Isolde frowns. A little crease forms between her eyebrows. “Is it...you know?”

I hold up my hands helplessly. “I don’t know. Ever since I...ever since...ever since I...” I know what I’m trying to say, but I can’t get it out. My breath catches in my throat.

“Since you picked up the enchantment?” she asks gently.

I nod. Finally, I find my voice again. “It’s like I can feel its magic. And mine. It’s all so...loud.” Isolde knows how I feel. She knows I’d do anything to be mundane, for things to be simple.

Which is why I’m so shocked when she says, “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

Hurt floods through me. “How can you say that?”

Isolde folds her arms across her chest, looking down at me impatiently. “Seelie, I know you don’t like it, but...magic is a part of who you are. Maybe this means it’s time to stop pretending it isn’t.”

A strangled noise escapes my lips before I can stop it. “It’s not part of who I am!” I hear the way my voice is rising in volume and pitch, but I can’t stop it.

“You’re a changeling, Seelie. All changelings are enchanters.” Isolde sounds frustrated, but she follows quickly with, “And there’s nothing wrong with that!”

It doesn’t make me feel better.

“I don’t want to be a changeling,” I shout. “I just want to be your sister!”

I’m not going to cry. I am not going to cry.

“You are my sister.” Her dark eyes crinkle with concern. “But you’re also—”

“No!”

Suddenly, I smell ozone.

A tight, hot ball of anger churns in my chest. I can feel the lightning within me, searching for a release. I press it down. “You don’t understand, Sol. You can’t.”

“Please—” Isolde stops short. She’s staring over my shoulder. Her jaw drops, and my heart sinks with it.

What now? I turn my chair back around, just in time to see two dark-cloaked figures on horseback, perfectly still in the middle of the road. At this rate, we’re going to collide with them head-on and smash us all into kindling. I can already imagine the crunch of my bones breaking.

I’m dimly aware of screaming, but I don’t know if it’s my voice or Isolde’s or both. Birch joins in with a yowl, never one to be left out of chaos. My hand flies to the chain dangling over my head, and I pull the brake down as hard as I can.

Everything in the wagon that isn’t bolted down—me, Isolde, and most of our belongings—flies forward.

“Seelie!” Isolde screeches, and Birch follows with an inhuman noise just as unhappy with my driving.

I realize I should have just steered around the riders, but it’s too late now. Our wheels flounder in the slippery mud, sending us spinning in circles. Clattering fills the air as everything skitters back and forth over the floor.

In all the sound and movement, my focus sharpens. The world shrinks to the most insignificant details: the rain pattering on our roof, the feeling of the wheel clenched in my white-knuckled hands, the brush of loose hair on my face. The knowledge that there’s absolutely nothing I can do now but see what happens.