CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s not until a pair of hands land on my cheeks, pulling my face from the mirror, that the spell is broken.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Bastian’s gaze is frantic as it roams my face.
“I—” I move to pull myself from his grip to turn back to the mirror, but he tightens his hold, keeping me in place.
“Don’t move. There’s broken glass everywhere.” I look down and see he’s right. In my shock, I dropped the jar, and the floor is covered in shards of glass and globs of green paste. He moves his hands down to grip either side of my waist and lifts me as if I weigh nothing and plops me down onto the end of the bed. “Stay there while I get this cleaned up.” He makes quick work to leave the room and retrieve a waste bin and some rags to clean the mess.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice missing.
He looks at me from where he kneels on the ground to gather the glass. “What happened, Liv?” He asks, softly.
I don’t even know how to explain it. I need to look again because I swear, I’m hallucinating. I lift my hand to my ear to feel around for what I thought I saw and the moment my handconnects with it I know I wasn’t imagining it. The movement draws his attention and his eyes blow wide.
“Liv…” He doesn’t continue his thought, but he doesn’t have to. I already know what he sees because it’s the same thing I saw when I first looked in the mirror. And it’s the same thing I feel now as I trace my fingers across the shell of my ear.
Where this morning they were short and round, my ears are now longer and pointed. No longer human ears, but insteadFaeears.
“How?” I ask him, my expression likely as wild as the emotions rolling through me. “Why?” The questions start flying through my head. “But more importantly,how?” I raise my brows at him in question, but he continues to study my face, ears included. My head starts to shake. “No. I’m human.” I keep shaking my head. “I don’t understand.” My voice cracks. I can feel the panic in my voice as the world I’ve always known begins to crumble around me.
Bastian rises from the floor and settles in beside me on the bed. His hand reaches up to gently trace the edges of the newly pointed ears with a reverent expression. “I can’t tell you the why… But I can probably answer the how for you.” My eyes shoot to his and our gazes clash. “I think it was your ring.”
My ring. My now damaged ring that I’ve worn every day and never removed for as long as I can remember. “My ring?” I choke out the question.
“I told you, at first, I thought it was a protection charm, but after the boggart attack that started to seem unlikely. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon but couldn’t come up with a better idea of what it could’ve been. Well, until now that is. It was a glamour.”
“Awhat?” I wince when I hear how screechy my question comes out.
He chuckles softly. “A glamour. It’s a universal power that all Fae have but the Seelie are the most skilled at them. It’s basically a spell that can make others see whatever the caster wants. It can be used on things—it’s how I hide the cottage. But it’s most common to use on people. We tend to use it most to dull our Fae appearances to look more human when we venture into your realm. It seems like that was the case here—the ring was used to conceal your Fae heritage. It’s not typically used with a talisman, like your ring, unless it’s intended for long term use and to ease the strain of the caster from trying to keep it up all the time, especially at long distances.” He pauses, thinking. “Where did you say you got the ring from again?”
“I don’t know exactly. I’ve been wearing it for so long that I can’t remember a time I everdidn’twear it. But I know that my Aunt Fleur—” I cut off as shockwaves ripple through me with the realization.
“Your aunt what?”
“She told me to never take it off,” I whisper. The weight of this feels like a boulder pressing on my chest. Aunt Fleurknows. But if she knows, then that must mean—No.
Bastian must realize this at the same time as me, because his expression softens with sympathy before he says the last thing I’d want him to say. “Liv, I know this is a lot to digest already, but I think your aunt might be Fae too.” He’s quiet as he studies my reaction. “Someone would have had to ensure that the spell remains intact after all these years.” He hesitates. “And your parents would definitely have been Fae.”
I rise from the bed, heading back to the mirror. Bastian’s hand shoots out to halt my steps, but I brush him off. There’s the slightest sting of pain, but I ignore it.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I lift a hand to my ear again. As if the more I touch the tips, the more I’ll believe this isn’t a dream.
He clears his throat. “Well, your eyes hadn’t changed yet, and your ears were hidden by your hair. I genuinely didn’t even notice the difference.”
My eyes?Taking a closer look at the rest of my features in the mirror, I realize that my ears aren’t the only thing that changed. My whole face looks slimmer, sharper. My eyes are now a bright shade of violet, instead of the shade of emerald green that matches Fleur’s, but they’re occasionally flickering between the two as the glamour fades off. My dark gold hair is brighter, shinier. I raise my hand to touch beside my eye, one more attempt to snap myself out of whatever hallucination this is. Because this isn’t possible. There’s no way. I amnotFae.
“I think I like these more than the green,” Bastian’s voice comes from over my shoulder. I flick my eyes to his in the mirror, finding him standing right behind me with a small smile on his lips. “They suit you better.”
I whirl around to face Bastian and look up into his eyes. “I need to go home. I need to talk to my aunt. I need answers.”
He lifts my still splinted hand between us. “Depending on how healed you are come morning, we can set out at first light. It’ll be safest for you to travel looking like this, but once we get to the portal I can glamour away your Fae features until we reach your home.” He takes his free hand and tentatively places it on my cheek in a caress meant to reassure me. I can’t fight the pull and find myself leaning into the touch.
“Then what?” I ask softly, closing my eyes. “I’m Fae… I can’t necessarily stay in the human realm, especially now that my ring is destroyed.” I step back out of his touch, his hands lingering until I’m fully out of his reach and the back of my legs meet the end of the bed. I collapse onto it. “I don’t even know how to glamour myself. Or if I evencan.” I stare down at my hands as I fiddle with the hem of the borrowed shirt. “My entire life is in the human realm. How am I supposed to leave all that behind?”My voice cracks as emotion rises in my throat. I wanted an adventure, to see the world. That didn’t mean that I wanted to leave everything behind where I can never return.
Bastian eases himself to sit next to me on the bed. With a finger under my chin, he tilts my face to look at him. “Whatever you do after you speak with your aunt isyourdecision.” His expression is so earnest. “Yes, you’re Fae. You’ll be welcome in the realm if you wish to return. But if you’d prefer to remain in the human realm, that’s okay too. Your aunt may be able to obtain a new glamour ring. It’s your life, Liv. It’s your choice to make.” His finger leaves my chin and trails up my face so his hand rests on my cheek and again I find myself leaning into the touch, closing my eyes and giving in. His thumb strokes back and forth across my cheekbone.
For a second I almost think he’s going to do more than this, but he clears his throat and removes his touch from my skin, leaving a chill in its wake. He’s up and across the room to the door in a blink. “It’s getting late, and you’ve had a rough day. Try to get some sleep, okay?”
