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“My name is Inota.” The mage’s voice, too, was warping and shifting even as he—she?—spoke. Callan moved closer, fascinated despite the adrenaline still surging through him. “One of them, anyway.”
“Show us your real face.” Prince Conrad always had been good in a crisis. The mage laughed with the face of an old woman, but by the time the laugh had faded, a dozen more faces had come and gone.
“I don’t have one. I looked like this, once, I think?” The mage blinked with the pale blue eyes of a young girl, which slid over to Callan. What was it about that regard that struck him as familiar? It was impossible. “But you know this one best.”
“Stop that,” Callan snapped. The mage looked like Kaya now—a frighteningly realistic impression, every detail falling into place. He’d admire the skill if it didn’t make his skin crawl. “Don’t you dare impersonate her.”
“I’m not.” That was Kaya’s voice, impossibly sad, and Callan gritted his teeth. “Don’t you see? It’s been me all along.”
“You—you took her place? When?”
“Oh, Callan.” The Queen was looking at him, her expression full of sympathy. The final piece fell into place.
“You asked how I hid at Brisant for so long.” It was almost a relief when Kaya disappeared, replaced by a man in the uniform he recognized as belonging to the Brisant security guards. Then the guard was gone, and his friend from the library staff was there instead. “How I got the message to the librarian—”
“It was you,” he said, his voice hoarse with wonder. “You were—” His mind was racing. “You were one of the mages who attacked us. Who tried to kidnap the Queen. You—” He felt like he was barely hanging onto consciousness, but he forced himself to stay focused, to stay present. “You impersonated the Prince. You tried to kidnap the Queen. You—” A flash of shock. “It was you that knocked me out where I was standing on guard.”
“I confess it freely.” The mage’s face kept shifting and blurring. He almost wanted her to look like Kaya again, to give his mind a rest from trying to keep track of the constant changes.
“This is why you lied to me.”
A faint smile. “I did try to tell you my past was complicated.”
“Hand over your weapons.” Prince Conrad broke in, his expression hard and unyielding. “Every piece of jewelry you’re wearing. Now.”
The mage shrugged agreement, and Callan watched in stunned silence as she pulled rings from her fingers, bracelets from her wrists, an ornate choker from her throat. Had he ever seen Kaya wearing so much jewelry? Her magic must have hidden some of it, somehow. He’d only ever seen that pendant she never took off—there it was, around her throat, but when Conrad pointed at it, she shook her head.
“This doesn’t come off, Prince.”
“I’ll remind you that you’re a prisoner,” Conrad said coldly.
“You might as well ask me to take my head off,” the mage said impatiently, and though she was speaking with the voice of an old man as her face continued to blur and change, there was something about the intonation that still rang clear as a bell. It was still her, he thought faintly. It was still his soulmate. Had he finally learned her real name?
“We know a mage’s power is stored in artifacts,” Conrad snapped, clearly furious. “You’ll surrender it, now.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me,” she retorted. “This doesn’t store my power, it storesme. Ask Cato if you don’t believe me.”
Conrad scowled, then reached for the pendant, lifting it as though to pull it over her head. Callan blinked hard, not sure what had happened. It was as though the mage’s body had traveled with the pendant, preventing Conrad from pulling it over her head. No matter how hard he tried, the necklace remained stubbornly around her neck.
“I think we need to talk to Cato,” Queen Lana said faintly. “Welcome back, by the way, Mira. How’s Earth?”
Mira had been standing well back from the scene, watching everything unfold with an intense but guarded curiosity. “A little less eventful than the Valley, I’m guessing,” she said faintly.
Hours later, Callan was no closer to understanding what was happening, but they certainly had a lot more information to go on. They filled Prince Conrad in on the situation once they were back at the Palace. Kaya—Inota, he kept correcting himself—was escorted immediately to a prison cell, with orders to keep her hands bound. Conrad was frustrated that he couldn’t entirely disarm her, but something told Callan that the mage wasn’t a flight risk. What had stopped her from making her escape? The portal had been right there, and everyone had been distracted enough that she could easily have fled through it without being stopped. So why had she chosen to stay?
Cato and Acantha were quickly summoned to the Throne Room. Cato didn’t seem especially surprised by the revelation of who Kaya really was, and when Prince Conrad pressed him, he admitted that he’d recognized her the previous day.
“And you didn’t think to mention that the fugitive we were protecting from the Mage’s Guild was the same person who tried to kidnap me?” Queen Lana asked, her expression calm but her voice betraying her fury.
“I was hopeful that she’d tell you herself,” he said softly. “I’ll accept any punishment you see fit to offer, Queen Lana, but I wouldn’t change what I did.”
“Please let me talk to her.” Callan barely recognized his own voice. He sounded more tired than he’d ever imagined possible, but he knew, as he spoke, that what had happened out there in the forest might mean that for the first time, they might be able to have an honest conversation. Strange, that even after everything, he still found himself wanting to trust her, wanting to believe that she was capable of telling him the truth. Queen Lana’s expression was sympathetic, but Conrad cut across her with a look of undisguised fury on his face.
“Absolutely out of the question. She’s an enemy of the kingdom. Who knows what kind of magical manipulation she might be capable of?”
“I do,” Cato said mildly. “If it’s helpful.”
Conrad gritted his teeth. “Then can you explain to Callan the risk that he’d be taking by spending any more time in that mage’s company than he already has?”
