“Well thought,” Isabelle said. She walked into the great cabin. By the time she got there, she felt less like falling over. That last step of her transformation had taken a lot of energy, like water changing to steam. She didn’t recall it being so exhausting in past lives.

You’ve been fighting the change for days, Brunela said. You’ve been bottled up too tight to let it happen.

So she’d had a case of transformation constipation, because nothing was ever merely difficult when it could also be uncomfortable. She told herself the lie that she really didn’t care what she looked like as long as it was not a flamingo, but hurried to get her mirror anyway.

She pulled off her hood and lifted the mirror to see her reflection.

Oh.

Isabelle had never thought of herself as beautiful. She had a long face, an extra helping of nose, and teeth like a horse. She still had those things, but her transformation had filled in everything her birth had left out: strong cheeks, skin dappled with lilac and rose, and where her dishwater hair had been, a crest of pink and purple feathers that fanned out or flattened back with the same ease as twitching an eyebrow. And along the edges of those feathers ran the sparks of her l’Étincelle sorcery. The motes glowed and flowed up the fringes until they reached the tips, like her crest was a fan in front of a fire. Even her eyebrows and lashes had turned to feathers.

I … think I can live with this.

“Lemme see,” Rebecca said, bounding down and up on the ceiling.

When Isabelle turned, her eyes went round. “Ooh! That’s golden! Not as good as mine, though.” She shook her mane.

Isabelle laughed. “Well, I’m glad to be second best, then.”

Marie stepped into the room. “Can you extend your cappotto?”

Isabelle queried her ancestral chorus and found a mental string. She gave it a tug. It felt a bit like pulling thread through every follicle in her body, but in less time than a finger snap she was sheathed in feathers. They lay tight and bright against her skin like a fish’s scales. They added no apparent weight, but past-life experience suggested that she was now virtually bulletproof.

“Apparently so,” she said, extending and retracting her talons.

“Then maybe it’s time you got properly dressed,” Marie said. She nodded to Rebecca.

“Right. I’ll go get the package,” Rebecca said, and zipped out the door.

Isabelle gave Marie a suspicious look. “What package?”

“When we were back on Flotsam, we decided that if you were going to be a pirate capitaine, you might as well look the part. Now that you’ve finally run out of reasons to punish yourself sartorially, it’s time to get you fitted and kitted. Besides, Rebecca needs the practice.”