Seela nodded. “A bit. It was sweet, like honey. I felt instantly…better. Happier. Like all my worries were small enough to stuff in a thimble. I felt physically stronger too. Rejuvenated. I was planning to run back to Seer to tell Sunny about it. I wanted her to try some, to experience what I had. But then…”

Her lips pursed, and though Soraya couldn’t see her teeth, she knew they were grinding together like a millstone crushing grain. “I know this is hard, but I need to know what happened to you. How you…how you became…”

“The nightdemon?” Seela said with a smirk. “No point in pussyfooting around the issue at hand now, is there? You need to know how I became a fanged, clawed, tailed monster skulking in the night, right?”

Soraya nodded.

“Simple. I got bit.”

“Bit?”

“By a rat.”

Soraya blinked, trying to make sense of the woman’s words. “You mean when you were drinking the gods—the golden liquid?”

“Just after maybe? The bastard attacked me like it thought it was an apex predator and not a tiny, squirmy little vermin. I kicked it twenty feet and it slammed into a tree, but then the damned critter shook itself off and got back up like it was nothing. Its eyes were glowing the same color as the damn liquid, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“When did you begin to…transform?”

Seela breathed out bitterly. “That very night. I came straight home and told Sunny the whole story. She thought I was daydreaming; except she couldn’t deny the punctures where the rat’s teeth had pierced me. She bandaged me up and applied a salve. We closed the Minx for the evening and almost caused a riot, and then went to bed. I awoke in a sweat, the pain in my leg as fierce a thing as I’ve ever experienced. I thought it was infected, so I went downstairs to get some more salve, but then—” She bit off the words, closing her eyes. When she opened them, Soraya expected them to be tearful from the memory, but instead she saw only steel. “Have you ever wanted to stab someone in the heart?” When Soraya cocked her head to the side in confusion, Seela continued. “I mean, have you ever wanted to hurt someone? Someone who’d hurt you, or hurt someone you loved?”

“You’re talking about revenge. I…no, I’ve never felt that way.”

“Even now? Even after I did that to your friend?” She gestured to where Shim remained as still as stone.

“What happened to you, and him, was no one’s fault.”

“Then you must be a saint. If our roles were reversed, and you’d hurt Sunny the way I hurt your friend…I’d want to hurt you. I’d want revenge. I’d want you dead.”

“I…understand. And when did the golden leaves appear on your face?”