Why isn’t it breaking now?

I can’t stop looking at the faerie. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my mother...but also, my head won’t turn. My eyes won’t move.

My hand twitches and drops to my side without my permission.

I’m not Gossamer, I try to say, but my mouth won’t form the words. I know what it’s like not to be able to speak...but this is different.

Panic swells up in my throat. I feel my lips twist into a smirk.

“Briar,” I hear myself say. “How unexpected.”

They aren’t my words, aren’t my thoughts, but I know them just the same.

Oh, Fate. Oh, no.

Gossamer.

Forming every thought feels like trying to wake myself from a nightmare, sluggish and slippery.

Something is wrong. Something is letting Gossamer use my voice, my face, my hands.

I try to gasp, but my body won’t listen. My chest constricts painfully.

Is it really even mine anymore?

The faerie’s—Briar’s—eyes flash red again as she drops the lantern to her side. It dissolves into mist, swallowing the yellow light with it. Even though she wears my mother’s face, the expression looks totally unfamiliar.

“You were banished,” she says. “And, last I heard, locked away somewhere in the mortal world. I didn’t think even you would be bold enough to come back here after what you did. In a mortal body, no less.” Her eyes narrow. “What are you playing at?”

I want to turn and run, but I can’t so much as twitch my gaze away from her face.

“This is temporary, I assure you,” my voice says. Gossamer tilts my—his—our—chin up at an disdainful angle. “I suppose thanks are in order.” He has a certain cadence, a way of emphasizing words to give you the impression that each one carries layers of meaning that you’re just too dull to understand. It sounds wrong in my high, thin voice.

Something like real delight lights up the faerie’s borrowed face, but there’s still something not-quite-Mami about the eyes. “You’re trapped in there, aren’t you? Oh, this is almost too easy.”

In the distance, something howls. Raze lets out a soft groan, reminding me that he’s still behind us, even if I can’t turn to look at him. I wonder if he’s awake now, or if he’s still lost, hearing music in his head.

A tight smile presses on my lips, and I feel a surge of anger heat the clammy desperation in my chest. “I was trapped, until you did me the favor of ensnaring the changeling’s mind. Now—” he lifts our right hand, examining my short, dirty nails and flexing my fingers “—now I shouldn’t have any more trouble.” The smile expands into a full grin, baring my regular human teeth.

“The mighty Gossamer.” Briar glides closer with inhuman grace, stopping just short of lifting her slender, calloused fingers to our chin. “All those stolen scraps of power, and yet you somehow find yourself locked away by mortals and reduced to this. Unable to even enchant one—little—changeling’s—mind.” With each word, she taps our chin, our jaw, our cheek, our nose. Gentle and playful. “How does such a thing happen, I wonder?”