Pierce and handed it to me. "I saw what went into it," she said as she gave me a hug. My eyes closed and I felt the tears prick again. There was worry for me in her touch. "I can't do this," she whispered, sounding ashamed. "You can."
Why wasn't I surprised? "Am I making a mistake?" I asked her, miserable about Matalina, but wanting to keep Jenks alive.
Ivy shook her head. Seeing it, Ceri cleared her throat for my attention. "The curses need to be invoked," she said, and I took the finger stick she was extending.
Invoked with demon blood since they were curses. Numb, I snapped the top off the finger stick with my thumb and pricked it in one smooth motion, practice making it easy. The wind ruffled my hair as I massaged the digit, three drops plopping first into my vial, then Pierce's. The scent of redwood blossomed, but my face went cold in the slight breeze when I thought I smelled a hint of burnt amber. No one else seemed to notice it.
Damn it, how much more proof do I need?
Shaking, I looked at Pierce. His expression was empty, and he downed it with no hesitation. "It tastes like the fall," he said as he ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
"Dried leaves," I whispered, remembering Jenks saying the same thing. The fairies at the end of the table were all watching, and I wondered, if I freed them would they go back to the coven and tell them everything they had witnessed? Did I even care?
Gathering my courage, I raised the vial... then paused. "Clothes," I blurted out. "I can t walk into Jenks's house naked."
"Jih is bringing them," Ceri said patiently. "For you and Pierce both."
Satisfied, I downed the vial, waiting for Jenks's snide comment about naked witches in his Garden of Eden, but of course it never came. My heart clenched. The dusty taste of the potion seemed to dry my mouth, and I swallowed, tongue running over my teeth to try to get it off. "That's awful," I said as I made a face and tapped a line. All that was left were the magic words. "What's the word to turn back?" I asked.
Ceri shrugged. "The same to invoke it."
I thought back to the size charm for Jenks last summer. "Non sum qualis eram?"
The woman's eyes widened, and I had one gasp of air before it was shoved out of me.
Just that fast, it took hold. There was no pain, but I could feel the rush of the ley line spill into me, vibrating every cell until I felt overly full. A sheet of smut-tainted ever-after enveloped me, making my hearing muzzy, but there was a clicking like a trillion abacuses as my cells prepared to shift, turning things on, turning other things off. Then the flow of energy hesitated.
I got another breath in before it was shoved out again. I felt as if I was being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste. Energy flowed out of me as I shrank. My eyes quit working, and I panicked. There was the shattering of something: a hard crack followed by the tinkling of shards. I thought it might be my soul.
With a final pulse echoing in from the line, the curse played itself out. My ears popped and everything sounded off. I opened my eyes to find I was in a black-sheened world of cotton smelling like soap. My shirt. I'd done it. I felt behind me, exhaling when I found no wings.
"I take the smut," I said as I felt the first ping of returning sensation from the ever-after. The rising wave of pain crested, then broke about me to lap a new film of black imbalance over me. I tasted it as I grabbed a fold of shirt and tried to cover myself, thinking the new coating had almost a metallic tang to it. My legs were hairy, as in I-can't-find-my-razor hairy. I wasn't going to look at my armpits, knowing what I'd find. I suddenly realized I'd reset my biological clock yet again. No wonder demons lived forever.
"Nice," I whispered, looking up as I heard the hum of pixy wings and a shaft of light pierced in. It was Jih, looking like an angel as she clambered into my shirt, a haze of blue sparkles about her. A green dress with gold and silver lace was over her arm. Under it was a set of green trousers and