Even in the few hours since yesterday, I’d noticed physical and mental changes in Molly, almost despite myself. She looked taller, stronger, her movements somehow stranger . . . though that could all just have been my imagination. But there was no denying she held herself differently, and now and then I caught her standing unnaturally still, blank-faced, as though listening to some inner voice. She said she was getting glimpses of the Loathly Ones’ massmind, on the edge of her thoughts. It was still mostly a gabble, she said, but she was starting to understand parts of it. She began identifying specific locations for Loathly Ones nests, including some we’d never even suspected before. I passed these new coordinates on to the War Room, and they quickly confirmed them and told me to press Molly for more. (I told them she was finding these nests through her magics, and with her reputation they had no trouble believing it.) And every time Molly found a new nest she would look at me almost challengingly, as though to say See? I’m still me. Still Molly. Still on your side. And what could I do but nod and smile and congratulate her, even as it proved that her mind was changing, to understand more and more of the alien gabble of the massmind.

She was having serious mood swings too, but I didn’t know if I could blame that on the infection.

The Merlin Glass showed her to me, standing in a small copse of trees looking out at the old abandoned waterwheel on the far side of the lake. Her face was drawn and thoughtful, her dark eyes far away, ignoring the swans that circled hopefully before her on the still waters of the lake, hoping for bread crumbs. I looked at her for a long time. She still looked like Molly. My Molly. But I had to wonder how long that would last. How long before the inner Molly changed so much that she couldn’t pass for the real thing any more. I felt so helpless. Sick with it. Here I was, leader of the most powerful family in all the world, and there wasn’t a single damned thing I could do to save the woman I loved. Except lead her into battle, and hope she died honourably.

So I wouldn’t have to kill her myself, when she turned. Could I do that? I thought so. It was what she wanted, what she’d asked me to do. And besides, I’d done worse, in my time, for the family.