I had to choke back a laugh. The corner of his mouth slanted upwards, and he turned his stag towards a rocky outcropping in the meadow. My doe turned with him, following at a peaceable amble, and I spent some time looking around. The landscape felt almost familiar, but it was like a room where everything had been shifted five inches to the left. I kept bumping my proverbial shin on things that weren't quite as expected: the sounds of the birds, the shapes of the trees, the shade of green of the grass. In all of Faery, the only thing that was right where I expected it was Dain.

That was going to get me in trouble, I realized with a start. I would have bet any amount of money that part of the reason I wanted to seek out Dain, specifically, was that, monster or not, being around him was comfortable. He was the one unmoving object in the storm, and I kept fixing my eyes on him like a ballerina doing pirouettes, whipping my head to face him as I turned to keep from getting nauseous.

Dain dismounted and set one hand on his stag's nose. For one moment, a soft expression settled onto his face, something that looked like genuine affection, but it was wiped away the instant my doe shifted. He exhaled, and all the tack on the stag vanished, replaced by a simple halter and a long lead line staked into the ground next to Dain's feet.

Still on my doe, I stared. Holy shit. It was one thing to have fever-dream memories of Dain in a glamor, and another entirely to see him do something like that.

He looked up at me and raised one brow. "It's only glamor, Leah," he said, voice dismissive. "You don't need to look at me as if I've done something impressive."

I laughed, nervous and brittle, and dismounted, hitting the ground harder than I'd intended. He took the reins from me, then did the same to the doe as he'd done to the stag. Hesitantly, I reached out to touch the long lead. It felt real, down to the texture of the fibers. Round-eyed, I turned to stare at Dain.

"I thought glamor was like, illusion?" I said, completely blown away.

"Well, yes," he replied, sounding confused. "Nothing has actually changed. End the spell and everything will be the same as it was before."

I shook the lead as his black stag ambled off and started to graze. "Okay, but this is real. It is a real object that I am holding in my hand."

"It's only real until the spell ends," Dain said, talking to me as if I'd just professed not to understand how two plus two made four. "It's no different from wearing a wig over your hair."