my eyes, focusing on the dome of the cave-roof overhead. Tilting my head, I looked down my body, inside myself, studying the energies in my middle.
Dudley was gone. The scarlet mote, the dark taint of blood-witch magics, the black mote left in me by Bethany when she tried to kill me, were all gone. As if they had never been.
I was healed. I sat up slowly, the muscles of my abdomen pulling hard, to find Hayyel sitting on the rock beside me. The fire was out. The cavern of my soul home was cool and dark. Beast sat across from me, her eyes glowing gold. Alive. Thank God, alive.
“Go home, Dalonige’ i Digadoli,” Hayyel said. “It is not your time. You have much work to do.”
Instantly I was sucked into a frigid stream of water and pulled along through the current.
* * *
* * *
I followed the current, warm against my skin, swimming leisurely up through the heated water. I broke the surface, cooler air on my skin. I thought, Beast?
I am here. We are Beast.
I opened my eyes. The light was bright after the darkness.
I was at the rift. I was alone. Well, unless you counted the arcenciel in human form, sitting on a rock, her feet in the water. Her silvery-lavender hair had a single lose purple strand over her left ear, the rest was twisted up in a chignon, her diaphanous dark purple gown weighted down by moisture. She had been here a while or was working to give that impression. Having no idea who she was, or if she planned to eat me, I was uncertain what to do next. I looked down to see if I was dressed, and I was. Sorta. It was mostly rags but it covered the important bits. Oddly, I was in my half-form, the shape I had been in when I went into the water, pelt, knobby joints, tiny waist, not my human form, but I could deal with that later.
I floated, watching the arcenciel, keeping my toes out of the current I had dropped into and, seemingly, swum back up through, my body still beneath the surface. After a while, I figured if she intended to eat me she would have tried, so I pulled myself out of the water and sat as she did, clawed feet in the warmth. My hair was loose, wet, and hanging plastered to my shoulders in a long black veil. The smell of mineral water was strong on the air.
I patted my clothes and found the Glob in the belt I had been wearing in my vision quest and, even more weirdly, was still wearing here. The traditional scarf/tie/belt was green like fir trees and was the only thing I wore that wasn’t ragged. The new Anzu feather gifted by Gee was gone. Le breloque was tied to the ends of the belt, but when I touched it, I could tell the crown was different. Not exactly inert. Not quite empty of magic. But more than just a hunk of shaped gold. I had tied le breloque to the Glob with magic. Now it was a timewalking, storm-bringing crown bound to an energy-eating weapon made out of the Blood Diamond, a sliver of the true cross, a bit of the iron of Golgotha, witch sacrifices, witch magics, lightning, and my body. Ducky. Another thing to deal with.
I pulled out the neckline of my shirt and looked at myself. I was skinny as a rail, no boobs to speak of, but no pelt on the boobs I did have, so that was good. I ran my hand over my belly to feel only smooth skin and good muscle tone. I was mostly the size I had been when I was eighteen, when I first discovered my skinwalking gift, before I became Enforcer and the Dark Queen. Before . . . Before Dudley. I retraced my belly.
No magical star in my middle.
No Dudley.
No Dudley.
Excitement pattered through me on tiny paws, pricking my skin into goose bumps. I ran my hand over myself again and there was no pain. I was . . . healed? When I shifted to human again would I be myself again? My heart raced, my breathing sped, as I considered the way I felt. Energetic. Normal. Like my pre-Dudley half-form. I felt healed.
A breeze blew across me. It smelled of warmth and the end of winter. I reached up and didn’t encounter the medicine bags. Just my doubled gold necklace and