Shaking off my melancholy thoughts, I lift the glass, bracing myself for the horror I must look after being storm-tossed and adrift.
But nothing can prepare me for the bright blue shock of hair flopping over my forehead.
“What the holy—”
“Mouse. There’s a mouse! Right there!” Clara leaps to her feet, pointing to the olive tree, eliciting a squeal of surprise from Adrina that immediately transforms to a laugh.
“Saints above, you scared me,” she says, still laughing. “I thought we were being attacked by bandits. Don’t worry, silly. It’s just a mouse. It won’t pester us, we won’t pester it, and we’ll all go home in one piece.”
“She’s right, Clara. It’s fine.” I meet her blue eyes—as blue as my suddenly turquoise hair. I can’t say I’m over my surprise, but I nod to reassure her I won’t give myself away.
We have a story. The best way to keep Adrina from abandoning us to our strange-haired fate is to stick to it.
“I saw it earlier,” I add. “I think it might be sick, or it would have run away by now.”
Adrina tsks kind-heartedly. “Poor, sad little thing.”
“Right. Of course. Sorry to frighten everyone.” Clara, her hair almost entirely covered in gunk now, settles again in front of Adrina.
Her eyes meet mine as she does, and I see the questions there, but I don’t have answers. Not for either of us.
So I pick up the mirror, scoop up a handful of dye and go at my hair. The sooner I’m done, the sooner I can pretend the sight of myself doesn’t chill me to the marrow.
Chapter Nine
Foxglove
We sit with the dye on our hair for nearly an hour—watching the wind blow the grass like waves and passing the flask of orange juice back and forth between the three of us until my mouth stings from the sweetness. Finally, Adrina announces it’s time to go wash in the creek below the amphitheater, and Declan and I follow her down the hill, cutting through the ruins.
The stones there cry out for us to stay, pouring out their yearning for communion, aching with remembered passions that, hundreds of years ago, flowed from the stage to those rows of crumbling seats.
The stones are so lonely.
So…hungry.
If I were alone, I’d give the theater a wide berth—ancient places have their own magic, and it isn’t always gentle or benign—but Adrina is leading and I can’t think of a reasonable excuse not to follow.
As we pass through, I keep my head down, biting my lip against the terrible need of the place, the frantic clutching at my skirts that makes my dress feel as if it’s still soaking wet with seawater. By the time we reach the creek, I’m eager to plunge my head beneath the cool surface, allowing my own magic to settle as Adrina scrubs the dye from my hair and then offers me a rag to dry it.
When she turns to help Declan rinse his newly black locks, I watch her joke with him, easily coaxing him into letting her lather his hair with a bar of olive oil soap. She is incredibly kind—as sweet as my memory of my sisters—and obviously eager to make new friends, even with two alleged changelings.
Her felicity makes it easier to bear her obvious distaste for the gift I gave her people. She can’t understand that, without the seeds I planted when I flew over this island years ago, the men she pities would have become monsters. They would have crushed her spirit, abused her kindness, and left her as broken as the women I see in cities I have yet to touch with my magic.
I’ve walked among those women during the dark moon, seen how overworked, undervalued, and abused they are by men who profess to have such admiration for the fairer sex.
But there’s nothing “fair” about being a mortal woman.
They bear the full burden of pregnancy and childbirth and, when their men die in wars or leave in search of adventures, they’re often tasked with raising those children alone. And they must do so while being denied opportunities for education and employment, and fending off dangers inherent in a world made for men.
It's a brutal, unfair arrangement, no matter how you look at it.
My mother was wrong to bind me to this cause against my will, but it’s a cause worth championing.
But Adrina has been sheltered here on her island, and she was young when I passed over. She can’t guess the truth, and I can’t tell her, no matter how much of me yearns to speak freely with our new friend.
She has a soothing effect on my spirits, and I can tell Declan feels the same. As we make our way along the path to her cottage, past a grove of orange trees bright with fruit and tiny olive trees whispering in the warm breeze, the conversation flows easily between the two of them.
Adrina tells him about her brother, Timon, a fearless eleven-year-old with a knack for getting in trouble, and how her family has grown oranges on the island for over four generations. Declan tells her about his journey from England and the settlement he’s helping his father build. Adrina shares her excitement at having a chance to practice her English and the challenges of living so far from other people that sometimes it seems there’s no world beyond one’s own shores.
“Yes, it’s the same on my island,” Declan says with a tight laugh. “Sometimes I feel like I’ll go crazy looking at the same faces day after day. The other boys are mostly all right, but we could definitely use some fresh blood around there.”
Adrina smiles. “Fresh blood. I’ve never heard that phrase. It makes you sound like a…” She hesitates. “The…what do you call it?” She mimes fangs with two fingers at her mouth. “The monster who’s after blood?”
“Oh, a vampire.” Declan laughs. “Yeah, I guess so. It just means new people. Strangers who bring novel ideas to liven up the place.”
The conversation turns to vampires—whether they are as real as witches and fairies, or merely folk legends—and I slow my pace.
I could tell them about vampires. That they are real, but rare. That they are the same as any predator on the hunt for what it needs to survive, and not that interesting, if you ask me.
Of course, it’s best if they don’t—to explain how I know about vampires would lead to more lies, and I don’t like lies.
I especially don’t like how much easier it’s becoming to tell them.
So, I lag behind with Wig nestled in the pocket of my dress and Poke swooping overhead in starling form. He follows discreetly, but I swear I can feel his disapproving beak stabbing between my shoulder blades with every step I take. He’s never seen me interacting so closely with humans, and I can tell it frightens him.
It frightens me, too. Even after a month on Declan’s island, I was afraid to approach Adrina while she was drawing water from her well. But I was prepared to shapeshift and fly if she proved dangerous, and now there’s no need to fear.
Poke should relax.
I should, too.
If Adrina were going to betray our secret to the people in her village, she wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to help us conceal our hair in the first place. She won’t accuse us of being witches or fairies. She’ll help us pass as human because that’s what she believes we are—harmless changeling children with Fey blood but no magic.