, flying back to her hideaway. As soon as she vanished out of sight, a slight chuckle escaped me. Within a few seconds, more laughter came out.

"From the mouths of dragons," muttered the Cat.

"A little one, at that," I added, shaking my head. I lifted my wrist to glance at my bracelet, but the Cat twisted in my arms and landed on his feet.

"That was a bad shift," he said without holding back.

"It shouldn't be like that." The bond between Betty and I trembled a little.

"We'll figure it out over time," I said with full confidence. The little charm showed that at least half of the small amount Betty had had been used with that shift.

"I think you have some practice to do," said the Cat, echoing Indigo as he took a single step toward the small Cat door.

"Sounds like a plan," I said with a smile. # I needed to leave. Carefully. Each step brought me closer to my domain, then I stepped through the tiny door. Power washed over me, and the uncertainty pulsing through me dissapeared. My form vanished as I became one with my domain, searching every bit of myself for what Sable had mentioned. If she said she felt magic coming through the door, I'd find it. I wouldn't make the same mistake twice. I trusted her.

Even when the line connecting me to the shop had shuddered and almost torn. Family mattered. Even when it was hard. She had taught me that.