Because the beast was melting away to reveal a form that was very much human.
A human who looked a whole lot like...
A girl, one with long dark hair that was matted to a pixie face. The girl glanced up at me from where she heaved deep breaths, clutching the ground as her entire body trembled. Those deep blue eyes locked on my face, and everything within me exploded at the sight.
I stumbled back, eyes wide, my hands clutching frantically at my throat.
“Bree?” My voice was small and timid. My mind was unbelieving.
“Oh, Norah,” she said with a sob. And when I heard my best friend’s familiar voice, all I could do was fall to my knees and weep. I crawled toward her and took her dirt-painted face in my hands, searching those familiar eyes for the truth.
“Is it really you?” I asked as the tears streamed down my face. “I thought you were dead. That thing. It killed you. How are you here? How are you alive?”
And why did you look like one of the monsters two seconds ago?
She shuddered, her body soaked in sweat. In an instant, I ripped the sheet off my bed and draped it around her shoulders. Her body felt like ice. I stayed there silent next to her while her chest heaved, waiting until she felt as if she could speak.
Finally, she said, “When that thing attacked me, it turned me into one of them. I’m a Redcap now, Norah. That’s how I’m here. And it’s how I’m alive.”
With a deep breath, I shook my head, even though I’d seen her transform right in front of my eyes. “That can’t be right. It must be something else. Some kind of weird magic that makes you look like one.”
“No,” she breathed as she slowly lifted her eyes to meet mine. “And it’s worse than you think.”
“What do you mean?” My heart hammered hard. I couldn’t even wrap my head around Bree being alive, much less the fact that she was now one of the very monsters I’d been training to fight. She was Bree. My best friend. My family. And now she was here. Alive and well, though a hell of a lot worse for wear. All I wanted to do was hug her tight and wipe away the tears, but there was a cloud of dread hanging over our reunion.
“I followed you through the Faerie Ring,” she began, sniffling. “At first, I was going to try to talk to you, but you’re constantly surrounded by those four fae who would kill me in a heartbeat if they saw me.”
Frowning, I shook my head. “They wouldn’t.”
But that was a lie. They would. If Bree was right, if she truly was a Redcap, they would.
“Yes, they would,” she said in a harsh voice, wrapping the sheet tighter around her shoulders. “To them, I’m a Redcap. A thing to be hunted and killed, even though they are the ones who created them in the first place.”
Dread dripped down my spine. “That can’t be right.”
“Oh, it is,” she said bitterly. “When I realized I couldn’t get to you, I went in search of other answers. I ended up stumbling on a pack of Redcaps, ones who can still change back into humans like I can. Have they taught you where the wolves come from yet? Have they told you what happens to the human babies they steal?”
My heart jumped around in my chest. Because I knew without a doubt that I would not like whatever would come next. These had been questions I’d been asking. Questions that had been expertly dodged for days. The Academy didn’t yet want us to know the truth about the human changelings, a fact that had been niggling at me since I’d arrived. And yet, I’d blindly accepted it. The vague answers. The dodges. The carefully changed conversations.
“Tell me, Bree.”
She winced and placed a trembling hand on her neck. Deep red scars crisscrossed her skin. The place where the Redcap had slashed her with its massive claws.
“The pack of Redcaps told me that the humans who are brought to Otherworld are corrupted by the magic and the power here. Humans weren’t built for this world. So, they change. Into something dark, something vicious. Something part-fae themselves. They become these monsters.” She took a deep breath. “And then they’re let loose in the human realm, spreading their disease with a swipe of their claws.”
“No,” I whispered, eyes full of burning tears. “They must have been