I am ridiculously beautiful.

I bring up my hand and admire the length of my fingers and the pearl of my nails. Two magicks run wild in me: the green of Talamh coils around my body in vines, and the orange of Tine manifests as fire lilies crowning these vines. A fire lily buds on my cheek, and when I look at it a little longer, it bashfully blooms.

After admiring myself for a while, I turn to go outside. My foot hits something, and I look down to see a very familiar volume on the floor. I pick it up and carry it out. The Fire Princess and Tinder are playing with the flower sprites. Someone, probably Ceara, has dug a firepit a small distance from the front garden. Three fish are cooking on spits above the fire. My stomach growls in eager anticipation.

“Fiadh!” Tinder sees me first. She flies over, hovering in the air in front of me. I put out my palm and she jumps on it, her wings tickling my fingers. Her magick is pale, almost spent. Were it not for her, I would probably be nothing but a smear of blood on the floor of the central hall of the Caisleán. Mabh would not have let me keep the fragment of the HeartStone, without which I would most probably be dead.

How can mere words adequately express my gratitude?

“My name, my true name, is Croi,” I tell her. My name is all I can call my own in either of the two worlds.

“Croi,” she says, then smiles at me. This smile is unlike any other she has given me over the course of our acquaintance. It’s almost shy.

“The fish is ready,” the Fire Princess calls. I walk over, still holding Tinder. Ceara rises to her feet when I reach her. I am taller than her now, so she has to look up to me. I grin at her with all my teeth. She grimaces at me.

“I owe you a lifesaving debt,” I say to her, and she waves her hand, dismissing my words.

“I am the cuckoo in the magpie’s nest. If we are to speak of owing, I might never be able to pay you back.” She holds my eyes for half a moment before looking away.

“Do you resent me?” I ask her.

“A little bit,” she replies, her discomfort obvious in the twist of her lips. “I would have continued living my life a fool, had it not been for you. I did some ill-advised things because I swallowed everything Mabh said as the truth. I thought she was my… mother.” Her yearning reveals itself in the word she breathes out while I shudder at it. I never want to hear that word again.

“You should be glad she’s not. She doesn’t treat her daughters very nicely. Look at what she did to me,” I tell her, settling down on the ground beside them. The flower sprites immediately surround me, nesting in my hair, nuzzling my arm. Sticky things. “How are we here?”