I had to force myself not to look at the wendigo delusion. “Gregor Cole was a very ill man. He told me he believed he was a wendigo, and that by eating things of power, he would grow to be unstoppable.”
Gasps of outrage came from observers.
“He was a wendigo?”
“That's not what I said.” I gripped my fingers together tight, trying to bring warmth back to them. “I said he told me that he believed he was a wendigo.”
“Was he?”
Yes.
The wendigo in my Veridad hallucination leered, daring me to answer the truth.
I licked my lips. “I do know I was terrified of him, and that he attacked me. He would not allow me to leave freely. He was stronger than me. But I do not know what a wendigo is. I have not seen one before he claimed to be one. So I cannot say if he was or wasn't a wendigo. All I know was he claimed he wanted to kill me, and what is wrong with distracting him so I could get away?” My hands were shaking. “It was only an illusion. Nothing more.”
The wendigo slammed a book on the podium before me and said in the lawyer's booming voice, “Then why are you so pale?”
“The Veridad gave a bad reaction this time.”
The wendigo snarled. The magic dampeners prevented me from touching my magic. It was all I could do to fight the scales itching to form beneath my skin.
“Fera, wake up. You're shifting. There isn't enough room in here.”
I jumped awake, opened my eyes to see the faint outline of Mordon's frizzled hair against a very dark backdrop. Scales itched up and down my legs. I could hear my heart in my ears. Then I felt the painful press of wings forming against an unusual bed.
Just fantastic. I truly was shifting. What would Mordon think of this?
I rolled onto my side, shaking my shoulders to free the tiny nubs of wings. “This is embarrassing.”
I had a lisp, too. Fangs had grown in. My cheeks heated.
“Have you shifted in the night before?” He levered himself upright, pulled me into a warm hug, and ran his knuckles down my spine. It stirred delicious tingling sensations all the way to my now-talons. “There's nothing to be ashamed of. I would simply like to know.”
“No, this is the first time.” My lisp was gone already. “Are you...are you doing something to me? I'm going human fast.”
He nodded. “I'm soothing. There are several ways to ease a shift. Do you wish for me to stop?”
“No, it's fine. Just a bit different. It feels a little like when your leg goes to sleep.”
He nuzzled my check and breathed in deeply. “Tell me what frightened you.”
“It was nothing. A dream.”
“Please.”
Wow, that was a word I seldom heard come out of his mouth. He may be polite often enough, but when was the last time I heard him use the magic word? In my sleepy state, I couldn't recall a single time.
Plus, what did it hurt?
“I told you about my last questioning in court.”
“Yes. You did fine. Was there more?”
I hesitated. “That time, the Veridad spell had an adverse reaction.”
“Waking terrors?”
“Exactly. I saw Gregor Cole as the wendigo. He was in the prosecutor's chair at first, and then the opposing lawyer became a wendigo. I don't know, it doesn't sound so scary.”
“It's enough. I have seen people terrified to the point of mental breakdown when confronted with a romance novel.”
I smiled. “They certainly can be appalling reads.”
He held me a little closer. I shivered, suddenly cold in the absence of scales. A blanket surrounded me, then Mordon was back to soothing by stroking my back, humming a soft tune under his breath.
I began to feel hazy. I struggled to say, “I thought I wasn't one of those people.”
“Hmm?”
“I thought I wasn't one of the people who reacted badly. My lawyer said so.”
“That is because you are not one of those people. The man who attacked you had some hallucinogenic substance beneath his nails when he scratched you.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I had waking terrors, too. They had to put me into solitary confinement until the drug wore off.”
I blinked. “What? No one told me.”
“It caused no harm in the end. It was intended to for you.”
“Why bother? He wanted me dead, not wonky.”
“It was very toxic. Lethal for human or fey. You were partially shifted, which thickened your skin and hindered the delivery of the drug.”
“Ah.”
“The substance did not enter your body as needed for it to take full effect. Thus, you were left with mild hallucinations as your body encountered the poison.”
I shuddered. “Fun stuff.”
“Had I known then about the toxin...”
“Mordon?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to let you know, I'd break you out of prison.”
A deep, rich chuckle vibrated under my ear. “The dungeons are impossible to escape from.”
“That means nobody has done it yet, that's all.”
He relaxed. “I love that about you. You always know how to break the impossible.”
Before I could respond, he drew me into a kiss to end the discussion.
