Forever (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 5)

“Have you gotten tired already? Am I too strong?” He flexed his muscles at her, and she grew irritated. “Maybe you need to go take a nap.”

>Mina tried to relax and clear her mind. She could do this—she had to.

She concentrated on her pants, ones from her mother’s trunk. She didn’t really want to change or alter them—she liked them the way they were, but she needed to practice on something. Picturing them as a deep blue instead, she felt Fae power rush to her. Her fingers tingled, and the hair on the back of her arms rose. When she opened her eyes, her pants were blue. She grinned in triumph at Winona.

“Good. But clothes are one thing. Can you change your hair, your face?”

“Why would I want to?”

“What if you had to go into hiding, and your life depended on it?”

“Point taken.”

Winona took a small seashell out of her pocket and waved her hand over it, turning it into a seashell-shaped compact mirror. She opened the mirrored shell and handed it to Mina. “Now try your hair.”

How many times had Mina stared in the mirror at her plain brown hair and boring eyes and wished for something different? But now, given the chance, she wasn’t sure she wanted to change.

“How about blonde?” Mina tried to imagine Nan’s blonde locks on her head. The power came again willingly, rushing to her and almost overwhelming her, but it disappeared just as fast as it came.

Mina held the mirror up to her face and frowned. It was the same face, the same color of hair. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing I can tell,” Winona answered. “Try again, just so I can be sure.”

“Okay.” Once again Mina pictured in her mind what she wanted and tried to imagine the color change. This time, she imagined her hair in a braid. She pulled the mirror up a second time and saw her hair in a braid, but it was the same boring brown.

“What’s going on?” Mina asked. “Am I broken?”

“Hmm.” Winona picked up a strand of Mina’s hair and rubbed it between two fingers. “It seems you’re already wearing a glamour, and a very strong one at that.”

“What? That’s not possible. I’ve looked like this my whole life. I have pictures to prove it.”

“Yes, but remember that you’re part-siren and part-human. Your siren side is being suppressed. Maybe concentrate on revealing your true self.”

Doubt flooded Mina. She didn’t know if she wanted anymore surprises. She wasn’t ready to lose more of herself to the Fae world. Her appearance was the one thing that never changed. If she lost that, she’d see a stranger in the mirror. She couldn’t do that.

But then she thought of someone else putting a glamour over her and changing the way she looked, making it so when she looked in the mirror, what she saw was a lie.

That infuriated her. How dare someone alter her, change her, do something to her without her consent? Mina let her anger boil over, felt the onslaught of power, and let it burn outward. She envisioned the lie burning away with siren fury.

The truth!

I want the truth, to see myself for who I truly am. She heard Winona gasp, and Mina looked up and wiped the stray angry tear out of her eye.

“What?”

“It worked.” Winona’s words made her shiver in fear.

“Is it bad?” She felt like a child asking.

Her grandmother covered her mouth, her own tears pouring forth. “No. You’re beautiful.”

Mina’s skin was tinged with gold along her wrists, more obvious than the other sirens’. She raised the mirror, her hand shaking as she held it to see her reflection. Her skin was a pale white, her nose devoid of freckles. Her lips held more color, and her cheeks had a natural rosiness. Her nose and the shape of her mouth were the same, thank goodness.

But her eyes and hair!

Mina’s boring brown hair was longer, fuller, with gold streaks. And her eyes were now filled with glowing flecks of gold. Even her grandmother’s eyes weren’t as bright as her own.

“Oh, how beautiful. Your mother had red accents and marks. But you’re a gold siren—very rare. No wonder your power is so strong. It’s a pity you can’t shift. You’d have a gold tail. You are a gem, Mina. You’re beautiful, and no one can tell you otherwise.”