11

I woke to something tickling my face. It felt like cold dirt was on my skin, on my chest, weighing me down.

Annoyed, I began to lift my hand and brush it away, but my limbs were heavy, prickling with pins and needles.

My eyes fluttered open, but there was a film over them, a transparent material that moved when I breathed. I should be panicking, I thought. I should be alarmed. But my heart seemed unmoved, beating a steady pulse, and I calmly lifted my hands from the dirt and began to tear away the gossamer that was layered around my face.

I was lying in the forest. Moss, dirt, pine straw, and twigs clung to my half-buried body. I rose from the earth and stood shakily on my feet, brushing my clothes clean.

It took me a moment to remember what had happened. To recognize where I was.

I could see a glimpse of Mazarine’s mansion through the pines. My leather art satchel was at my feet. I lifted my hands, studying them.

They trembled, but looked no different.

I noticed my hair. Long, sleek, and brown, flowing down my shoulders. I wrapped a tendril around my fingers, marveling at the sheen of gold that lurked within the threads when the sun touched it.

I rushed my hands over my face, felt the slope of it, the thick brows I had created, the thin lips. Then my neck, where the gill scars were gone.

I laughed, a raspy sound, and I wondered . . . how long had I been lying here? Sleeping, transforming in the shadows of the pines?

I quickly knelt by my satchel and opened the buckles. I sifted through the leaves of paper and found the sketch of my disguise. I would keep it, to remember what I now looked like, since a mirror would be of no help to me. I rolled up the drawing and tucked it into the pocket of my skirt, and then I buried my satchel. The art supplies were worthless to me now.

I walked through the quiet light of the forest, searching for Imonie.

She was where I had left her, although she was pacing, frantic. I stood between two trees and watched her for a moment, her distress so keen that she had not heard my approach. She was muttering a prayer, wringing her apron in her hands.

“I will kill that child,” she said. “I will kill her whenever she returns to me.”

“Imonie,” I said, my voice deep and scratchy and yet still my own. I would have to remember to disguise it later, when I saw Phelan again.

Imonie startled and whirled, yanking a slender dagger from her belt. I didn’t know she even owned a weapon, and the steel glinted in the light as she glared at me.