Page 41 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

* * *

The guard leads me into Volkir’s cell, and then he lies down to take a nap. Or he is thrown down by an innocent virgin who turns into a wildcat without any shapeshifting ability, and I have the sense he might have liked that… if the wildcat had not knocked him out.

The doppelgänger watches the whole exchange with amused interest, particularly when I start pulling endless lengths of cloth from my fabricated bosom and buttocks.

“I would applaud, but…” He gestures at his hands, shackled by iron to the wall.

I tie the guard up, lest he wake from his nap. Then I take the keys from his ring and start to undo the shackles from the wall.

“You will not be able to remove them from my wrists,” he says. “As you can see, the iron is welded shut. I will have to find a blacksmith.”

“Give me your hands.”

He extends both without hesitation. I take a length of the cloth and snake it into the shackle, pushing and prodding until it is between his skin and the iron. As I’m finishing, he grins at me… and changes into a cat.

The shackles fall away as he transforms. Then he reappears in his humanoid shape, the manacles on the floor beside him.

“Now we need to track my cousin,” he says.

“I found her. Or, unfortunately, she found me.”

“More unfortunate for her than you, I presume.” His lips curve, but grief touches his eyes.

“I am sorry,” I say. “It had to be done.”

“I know. Let us—”

“The beast is right down here,” a man’s voice says. “I don’t know where Marley is, but if he’s away, then I don’t owe him half of your viewing fees.”

Multiple voices laugh. Apparently, I am not the only townsperson eager to see the doppelgänger prisoner.

“Change back to a cat,” I whisper. “Get out of here, and I will make up a story.”

“You have done enough,” Volkir says. “My turn. Now get on.”

“Get—?”

The word barely leaves my lips before he transforms, this time into a unicorn with glowing red eyes and a wickedly sharp horn. He looks menacing enough that I step back, instinctively reaching for my knife. But then he bows his front legs, and I remember what he said.

Get on.

I swing onto the unicorn’s back just as the hopeful group of visitors round the corner. A woman shrieks. A man leaps into our path. Volkir lowers his head with its deadly horn and charges, and the man stumbles aside, the group scrambling to get out of our way as Volkir gallops past and out the door to freedom.

* * *

I accompany Volkir to retrieve his belongings. He reverts to cat form for that, and I feel a pang of envy for how much easier that must make fleeing a town while under threat of execution. Yes, I have had to do that myself more than once. I haven’t been hunting monsters long enough to be an expert at it, and the human monsters naturally do not want to be stopped, which is particularly inconvenient when they are in charge of the law and its enforcement.

Once we are safe in Volkir’s rented room, he changes back to pack his belongings, which are as meager as mine.

“If you want to find a saddle,” he says, “I could trans form into a horse and take you wherever you are heading.” He grins. “The unicorn is more fun, but it does attract undue attention.”

“That isn’t necessary, but thank you.”

He glances up from his packing and eyes me before saying, “Is that a polite way of telling me not to accompany you to your next stop?”

“I do not have a definitive next stop, though I have heard rumors of a dragon over by South Bank.”

He frowns. “There are no dragons anywhere near South Bank. It is entirely the wrong habitat.”