Page 124 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
It took me a solid ten seconds to realize that it was a memory ofRodhi’svoice wafting over the padded walls—a memory of Rodhi’s first declaration of hatred toward Mrs. Smetlar and her vulture-like soul.
Pulling myself out of Gileon’s mind, I gave him a soft smile.
“Were you maybe looking for…” I couldn’t believe I was about to say this out loud. “… a pie pan? To buy as a gift for Rodhi?”
Gileon’s mouth popped open and his eyes went round as coins.
“Yes! You’re a life-saver, Rayna. Thank you.”
He patted me on the shoulder just as Wren had and lumbered off toward the nearest pottery cart, Nuisance still spiraling in circles around his ear.
Two friends successfully preoccupied. One to—
I turned to find Emelle folding her arms at me.
“Lucky guess.” I shrugged at the question swirling in her eyes.
She didn’t look convinced, but didn’t argue.
Instead, she just asked quietly, but firmly, “And what areyouhoping to find today, Rayna?”
Wishbones, snake skins, and black caiman scales. But obviously I couldn’t say that or she’dknowsomething was up, so I settled on another honest answer.
“I think I’d like to find a jewelry maker.” A blush warmed up my cheeks against my will. “I’ve been wanting to have a necklace made.”
I’d had the idea right before that almost-kiss in Steeler’s mind—an idea that was now buried in a pocket of my satchel, along with a fat handful of coins that I’d saved up from my years growing up in Alderwick.
Emelle’s mouth softened and her arms fell. Perhaps she’d seen the vulnerability of that truth in my eyes.
“Oh. I think I actually saw a jeweler on the other side of the fountain.” Standing on her tiptoes, she pointed over a clump of students ogling at a shoe stand, where the cobbler had bewitched his shoes to change color at every step—nothing but a gimmick,considering the enchantment would eventually fade. “It was in that green-striped tent with the little flag,” Emelle continued, “if you want to… um, can I help you?”
A Cardina man had suddenly appeared in front of her. Short, ruddy-faced, and bulbous-nosed, he was staring at Emelle’s cleavage with sweat running in rivulets down his face and drool sitting in the corners of his mouth.
“What a lovely bosom you have, ma’am.”
Oh, hell no. My hand had already whipped my knife out when Emelle actuallylaughed.
“Stop it, babe. I know it’s you.”
To my utter shock, the man didn’t bubble into Lander’s true form, butshrunk…and became a bundle of potted begonias that Emelle caught with quick hands, as if she experienced this kind of thing all the time. Only after I slipped my knife back in its sheath did Lander himself emerge from around a nearby booth.
“Did Ialmostget you, at least?”
Emelle beamed at him, hugging the pot of flowers to her chest.
“Almost. The sweat and drool were nice touches, but he hadyoureyes… and your eyes are much too beautiful to belong to that creep-face.”
“Dammit,” Lander swore. “I’ll have to work on that. The eyes are the hardest thing to change.”
I looked away as he leaned over the begonias to press his mouth against Emelle’s. Not just because I didn’t want to invade this brief moment of privacy, but because… holy shit. I hadn’t realized Lander had become so advanced at Shape Shifting that he could turn plants and inanimate objects into walking, talkingpeople. That had to be a fourth-or fifth-year thing, even if he couldn’t quite get the eyes right.
Had I become so far removed from my old friends that I hadn’t realized when one of them became unnaturally good at their gift?
“You could have had me fooled,” I tried to say cheerfully when Lander and Emelle finally broke apart. “That was… creepy.”
Lander grinned at me, his arm wrapped around Emelle.
“It’s hard to maintain for long periods of time, but it comes in handy when my friends are late to class—which happens more often than you’d think in the Shifter sector. I can turn a book or a fountain pen into a replica of them until they show up.”
