Ilyana made a sound—half growl, half sob—before shuffling off on her hind legs.
“Tick tock.” Adelaide tilted her head, bird-like and predatory. “Two weeks of your disguise remain. Soon, the corpse you brought me will be rotten, and her soul sent to Terrigana’s embrace.” She gestured toward the disturbed earth near the willow’s base.
“I will be done by then,” I replied, forcing my voice to a level calm. I had to have a crown on my head in two weeks, preferably less. But the trials were meant to drag on for longer. Time was something immortals had in excess, but I did not.
Adelaide hummed and sipped from her cup with a lady’s poise. “So, spill, dear. I’m ready to hear the new details of your revenge quest.”
I took a cautious drink of my tea, nearly gagging at the initial bitterness. This time, I kept my recounting to the bare minimum. The witch drank in every detail anyway, delighted by the death I’d left in my wake.
“And you’ve slept with a vampire. One of your so-called enemies.” She faked a swoon back into her wooden throne. “I want all the delicious, sordid details of your little dancewith disaster. Was he utterly marvelous or merely tragically beautiful?”
I kept my distaste at her dramatics behind a clinical mask. “What I do with my betrothed behind closed doors shall remain private,” I replied.
Adelaide waved a languid hand, dismissing the refusal. She set down her cup with a decisive clink. “Very well. Let us return to business, then. Strip down. I need access to your skin for the casting to determine the lingering effects of the first spell.”
I hesitated, suddenly aware of how vulnerable I was in this witch’s domain. She could turn me into one of her stuffed servants or send my soul screaming to Terrigana. Could?—
Adelaide rolled her eyes. “If I wanted you dead, you’d already be decorating my garden as fertilizer. Now strip, or I’ll have Cris do it for you.”
The stuffed rabbit lifted its head. Its glass eyes gleamed with malevolent glee.
By Aetherius’s light.I removed my armor with fumbling fingers, piling leather and weapons beside the bench. The bracelet of fangs came last, and relief washed over me as my true form reasserted itself.
Adelaide circled me, muttering in a foreign tongue that vibrated through me. She traced patterns across my shoulders, down my spine, and along my ribs. Cold magic pressed against my skin.
“Your aura is different. Changed.” She paused, her fingertips skimming the bite marks on my throat, even though they were no longer visible. “Sweeter. More…” She lifted an eyebrow. “You haven’tjustbeen intimate with the enemy. Have you drunk blood too, Sidney Redgrove?”
My gaze dropped, breath catching as goosebumps flaredover my skin. I pressed my lips together, the words sticking like thorns before I forced them out. “Survival required adaptation.”
“Survival,” she echoed, her smile widening. “Is that what you’re calling it? How delightfully pragmatic.”
Adelaide wandered off before I could reply and returned with her earthenware bowl and ivory knife. “The glamor refresh will hurt more this time. The spell is fighting fundamental changes in your nature. Since you’ve drunk blood recently, you’ve fed the vampire within you, strengthening it.” Her green gaze locked on to mine. “The magic has to work harder to overcome the resistance, which means I need to force your body to cooperate.” Tilting her head, she examined me like a specimen under glass.
She set the bowl down and reached into a worn leather pouch at her waist. From it, she pinched and added dried emerald leaves and red berries into the bowl, then mixed them with a thick, clear liquid from a stoppered vial.
Then, with a sudden, sharp motion, she turned the ivory knife on herself, cutting a line in her palm. She squeezed the wound, allowing three fat crimson drops of her blood to fall into the mixture. When she stirred it all together, the resulting blend became a shockingly bright green mash.
She painted symbols across my skin with the paste. More goosebumps puckered my flesh where the frigid goop made contact, raising every hair on my arms. Within seconds, the painted lines began to burn, a slow acid crawl that sank deeper than skin. Where her fingers traced, my flesh crawled, trying to escape her touch, recoiling from Terrigana’s power like living things fleeing a raging fire.
She slipped the bracelet back onto my wrist, the woven grass and ivory fangs settling against my pulse point. Thenthe chanting began, ancient words scraping against my ears. The bracelet, responding to the sound, flared red. The shadows under the willow deepened, becoming viscous and stretching toward us with grasping, spectral hands.
The pain hit—not a dull ache, but an explosion in my veins.
I bit down on a scream, the copper tang of my own blood filling my mouth as my elongated fangs pierced through my lower lip. Adelaide’s chanting grew louder, more insistent, and the shadowy hands closed around my limbs. They tugged like death’s embrace, pulling my skin in every direction at once. The agony peaked; my vision went white, then black, consciousness flickering like a dying candle. Then, mercifully, it receded all at once.
I sagged forward, caught by Adelaide’s firm grip. My body was slick with cold sweat, and the green paste still burned against my skin.
“There,” Adelaide said, her voice rough as she wiped her green-stained hands on her dress. “The dead girl walks again, through my blood and your pain. Remember, seven days is all you get before we do this again!”
I took a shaky breath. My nerve endings screamed with the echoes of agony and my head throbbed. “Can I have something to clean this gunk off? It’s still burning.”
Adelaide pursed her lips. “If you must defile my work with mundane concerns…” She stepped back and retrieved a cask of dark, swirling liquid that smelled faintly of salt, smoke, and herbs. “Use this. Don’t leave the remnants of the glamour spell for the crows to pick over.”
I moved quickly, dipping the cloth and scrubbing the now flaking, bitter-smelling green paste from my torso and shoulders. The fluid stung, but the skin underneath the goop was left numb and unmarred.
Once clean, I pulled my leathers back on and donned my cloak. “Thank you.” I inclined my head toward the witch respectfully before I made a hasty retreat.
I scrambled through Adelaide’s damp, chaotic garden, fists clenched as I barreled through the icy greenery. Ash waited beyond the garden’s boundary. I launched myself onto his back, burying my fingers in his soft feathers as I urged him into a breakneck, ground-eating run.
