Page 142 of Tiger's Quest
I looked down and found I was wearing a powder-blue silk dress that ended at my knees. My legs were bare. “I just realized that. I’m freezing!”
Kishan wrapped his coat around me then picked up my hand and examined it. “Your skin looks like hers. You even have her long painted nails. Unbelievable!”
I shivered. “Okay, demonstration done. I am seriously freezing.” I wrapped the fabric around me again and said, “Back to myself, please.” The colors began swirling again and after a long minute I removed the material and returned to looking like myself. “Now you try, Kishan. I didn’t have a mirror. I want to see how accurate it is.”
“Okay.” He took the Scarf from me and said, “Disguise— Mr. Kadam.”
He wrapped it around his entire body. When he took the fabric off a minute later, I found myself sitting across from Mr. Kadam. He looked exactly like I had last seen him. I stretched out a finger and touched his short beard.
“Wow! You really look like him!” I felt the hem of his pants. “The pants feel real. It’s a perfect replica!”
He touched his face and rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair.
I said, “Wait a minute! You’ve even got his amulet on! Does it feel real?”
He touched the amulet and felt the chain. “It looks real, but it’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wore an amulet for most of my life, and when I gave you mine to wear, I could feel its absence. This one doesn’t feel real to me. It doesn’t feel powerful. Also it’s lighter in weight, and the surface is slightly different.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting. I don’t know that I can really feel the power of mine yet.”
I reached over and touched the amulet around his neck and then compared it to mine. “I think the one you are wearing is made of some kind of fabric.”
“Really?” He rubbed it between his fingers. “You’re right. The surface is slightly off. You really can’t feel the amulet’s power?”
“No.”
“Well, if you wore it for as many years as I did, you would feel it.”
“Maybe it’s something only you tigers can feel because you’re so closely associated with it.”
“Maybe. We’ll have to ask Mr. Kadam about it.”
Kishan changed back to himself. “So what exactly is your plan, Kells?”
“Well, I haven’t hammered out all the details yet, but I was thinking that maybe we could impersonate Lokesh’s guards and sneak into wherever they’re holding Ren.”
“You don’t plan to make a trade then? An amulet for Ren?”
“Not if we can avoid it. I’d like it to be a last resort. The big problem with the plan is that I don’t knowwhereRen is being held. I told you I saw Ren in the vision, but I also saw a person that I’m really hoping Mr. Kadam can identify.”
“Identify how?”
“His hair and tattoos were unique. I’ve never seen them before.”
“It’s a long shot, Kells. Identifying where the servant is from doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s where Lokesh is holding Ren.”
“I know, but it’s all we have to go on.”
“Okay, so we have ahow. We just need a where.”
“Right.”
The next day, we finally passed the snow line and continued moving quickly downhill. Kishan had slept as a tiger so he walked with me as a man for most of the day, which gave us the opportunity to talk. He said that he felt stifled being forced back into the tiger form. Like Ren, now that he’d gotten a taste of being human, he craved it desperately.
I tried to remind him that twelve hours was much better than six. He could sleep as a tiger and spend most of his waking hours as a man now, but he still complained about it.