Chapter Twenty
I awoke to dawn sending pink and yellow bolts of light through the windows woven into the blackberry roof. Yawning, I stretched my neck and favored a shoulder with the knot in it, wondering what I would do now that I was in the midst of the feys. Mordon had left me with a soft, almost cashmere-like garment draped about my waist. Holding it up, I realized it was a dress, though I had a difficult time deciding which end was the top, and if it had armholes or not. There were no hems, no stitches, and the layers ended in random edges, each scrap stacked on the rest until it was tea length and rather voluminous. I put my hand on the underside, and checked to see if the material would show through. I couldn't tell in this light.
To think…I had been embarrassed to have Mordon see me in a formal ballgown. With a resigned sigh, I fidgeted with the fabric until I thought I found a neck hole, to be disappointed time and again. I was about to toss the thing into the prickles on the blackberry bushes when I heard an all-too-shrill and familiar giggle come from the doorway.
“Find out how it works yet?”
“Mother!” I said, spinning on my heel and tossing my arms about her shoulders.
She hugged me back, and we asked and answered the usual how-are-you-doing questions while Mother shook the garment this way and that, in the end holding a long-sleeve dress with a drape that covered up the ruffled skirt.
“That's better,” she said, letting her dark green eyes drift down the dress. She fussed over a wrinkle, long, tan eyelashes twitching with every movement of her eyes. Mother had sun-kissed skin and short hair the color of dark chocolate. It was my first time seeing her in a subdued color, her dress looked as though it had been stained with tea, and I saw that she was a beautiful woman. Her bright clothes of the human world distracted from her features, and I could understand why she chose orange and purple zebra stripes now: if she wore anything too plain, it would be immediately obvious she was not wholly human. Clearly, I had inherited my coloring from Father: gray eyes, blondish hair, pale skin. I also had his stout frame, but Mother's height—and a trace of her ethereal beauty.
“It's a wonder you got that so tangled. I'll have to trim down on my morning rituals if you need help so early.” She held the dress out to me.
I took it. Mother turned around. I rolled my eyes. Another dress I had to wear, no exceptions. And then I began to change into it, knowing that I would stand out more than enough just by being a new face.
“Your father said you are gifted with illusions. It's a pity you didn't get my green thumb, but then again, I think we all knew that from the start,” Mother said, breaching the subject as though she were talking about dahlias and her rose gard
en. “Your aunt Linnia will be so excited to see you again, it's been so very long, and you were so little. I always thought you two had a special connection.”
A pause. I wasn't sure what to say. I was caught with my arms over my head, struggling to find the opening at the top of the dress, and feeling a little panicked at the way my legs were currently exposed. Mother started talking again.
“I know you don't care for anything fancy, but that isn't any ordinary material. It's made from the silk from a cavern spider.”
“What?” I yanked the thing down by force, my hair seeking out my arms with static electricity. “I'm wearing something that came out of a spider's butt?”
Mother turned around again, tugging on my dress here and there.
“Nonsense. I educated you better than that. Silk comes from spinnerets.” She waved away my immediate response and continued, “Let me finish. This is special. With the right touch, you can change this into anything you want. Stretch it to make it longer, lay it flat to itself and smooth it out to 'cut' it. It is stronger than any other fiber. It is resistant to fire, wicks away water, and insulates you against heat and cold. If it tears, press it together again and it will mend. Yes, it is expensive, but Linnia and her husband manage the caverns so you need not mind that. The most important thing about this is that it is the illusionist's best tool. With a little suggestion, you can fit in anywhere and no one will be the wiser. Unless they're fey, but even at that, they had best be a better illusionist than you.”
As she explained what the spider silk could do, I played with the skirt, stretching it, folding it, smoothing it back down into the material, then pulling out a ruffle about my knees just to see if I could do it. I could.
“What did Father tell you?” I asked. With an eye to what Mother was wearing, I left the outer layers alone and sought out the under layers, pressing them against my legs in an attempt to make trousers. They ended up more like pantaloons out of some museum, but I felt much less feminine and more mobile, so I left them at that.
Mother watched me with the glaze over her eyes that she got whenever she was trying to remember. “He almost repeated your conversation word-for-word. You know him.”
A sneaking suspicion crept up on me. “Is Mordon with him?”
“He was eating half the pantry when I last saw him. You need to feed him more, he's starting to look a little thin,” Mother said, but the words were not as chastising as they sounded.
At the mention of food, my stomach rolled over and I gagged. Scarcely did I have time to put a hand to my stomach before I tasted sour, but by a force of deep breathing and a hot flash, I managed to smooth down my stomach before it made me wretch.
Mother's hand was between my shoulder blades. “Do you get ill often?”
The white flowers in the bushes faded to gray, and I sucked in another breath, wishing the air was cooler. “No, just…I haven't been feeling the same since before I came here. The headaches are gone, at least. I feel…I've got to sit.”
Sinking down into the grass helped me contain the swirl of dizziness, but not by a great deal. I focused on my breathing, taking it in and out, counting breaths. I kept losing track after nine or eight, and restarting. Mother ran me through a rambling quiz. How long have I felt 'off'? What do I feel? Is it constant? Does it come and go? Is it getting better or worse? Can I tell if there is a particular trigger? I gave glossy answers to all of them, because I didn't want to tell her the truth. I needed a lie to cling to, something which might be true, but what? Then, What happened before I decided to come?
The hearing.
“Could one of the spells at the hearing—or a combination of them—do something like this?” I asked.
Mother's frown was not encouraging, but she said, “Likely not. There were other people in attendance? While daring, the Coles would not be brave enough to try something like that in the public eye. Appearances matter very much to them. If they seem less than upset, I can assure you they have a plan in the works, but whatever it is, it did not happen at the hearing.” Mother's eyes brightened. “Speaking of planning, we must plan an illusion for you to perform.”
“Perform?” I repeated, startled out of my wits at being the center of attention again. “What would I have to perform for?”
“It is a contribution to the Illusion Library. Entertainment not just for the youths but also a source of inspiration for the woods and for those who have a particular challenge they must overcome. It has been our way since Morgana to add to the library, and no one is exempted from it. Why, some key members of society have cultivated a small library to themselves!”
“You mean I'm going to have to do this?” I bit my inner lip, wondering if it would be bad form to do a repeat of the illusion that I did for the Merlyn's Market sorcerers.
“Yes, even if it is something small,” Mother said. “But I would be disappointed in you to not be original. The Swift Clan has a respectable standing in the Library. Nothing too grand, mind, but it wouldn't do to do less than you're capable of.”
“And what sort of thing should I do?”
“People put all kinds of stress on the first illusion. That it should reflect personality and interests or be a significant contribution in some way. That can all come later. Though a good opening illusion does make a favorable impression, it is not needed. You just pick something suitable and please don't do another Morgana thing. There are too many as it is. And after Bialla's rendition sixty or so years ago—was it truly that long ago!—you are unlikely to perform better than that. Something original would be nice.”
I didn't point out that I had no idea what would be original when I hadn't seen the contents of the Library. So I changed the subject. “You said Mordon was eating. Have you been introduced to him yet?”
“Not yet.”
“How about having breakfast with us, then?”
Mother smiled and held out her hand.
Chapter Twenty-One
If I thought I'd grown used to the ways of the Wildwoods, I was very quickly put to rights during my first visit to the fey village. It would at one instant seem empty, and at the next seem every bit as overcrowded as Merlyn's Market during a frog's eye shortage. The extremes jarred me at first, mostly because I would be staring out at a peaceful and quiet creek next to a mushroom circle at one instant, and then turn around and there would be teenaged girls squealing and grandfathers shaking their head. Nothing in my knowledge of portals or illusions could come up with a reasonable explanation for how these people got here, all at once, or where they had been before, and so I had to accept that these things simply happened here.
There was not much here that resembled a standard house or street. Everything was disguised as nature. Some time passed before I knew what was where, and then a little more before I could guess what a new structure was. If Mother hadn't been patiently teaching me directions and how to find the kitchens, I'd have been in a good deal of trouble and ill-humor. She let me lead, but guided me when I strayed.
Traveling around the fey village was both a simple and a complex matter. After wandering and finding that I couldn't seem to go the same way twice, I realized that I could arrive to Mordon's blackberry room by wishing to be there and walking, and that I could do much the same thing for the willow tree room. Going someplace new was a different matter.
“The woods likes to be explored, it doesn't like to jump straight to a destination,” Mother said while we walked by a boulder which held an alchemist's shop. I paused, and the customers chatting with a frizzy-haired old man stopped talking long enough to wave.
“Hi, Maggie,” the shopkeeper said, then resumed his attention to the customers again.
“They're curious about you,” Mother said as we continued on our path.
“No one has said hi to me.”
“They're shy. Strangers are rare, but more welcome than you seem to expect.”
“If you say so.”
We strolled beside a lake filled with brightly colored w
ood ducks, koi, and newly blooming irises.
“Unless the woods wants me to eat fancy carp, it'll show me to the kitchens soon. Why not have houses like I grew up in, with all the rooms and the convenience of eating without going for a walk?” I asked.
Mother laughed, a merry tinkle like the jingling of silver bells. “You'll see. And when you've been here a while, it'll be faster for you to walk to these areas than it would be for you to march all up and down a standard house. You'll go mad with impatience when you set foot outside the Wildwoods again.”
“I doubt it.”
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